Nawth 'cause Si's
a-goin'--I ain't."

When Mr. Raymond found out how matters were really going he went to
Ben where he was at work in the field.

"Now, look here, Ben," he said. "You're one of the best hands on my
place and I'd be sorry to lose you. I never did believe in this buying
business from the first, but you were so bent on it that I gave in.
But before I'll see her cheat you out of your money I'll give you your
free papers now. You can go North with her and you can pay me back
when you find work."

"No," replied Ben doggedly. "Ef she cain't wait fu' me she don' want
me, an' I won't roller her erroun' an' be in de way."

"You're a fool!" said his master.

"I loves huh," said the slave. And so this plan came to naught.

Then came the night on which Viney was getting together her
belongings. Ben sat in a corner of the cabin silent, his head bowed in
his hands. Every once in a while the woman cast a half-frightened
glance at him. He had never once tried to oppose her with force,
though she saw that grief had worn lines into his face.

The door opened and Si Johnson came in. He had just dropped in to see
if everything was all right. He was not to go for a week.

"Let me look at yo' free papahs," he said, for Si could read and liked
to show off his accomplishment at every opportunity. He stumbled
through the formal document to the end, reading at the last: "This is
a present from Ben to his beloved wife, Viney."

She held out her hand for the paper. When Si was gone she sat gazing
at it, trying in her ignorance to pick from the, to her, senseless
scrawl those last words. Ben had not raised his head.

Still she sat there, thinking, and without looking her mind began to
take in the details of the cabin. That box of shelves there in the
corner Ben had made in the first days they were together. Yes, and
this chair on which she was sitting--she remembered how they had
laughed over its funny shape before he had padded it with cotton and
covered it with the piece of linsey "old Mis'" had given him. The very
chest in which her things were packed he had made, and when the last
nail was driven he had called it her trunk, and said she should put
her finery in it when she went traveling like the white folks. She was
going traveling now, and Ben--Ben? There he sat across from her in his
chair, bowed and broken, his great shoulders heaving with suppressed
grief.

Then, before she knew it, Viney was sobbing, and had