trusting me; uncle and aunt were trusting me; and
between them I was getting into a narrow corner. After a meditative
silence my questioner asked:

"Miss Maud, do de Bible anywhuz capitulate dat Moses aw Aaron aw
Joshaway aw Cable _buy_ his freedom--wid money?"

Her manner was childlike, yet she always seemed to come up out of deep
thought when she asked a question; she smiled diffidently until the
reply began to come, then took on a reverential gravity, and as soon as
it was fully given sank back into thought. "Miss Maud, don't you
reckon dat ef Moses had a-save' up money enough to a-boughtened his
freedom, dat'd a-been de wery sign mos' pleasin' to Gawd dat he 'uz
highly fitten to be sot free widout paying?" To that puzzle she waited
for no answer beyond the distress I betrayed, but turned to matters
less speculative, and soon said good night.

On the third evening--my! If I could have given all the topography of
the entire country between uncle's plantation and my native city on the
margin of the Great Lakes, with full account of its every natural and
social condition, her questions would have wholly gathered them in.
She asked if our climate was very hard on negroes; what clothing we
wore in summer, and how we kept from freezing in midwinter; about
wages, the price of food, what crops were raised, and what the
"patarolers" did with a negro when they caught one at night without a
pass.

She made me desperate, and when the fourth night saw her crouched on my
floor it found me prepared; I plied her with questions from start to
finish. She yielded with a perfect courtesy; told of the poor lot of
the few free negroes of whom she knew, and of the time-serving and
shifty indolence, the thievishness, faithlessness, and unaspiring
torpidity of "some niggehs"; and when I opened the way for her to speak
of uncle and aunt she poured forth their praises with an ardor that
brought her own tears. I asked her if she believed she could ever be
happy away from them.

She smiled with brimming eyes: "Why, I dunno, Miss Maud; whatsomeveh
come, and whensomeveh, and howsomeveh de Lawd sen' it, ef us feels his
ahm und' us, us ought to be 'shame' not to be happy, oughtn't us?" All
at once she sprang half up: "I tell you de Lawd neveh gi'n no niggeh de
rights to snuggle down anywhuz an' fo'git de auction-block!"

As suddenly the outbreak passed, yet as she settled down again her
exaltation still showed through her fond smile.