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He halted abruptly there, and his face became drawn into deep lines. Then he continued dully: "When I crossed over ther Virginny line ... a posse was atter me they sought ter hang me over thar ... fer murder." He felt her fingers tighten over his in spasmodic incredulity and saw the stunned look in her eyes, but she only said steadily, "Go on ... I knows ye hed ter do hit. Tell me ther facts."
"Well, of course you are a great deal happier now than when you were a slave?" "No, sir; if I could get back to Virginny, I would be glad to go." He looked, too, as if he had never been worse off than at that time. The fact is, liberty like money is a grand thing; but in order to be happy, we must know how to use it. It cannot always be said of the fugitive slave,
And, besides, who's to stop your cheating the gal that has nobody to take care of her, when you gits her in Virginny, where I darn't follow her? No, captain, there's jist but the one way to make all safe and fair; and that's by marrying her. So marry her, captain; and jist to be short, captain, you must marry her or burn, there's no two ways about it.
"Den he come to camp late one evenin' an tol' us dat us was free as he was; dat us could stay in Virginny an work or us could come to Mississippi wid him. Might nigh de whole passel bun'led up an' come back, an' glad to do it, too. Dar us all stayed 'til de family all died. De las' one died a few years ago an' lef' us few old darkies to grieve over 'em.
The new occupant was prepared for this line of interrogation and he laughed easily. "Long erbout a year back," he said, "a feller named Thornton thet dwelt over thar in Virginny got inter debt ter me an' couldn't pay out. He give me a lease on this hyar place, but I didn't hev no chanst ter come over hyar an' look at hit afore now."
But who's dey dat you got on you min'?" "Why, de young Missy and de ole Missus to be sho'." "I don't see how dey can be poah. Dey mus' hab kep' someting out all dey had." "So dey did, but it wan't much, an' I jus' b'lebe it's clar dun gone!" "What! de plantation in Virginny all gone?"
The latter seated himself on the rock, his face lighting with reminiscence, as he complied, with the words, "Wall, ef I does say hit, thar warn't many in Kentuck er West Virginny could handle a shootin' iron with Big Jerry in them days, an', come County Fair time, I mostwise allus kerried off the money prize an' the wreath give by ther queen.
Marjie was a mighty purty girl. The boys was nigh crazy about her. Did I know her?" I did; oh, yes, I remembered her. "They's another chap hangin' round her, too; his name's lemme see, uh common enough name when I was a boy back in Kentucky uh Tillhurst, Richard Tillhurst. Tall, peaked, thin-visaged feller. Come out from Virginny to Illinois.
Louis on some bizness connected with the Fair, and then he santered off to Saratoga for a few weeks, and then on to ole Virginny and New Zealand, and then back to St. Louis to attend to his bizness agin about the Fair. She said he wuz pale and sad the last time she see him, and she mistrusted his ma had been cuttin' up. She sez: "You know she lacks."
Bone rejoices in showing off the wonders of the place to them, in matching Coly's shiny sides against the "Government beastesses," in talking of the giant red beets, or crumpled green cauliflower, breaking the rich garden-mould. "Yer've no sich cherries nor taters nor raspberries as dem in de Norf, I'll bet!" Even the crimson trumpet-flower on the wall is "a Virginny creeper, Sah!"
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