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"Ef yer keeps on improvin', mayby yer'll git so yer kin he'p me arter 'while." "Mayby so," Alston answered. "But yer wouldn't he'p me, I reckon. Reckon yer'd he'p Edny Ann: yer likes her better'n me." "No, I don't." "Reckon yer likes somebody in Virginny more'n yer likes anybody on this plantation." "I's better 'quainted back thar'," said Alston apologetically.
Over and over Little Lizay said, "I never stole Als'on's cotton;" and then she would make her explanation, as she had made it to Edny Ann and Alston. Often she was tempted to tell the whole story of how she had been all along helping Alston at her own cost, but many motives restrained her.
I ain't tuck a sol'tary lock er Als'on's cotton; an' I wouldn't, nuther, ter save my life." "Reckon yer kin fool me?" demanded the triumphant Edny Ann. Then she called Alston with the O which Southerners inevitably prefix: "O Als'on! O Als'on! come yere! quick!" "Don't, please don't, tell him," Little Lizay pleaded. "I'll give yer my new cal'ker dress ef yer won't tell nobody."
"Let me see," said the old woman, suddenly, bending forward and peering into her face. "Which one be you? You ain't Miss Edny. Be you Miss Eunice?" "I'm Cricket," said that young lady, quite at her ease now. "Most probably you've never heard of me before. We're all grandma's grandchildren, and are spending the summer here. At least, we're all grandchildren but Hilda. She's visiting me.
Had Alston courted her favor, she might have yielded it less readily, but he did not take easily to his new companions. Some called him proud: others reckoned he had left a sweetheart, a wife perhaps, in Virginia. Little Lizay's evident preference laid her open to the rude jokes and sneers of the other negroes in particular Big Sam, who was her suitor, and Edny Ann, who was fond of Alston.
"Ef yer deny it, Lizay, yer'll make it wusser." Then Alston went up close to her, so that Edny Ann might not hear, and said something in a low tone. Lizay gave him a swift look of surprise: then her lip began to quiver; the quick tears came to her eyes; she put both hands to her face and cried hard, so that she could not have found voice if she had wished to tell Alston her story.
"I know it's mighty haud on yer, gittin' cowhided ev'ry night, but stealin' ain't goin' ter he'p it, Lizay." "I never stole yer cotton, Als'on," Little Lizay said with a certain dignity, but with an unsteady voice. "I see'd yer do it," Edny Ann interrupted. "I emptied my sack in yer baskit when I didn't go ter do it," Little Lizay continued. "It wus my own cotton I wus takin' out yer baskit."
But Edny Ann went on calling: "O Als'on! O Als'on! come yere!" Little Lizay pleaded in a frantic way for silence as she saw Alston coming with long strides up between the cotton-rows toward them. "I wants yer ter ten' ter Lizay," said Edny Ann. "Her's been stealin' yer cotton: see'd 'er do it see'd 'er take a heap er cotton outen yer baskit an' ram it into hern. Did so!"
But Edny Ann did not care for Alston as Little Lizay did could not, indeed. She was incapable of the devotion that Lizay felt. She would not have left her sleep and gone to the dew-wet field before daybreak for the sake of helping Alston: she would not have taken the risk of falling behind in her picking, and thus incurring a flogging, by dividing her gatherings with him.
She would think that he was no longer sorry that he was glad to repay the wrong she had done him. In the mean time, Edny Ann had told the story of the theft to one and another, and Lizay found at night the "quarter" humming with it. Taunts and jeers met her on every hand.
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