“Hi! who dat out dyah?” she said suddenly. “Run to de do’, son, an’ see who dat comin’,” and the whole tribe rushed to inspect the new-comer.

It was, as she suspected, her husband, and as soon as he entered she saw that something was wrong. He dropped into a chair, and sat in moody silence, the picture of fatigue, physical and mental. After waiting for some time, she asked indifferently, “What de matter?”

“Dat man.”

“What he done do now?” The query was sharp with suspicion.

“He say he ain’ gwine let me have my land.”

“He’s a half-strainer,” said the woman, with sudden anger.

“How he gwine help it? Ain’ you got crap on it?” She felt that there must be a defence against such an outrage.

“He say he ain’ gwine wait no longer; dat I wuz to have tell Christmas to finish payin’ for it, an’ I ain’ do it, an’ now he done change he min’.”

“Tell dis Christmas comin’,” said his wife, with the positiveness of one accustomed to expound contracts.

“Yes; but I tell you he say he done change he min’.” The man had evidently given up all hope; he was dead beat.

“De crap’s yourn,” said she, affected by his surrender, but prepared only to compromise.

“He say he gwine teck all dat for de rent, and dat he gwine drive Ole ’Stracted ’way too.”

“He ain’ nuttin but po’ white trash!” It expressed her supreme contempt.

“He say he’ll gi’ me jes one week mo’ to pay him all he ax for it,” continued he, forced to a correction by her intense feeling, and the instinct of a man to defend the absent from a woman’s attack, and perhaps in the hope that she might suggest some escape.

“He ain’ nuttin sep po’ white trash!” she repeated. “How you gwine raise eight hundred dollars at once? Dee kyarn nobody do dat. Gord mout! He ain’ got good sense.”

“You ain’ see dat corn lately, is you?” he asked. “Hit jes as rank! You can almos’ see it growin’ ef you look at it good. Dat’s strong land. I know dat when I buy it.”

He knew it was gone now, but he had been in the habit of calling it his in the past three years, and it did him good to claim the ownership a little longer.

“I wonder whar Marse Johnny is?” said the woman. He was the son of her former owner; and now, finding her proper support failing her, she instinctively turned to him. “He wouldn’ let him turn we all out.”

“He ain’ got nuttin, an’ef he is, he kyarn get it in a week,” said Ephraim.

“Kyarn you teck it in de co’t?”

“Dat’s whar he say he gwine have it ef I don’ git out,” said her husband despairingly.

Her last defence was gone.

“Ain’ you hongry?” she inquired.