taste, I can tell you."

Peaches grew easily and plentifully in the hot sunshine of our garden,
and securing a sample of the best, I went back toward the landing-place,
where I saw the boy's head pop back out of sight as soon as I appeared.
Then laying down the fruit just within reach of the corner from which I
had seen the boy watching me, I was in the act of turning away, when I
saw that I was being watched from the other side.

"Hullo, Morgan!" I said. "You there?"

"Yes, Master George, I'm here, and it's time I was," he cried, sourly.
"Do you think your father and me grafted them peach trees, and coaxed
'em on into bearing, for you to feed niggers with them?"

"I've a right to do what I like with the fruit, if I don't eat it," I
said, angrily.

"Oh, very well; I've done. Seems to me that if master's to be always
bullying me on one side, and you on the other, the sooner I make up my
bundle and go home to Carnarvon, the better."

"That's what you always say, Morgan," I replied, laughing; "but you
never do go."

"Ah, but you'll see some day; and then you'll be sorry," he grumbled,
and away he went.

"I don't want to hurt his feelings," I thought; "but he needn't be so
disagreeable about the poor black fellows."

After a time I went to the shelter and looked in, to see that the man
was lying with his eyes opened; and, recalling what my father had said,
I gave him some bread and wine, which he ate as it was put to his lips,
in a dull, forbidding way which took all the pleasure out of what I had
thought was an act of kindness.

The peaches had disappeared, and I was saying to myself, "You might have
given him one!" when I found that both of them were lying close to the
black's head untouched.

About sunset my father came and looked at his purchase in a very grave
way, and then apparently satisfied he drew back.

"The man is recovering," he said. "We saved his life, my boy, but they
must not stay there to-night. I hardly believe that an alligator would
attack them; but one great fellow has been travelling through the garden
in the night, and if he came near them, there would be a terrible scare
if nothing worse."

"Where are they to go then, father?"

"In the large shed. There are plenty of bundles of corn straw, and they
must make shift with that until we can build them a hut."

"Build them a hut?" I said, in wondering tones. "Are they going to
stop?"

"Stop? Where else can they go, my lad?"