“You ‘re purty hard on ‘im, colonel; it’s none o’ my business, but he’s a powerful good fellow. Seems to me, as he was the only brother you have, you might have helped him a little.”
The planter’s eye fell, and an angry flush came into his dark face. “You don’t know anything about it, Burton,” said he, quickly. “I acknowledge we had some words about the will, but he set afloat the rumors about my treatment of him when I was a candidate for the legislature, and it was through him that I was beaten.”
Burton wished to change the subject. “I see the auctioneer and the negroes going to the block,” he said. “Look at old Rastus; he prances around like a two-year-old colt. I reckon you can fatten him up; a little sickness does ’em good sometimes.”
The crowd drew closer round the platform upon which the red-faced auctioneer had sprung and was placing chairs for Rastus and his family. All of them except Rastus himself seemed awed by the solemnity of the occasion. “Who gwine buy me?” he laughed, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “I been er li’l sick, but I’m pickin’ up now, en kin hol’ my own wid any nigger in dis county. Who want me? Speak up quick.”
“Dry up,” laughed the auctioneer, and he playfully jerked off the old man’s hat and laid it in the latter’s lap. “Don’t you know ernough not to come ‘fo’ company with yore hat on? Who’s goin’ to sell this batch of niggers, you or me? Ef you are, I ’ll git down and bid on you. I want somebody to look after my thoroughbreds.”
This sally evoked a wave of laughter from the crowd, and Rastus joined in with as much enjoyment as if he had caused it. Herbert Putnam drew Sill aside.
“Rastus is shamming,” he whispered; “he is as sick as he can be right now. He’s doing it in order to bring a better price, to help me out. Dr. Wilson said the other day that he might live to be an old man, but that he’d never be able to work any more.”
“Good gracious!” ejaculated Sill; “who ever heard the like? He’s a hero.”
Herbert Putnam’s eyes glistened and his voice was unsteady as he spoke. “I’d give my right arm rather than part with him. If I were able, he and his should be free to-day.” The auctioneer began to gesticulate and shout: “Six hundred has been bid on Rastus, by Mr. Burton over thar, to start the game. Only six hundred for one of the best buck negroes in the county. Seven hundred! That’s right, Mr. Staley; he’s the very man you want. Seven hundred; eight do I hear it? Thank you; Mr. Burton don’t intend to take a back seat. All right; nine hundred! Nine-fifty do I hear it, Mr. Burton? Nine-fifty it is. Mr. Staley has got a thousand ready for him; a thousand has been bid; anybody else in the fight? Old Rastus is thin, but he could throw a bull a rod by the tail. One thousand only on a two-thousand-dollar negro. Do I hear more?”
George Putnam’s face darkened angrily as he watched the excited features of old man Staley. He drew Burton’s ear down to his lips: “Bid twelve hundred, and knock him out and be done with it,” he whispered; “it will scare him to death.”