"Yas'm; but when he found we was goin' away, he looked up some more debts."
"I don't know 'zactly--more'n a hundred dollars. Den de boys done got in dat trouble, and he paid their fines."
"Well, one was a-gambling, and the other struck the overseer what was a-whippin' him."
"Whipping him!"--in horrified exclamation, quite as much at Aunt Rachel's matter-of-fact way of regarding the matter as at the deed itself.
"Yas'm. He didn't do his work right and he whipped him. I speck he needed it."
"But he's a grown man," Miss Smith urged earnestly.
"Whipped him!" Miss Smith repeated. "And so you can't leave?"
"No'm, he say he'll sell us out and put us in de chain-gang if we go. The boys is plumb mad, but I'se a-pleadin' with 'em not to do nothin' rash."
"But--but I thought they had already started to work a crop on the Tolliver place?"
"Yes'm, dey had; but, you see, dey were arrested, and then Cunnel Cresswell took 'em and 'lowed they couldn't leave his place. Ol' man Tolliver was powerful mad."
"Why, Aunt Rachel, it's slavery!" cried the lady in dismay. Aunt Rachel did not offer to dispute her declaration.
"Yas'm, hit's slavery," she agreed. "I hates it mighty bad, too, 'cause I wanted de little chillens in school; but--" The old woman broke down and sobbed.
A knocking came at the door; hastily wiping her eyes Aunt Rachel rose.
"I'll--I'll see what I can do, Aunt Rachel--I must do something," murmured Miss Smith hastily, as the woman departed, and an old black man came limping in. Miss Smith looked up in surprise.
"I begs pardon, Mistress--I begs pardon. Good-morning."
"Yes, I've heard of you, Mr. Sykes; you live over south of the swamp."
"Yes, ma'am, that's me; and I'se got a little shack dar and a bit of land what I'se trying to buy."
"Going on ten year now; and dat's what I comes to ask you about."
"Goodness me! And how much have you paid a year?"
"I gen'rally pays 'bout three bales of cotton a year."
"Only sugar and coffee and a little meat now and then."
"I doesn't rightly know--but I'se got some papers here."
Miss Smith looked them over and sighed. It was the same old tale of blind receipts for money "on account"--no items, no balancing. By his help she made out that last year his total bill at Cresswell's store was perhaps forty dollars.