n sight, and dey diggin' on behind. Wal, I loses off my hat, and
sings out nuff to raise the dead. Course Lizy she hars, and she dodges
back, when Mas'r Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she
clared out de side door; she went down de river bank;--Mas'r Haley he
seed her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and Andy, we took arter. Down
she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten feet wide
by the shore, and over t' other side ice a sawin' and a jiggling up and
down, kinder as 't were a great island. We come right behind her, and I
thought my soul he'd got her sure enough,--when she gin sich a screech
as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar over t' other side of
the current, on the ice, and then on she went, a screeching and a
jumpin',--the ice went crack! c'wallop! cracking! chunk! and she a
boundin' like a buck! Lord, the spring that ar gal's got in her an't
common, I'm o' 'pinion."

Mrs. Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement, while Sam told
his story.

"God be praised, she isn't dead!" she said; "but where is the poor child
now?"

"De Lord will pervide," said Sam, rolling up his eyes piously. "As I've
been a sayin', dis yer 's a providence and no mistake, as Missis has
allers been a instructin' on us. Thar's allers instruments ris up to do
de Lord's will. Now, if 't hadn't been for me today, she'd a been took
a dozen times. Warn't it I started off de hosses, dis yer morning' and
kept 'em chasin' till nigh dinner time? And didn't I car Mas'r Haley
night five miles out of de road, dis evening, or else he'd a come up
with Lizy as easy as a dog arter a coon. These yer 's all providences."

"They are a kind of providences that you'll have to be pretty sparing
of, Master Sam. I allow no such practices with gentlemen on my place,"
said Mr. Shelby, with as much sternness as he could command, under the
circumstances.

Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with a negro than
with a child; both instinctively see the true state of the case, through
all attempts to affect the contrary; and Sam was in no wise disheartened
by this rebuke, though he assumed an air of doleful gravity, and stood
with the corners of his mouth lowered in most penitential style.

"Mas'r quite right,--quite; it was ugly on me,--there's no disputin'
that ar; and of course Mas'r and Missis wouldn't encourage no such
works. I'm sensible of dat ar; but a poor nigger like me 's 'mazin'
tempted to act