“Don’t want none o’ your light-colored balls,” said Dinah; “cuttin’ round, makin’ b’lieve you’s white folks. Arter all, you’s niggers, much as I am.”
“Aunt Dinah greases her wool stiff, every day, to make it lie straight,” said Jane.
“And it will be wool, after all,” said Rosa, maliciously shaking down her long, silky curls.
“Well, in the Lord’s sight, an’t wool as good as bar, any time?” said Dinah. “I’d like to have Missis say which is worth the most,—a couple such as you, or one like me. Get out wid ye, ye trumpery,—I won’t have ye round!”
Here the conversation was interrupted in a two-fold manner. St. Clare’s voice was heard at the head of the stairs, asking Adolph if he meant to stay all night with his shaving-water; and Miss Ophelia, coming out of the dining-room, said,
“Jane and Rosa, what are you wasting your time for, here? Go in and attend to your muslins.”
Our friend Tom, who had been in the kitchen during the conversation with the old rusk-woman, had followed her out into the street. He saw her go on, giving every once in a while a suppressed groan. At last she set her basket down on a doorstep, and began arranging the old, faded shawl which covered her shoulders.
“I’ll carry your basket a piece,” said Tom, compassionately.
“Why should ye?” said the woman. “I don’t want no help.”
“You seem to be sick, or in trouble, or somethin’,” said Tom.
“I an’t sick,” said the woman, shortly.
“I wish,” said Tom, looking at her earnestly,—“I wish I could persuade you to leave off drinking. Don’t you know it will be the ruin of ye, body and soul?”
“I knows I’m gwine to torment,” said the woman, sullenly. “Ye don’t need to tell me that ar. I ’s ugly, I ’s wicked,—I ’s gwine straight to torment. O, Lord! I wish I ’s thar!”
Tom shuddered at these frightful words, spoken with a sullen, impassioned earnestness.
“O, Lord have mercy on ye! poor crittur. Han’t ye never heard of Jesus Christ?”
“Jesus Christ,—who’s he?”
“Why, he’s the Lord,” said Tom.
“I think I’ve hearn tell o’ the Lord, and the judgment and torment. I’ve heard o’ that.”
“But didn’t anybody ever tell you of the Lord Jesus, that loved us poor sinners, and died for us?”
“Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that,” said the woman; “nobody han’t never loved me, since my old man died.”
“Where was you raised?” said Tom.
“Up in Kentuck. A man kept me to breed chil’en for market, and sold ’em as fast as they got big enough; last of all, he sold me to a speculator, and my Mas’r got me o’ him.”
“What set you into this bad way of drinkin’?”