“Twelve hundred,” said Burton, without a change of countenance, and silence fell on the chattering, speculating crowd; even the voluble auctioneer showed surprise by not at once echoing the bid. Old Rastus took advantage of the pause; he sprang up and clapped his hands and knocked his heels together. “I ain’t no thousand-dollar nigger,” he cried. “I b’longs ter Marse Herbert Putnam, I does; de ain’t no cheap nigger on dis yer block.”
“Twelve hundred dollars!” repeated the auctioneer, impressively, and there was something vaguely respectful in the way he pushed Rastus back into his chair. “Twelve hundred! Mr. Staley, don’t back out; you need ’im wuss than anybody else. Is it twelve-twenty-five?”
Staley hesitated; his eyes fell before the concentrated stare of the silent crowd, and then he nodded. A murmur passed through the assembly, and Colonel Putnam grew white with anger. “Some one has put him up to this,” he said in a low tone to his agent. “Make it thirteen hundred.” And the next instant the auctioneer was flaunting the bid in the face of old Staley.
Herbert Putnam, unnoticed by any one, elbowed his way through the crowd to his brother and touched him on the arm. Their eyes met. “Pardon me,” said Herbert, “but I must speak to you.”
And George Putnam was drawn beyond the outskirts of the crowd. “I cannot keep quiet and see you cheated,” faltered Herbert, with his eyes averted. “A long time ago, when you and I were boys, you stood up for me, and I cannot forget that we are brothers. Don’t bid any more on Rastus; he is shamming; he is as sick as he can be, and is only pretending to be well to bring a high price.”
The two men gazed into each other’s eyes. George Putnam was quivering all over, and his face was softening. Impulsively he put out his hand, as if to apologize for his lack of words. “Let’s not be enemies any longer,” went on Herbert, as he pressed the extended hand. “I am sick and tired of this estrangement. I am going away, and I may never come back. I can’t keep up the old place as father thought I would, and you are welcome to it. Take it and care for it; mother’s and father’s graves are on it.”
George Putnam’s face was working; he strove to reply, but his voice clogged. He looked toward his son and wife in his carriage, and then back into his brother’s face. “God forgive me, Herb,” he said; “I’ve treated you like a dog. Old Rastus has been truer to you than your own brother. You shall not give up the old place; you must keep it. Wait!” And with those words he hurried to the platform.
The auctioneer had been proclaiming Staley’s reckless bid of thirteen-twenty-five, and the crowd was eagerly taking in the unusual sight of the two Putnam brothers in close conversation. Colonel Putnam reached the platform and signed the auctioneer to be quiet. Standing on the lower step, he was in the view of all.
“I want Rastus, and I am going to have him,” he said to the upturned faces. “I want him to give him back to my brother, who has been forced by my neglect to offer him for sale. Twenty thousand dollars is my bid—and Rastus is worth every cent of it.”
No one spoke as Colonel Putnam stepped back into the crowd. Old Rastus seemed the only one to thoroughly grasp the situation. “Bress de Lawd!” he exclaimed, and he slapped Aunt Milly on the back. “Dem boys done made up, en I fotch twenty thousand dollars! Whooee!”