“What you got?”

“I jes gwine kill a chicken for you.”

It was her nearest approach to tenderness, and he knew it was a mark of special attention, for all the chickens and eggs had for the past three years gone to swell the fund which was to buy the home, and it was only on special occasions that one was spared for food.

The news that he was to be turned out of his home had fallen on him like a blow, and had stunned him; he could make no resistance, he could form no plans. He went into a rough estimate as he waited.

“Le’ me see: I done wuck for it three years dis Christmas done gone; how much does dat meck?”

“An’ of’ dollars, an’ five dollars, an’ two dollars an’ a half last Christmas from de chickens, an’ all dem ducks I done sell he wife, an’ de washin’ I been doin’ for ’em; how much is dat?” supplemented his wife.

“Dat’s what I say!”

His wife endeavoured vainly to remember the amount she had been told it was; but the unaccounted- for washing changed the sum and destroyed her reliance on the result. And as the chicken was now approaching perfection, and required her undivided attention, she gave up the arithmetic and applied herself to her culinary duties.

Ephraim also abandoned the attempt, and waited in a reverie, in which he saw corn stand so high and rank over his land that he could scarcely distinguish the bulk, and a stable and barn and a mule, or maybe two—it was a possibility—and two cows which his wife would milk, and a green wagon driven by his boys, while he took it easy and gave orders like a master, and a clover patch, and wheat, and he saw the yellow grain waving, and heard his sons sing the old harvest song of “Cool Water” while they swung their cradles, and—

“You say he gwine turn Ole ’Stracted out, too?” inquired his wife, breaking the spell. The chicken was done now, and her mind reverted to the all-engrossing subject.

“Yes; say he tired o’ ole ’stracted nigger livin’ on he place an’ payin’ no rent.”

“Good Gord A’mighty! Pay rent for dat ole pile o’ logs! Ain’ he been mendin’ he shoes an’ harness for rent all dese years?”

“’Twill kill dat ole man to tu’n him out dat house,” said Ephraim; “he ain’ ’nuver stay away from dyah a hour since he come heah.”

“Sutny ’twill,” assented his wife; then she added, in reply to the rest of the remark, “Nuver min’; den we’ll see what he got in dyah.” To a woman, that was at least some compensation. Ephraim’s thoughts had taken a new direction.

“He al’ays feared he marster’d come for him while he ’way,” he said, in mere continuance of his last remark.

“He sen’ me wud he marster comin’ to-night, an’ he want he shut,” said his wife, as she handed him his supper. Ephraim’s face expressed more than interest; it was tenderness which softened the rugged lines as he sat looking into the fire. Perhaps he thought of the old man’s loneliness, and of his own father torn away and sold so long ago, before he could even remember, and perhaps very dimly of the beauty of the sublime devotion of this poor old creature to his love and his trust, holding steadfast beyond memory, beyond reason, after the knowledge even of his own identity and of his very name was lost.

The woman caught the contagion of his sympathy.