Gay's horse's hoofs on the dead leaves, she turned with a choking sound,
and fled to the shelter of the kitchen at her back.

"My time's done come, but I ain't-a-gwine! I ain't-a-gwine!" wailed
the chorus within. "Ole marster's done come ter fotch me, but I
ain't-a-gwine! O Lawd, I ain't-a-gwine! O Jesus, I ain't-a-gwine!"

"You fools, hold your tongues!" stormed the young man, losing his
temper. "Send somebody out here to take my horse or I'll give you
something to shout over in earnest."

The shrieks trembled high for an instant, and then died out in a
despairing moan, while the blanched face of an old servant appeared in
the doorway.

"Is hit you er yo' ha'nt, Marse Jonathan?" he inquired humbly.

"Come here, you doddering idiot, and take my horse."

But half reassured the negro came a step or two forward, and made
a feeble clutch at the reins, which dropped from his grasp when the
roosting turkeys stirred uneasily on the bough above.

"I'se de butler, marster, en I ain never sot foot in de stable sence de
days er ole miss."

"Where's my mother?"

"Miss Angela, she's done gone up ter town en Miss Kesiah she's done gone
erlong wid 'er."

"Is the house closed?"

"Naw, suh, hit ain closed, but Miss Molly she's got de keys up yonder at
de house er de overseer."

"Well, send somebody with a grain of sense out here, and I'll look up
Miss Molly."

At this the butler vanished promptly into the kitchen, and a minute
later a half-grown mulatto boy relieved Gay of his horse, while he
pointed to a path through an old apple orchard that led to the cottage
of the overseer. As the young man passed under the gnarled boughs to a
short flagged walk before the small, whitewashed house in which "Miss
Molly" lived, he wondered idly if the lady who kept the keys would prove
to be the amazing little person he had seen some hours earlier perched
on the load of fodder in the ox-cart. The question was settled almost
before it was asked, for a band of lamplight streamed suddenly from the
door of the cottage, and in the centre of it appeared the figure of
a girl in a white dress, with red stockings showing under her short
skirts, and a red ribbon filleting the thick brown curls on her
forehead. From her movements he judged that she was mixing a bowl of
soft food for the old hound at her feet, and he waited until she had
called the dog inside for his supper, before he went forward and spoke
her name in his pleasant voice.

A