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"Well, what is to be done?" asked Christopher, turning suddenly upon him. "The Lord He knows, suh. Thar's not a nigger as will go nigh him, an' I'm not blamin' 'em; not I. Jim's filled his cart with food, an' he's goin' to dump the things out at the foot of the hill; then maybe Uncle Isam can crawl down an' drag 'em back. His wife's down with it, too, they say.
Uncle Isam inquired politely, as he seated himself in a low chair on the hearth and dropped his clasped hands between his open knees. Christopher nodded carelessly. "Glad to see you, Isam," Tucker cordially responded. "Times have changed since you used to live over here." "Days so, suh, dot's so. Times dey's done change, but I ain't I'se des de same.
"Uncle Isam!" repeated Christopher, as if trying to recall the name. "Why, I haven't laid eyes upon the man for years." "Very likely; but he's sent you a message by a boy who was gathering pine knots at the foot of his hill. He was to tell Marse Christopher that he had had nothing to eat for two whole days an' his children were unburied.
I reckon that's what it means." The cart jogged on slowly through the fading sunshine, and when at last it came to the foot of the hill where Uncle Isam lived Christopher got out and shouldered a bag of meal. "You'll run the place, I know, and look after mother while I'm away," he said.
Christopher turned on him a face in whose expression he found a mystery that he could not solve. "I can't help it, Jim, to save my life I can't," he answered. "It isn't anything heroic; you know that as well as I. I don't care a straw for Uncle Isam and his children, but if I didn't go up there and bury those dead darkies I'd never have a moment's peace.
"En now des fem me hyear how ole I is," he wound up sorrowfully. There, now, since you've found out what you wanted, you'd better spend the night with Uncle Boaz." "Thanky, ma'am, but I mus' be gwine back agin," responded Uncle Isam, shuffling to his feet, "en ef you don' min', Marse Christopher, I'd like a wud wid you outside de do'."
"I did nothing but run from you," he persisted, losing his head. "If I hadn't gone to Uncle Isam I'd have done something equally reckless in a different way. I wanted to get away from you to escape you, but I couldn't I couldn't. You were with me always, night and day, in those God-forsaken woods. I never lost you for one instant, never. I tried to, but I couldn't."
Mother is quite happy now since Beulah has been found, and the only added worry is that Aunt Dinah is laid up in her cabin and we've had to send her soup. Uncle Isam has come to see you, by the way. I believe he wants you to give him some advice about his little hut up in the woods, and to look up his birth in the servants' age-book, too.
After the short absence his powerful figure struck them as almost gigantic; physically, he had never appeared more impressive than he did standing there in the sunlight that filled the kitchen doorway. "But that was different," protested Lila, flushing, "and this- this why, you hardly knew Uncle Isam when you passed him in the road."
'Fo' de Lawd, Miss Cynthy, dat ar Eve sutney wuz a high-sperited 'ooman!" "But, Uncle Isam, it was so silly. Why, she'd been married to you already for a lifetime." "Dat's so, Miss Cynthy, dat's so, 'caze 'twuz dem ar wuds dat rile 'er mos'. She 'low she done been in subjection fur gwine on fifty years widout knowin' hit." He finished his coffee at a gulp and leaned back in his chair.
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