So the next day after the funeral,along about noon-time,the girls’ joy got the first jolt.A couple of nigger traders come along,and the king sold them the niggers reasonable,for three-day drafts as they called it,and away they went,the two sons up the river to Memphis,and their mother down the river to Orleans.I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for grief;they cried around each other,and took on so it most made me down sick to see it.The girls said they hadn’t ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can’t ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other’s necks and crying; and I reckon I couldn’t a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn’t knowed the sale warn’t no account and the niggers would be back home in a week or two.
The thing made a big stir in the town, too,and a good many come out flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you the duke was powerful uneasy.
Next day was auction day.About broad day in the morning the king and the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look that there was trouble. The king says:
“Was you in my room night before last?”
“No, your majesty”—which was the way I always called him when nobody but our gang warn’t around.
“Was you in there yisterday er last night?”
“No, your majesty.”
“Honor bright, now—no lies.”
“Honor bright, your majesty, I’m telling you the truth.I hain’t been a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it to you.”
The duke says:
“Have you seen anybody else go in there?”
“No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe.”
“Stop and think.”
I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:
“Well, I see the niggers go in there several times.”
Both of them gave a little jump,and looked like they hadn’t ever expected it,and then like they _had_. Then the duke says:
“What, _all_ of them?”
“No—leastways, not all at once—that is,I don’t think I ever see them all come _out_ at once but just one time. ”
“Hello!When was that?”
“It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning.It warn’t early, because I overslept.I was just starting down the ladder, and I see them.”
“Well, go on, _go_ on!What did they do?How’d they act?”
“They didn’t do nothing.And they didn’t act anyway much, as fur as I see.They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough,that they’d shoved in there to do up your majesty’s room,or something, s’posing you was up;and found you _warn’t_ up,and so they was hoping to slide out of the way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn’t already waked you up.”
“Great guns, _this_ is a go!” says the king; and both of them looked pretty sick and tolerable silly.They stood there a-thinking and scratching their heads a minute,and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspy chuckle, and says:
“It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand.They let on to be _sorry_ they was going out of this region!And I believed they _was_ sorry, and so did you,and so did everybody.Don’t ever tell _me_ any more that a nigger ain’t got any histrionic talent.Why, the way they played that thing it would fool _anybody_.In my opinion, there’s a fortune in ’em.If I had capital and a theater,I wouldn’t want a better lay-out than that—and here we’ve gone and sold ’em for a song. Yes, and ain’t privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where _is_ that song—that draft?”
“In the bank for to be collected. Where _would_ it be?”
“Well, _that’s_ all right then, thank goodness.”
Says I, kind of timid-like:
“Is something gone wrong?”
The king whirls on me and rips out:
“None o’ your business!You keep your head shet,and mind y’r own affairs—if you got any.Long as you’re in this town don’t you forgit _that_—you hear?” Then he says to the duke,“We got to jest swaller it and say noth’n’:mum’s the word for _us_.”
As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and says:
“Quick sales _and_ small profits!It’s a good business—yes.”
v
The king snarls around on him and says:
“I was trying to do for the best in sellin’ ’em out so quick.If the profits has turned out to be none,lackin’ considable, and none to carry,is it my fault any more’n it’s yourn?”
“Well, _they’d_ be in this house yet and we _wouldn’t_ if I could a got my advice listened to.”
The king sassed back as much as was safe for him,and then swapped around and lit into _me_ again.He give me down the banks for not coming and _telling_ him I see the niggers come out of his room acting that way—said any fool would a _knowed_ something was up. And then waltzed in and cussed _himself_ awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he’d be blamed if he’d ever do it again. So they went off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I’d worked it all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn’t done the niggers no harm by it.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
By-and-by it was getting-up time.So I come down the ladder and started for down-stairs;but as I come to the girls’ room the door was open,and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk,which was open and she’d been packing things in it—getting ready to go to England. But she had stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I went in there and says:
“Miss Mary Jane, you can’t a-bear to see people in trouble,and _I_ can’t—most always. Tell me about it.”
So she done it. And it was the niggers—I just expected it.She said the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her;she didn’t know _how_ she was ever going to be happy there,knowing the mother and the children warn’t ever going to see each other no more—and then busted out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:
“Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain’t _ever_ going to see each other any more!”
“But they _will_—and inside of two weeks—and I _know_ it!” says I.
Laws, it was out before I could think!And before I could budge she throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it _again_, say it _again_, say it _again!_
I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much,and was in a close place.I asked her to let me think a minute;and she set there, very impatient and excited and handsome,but looking kind of happy and eased-up,like a person that’s had a tooth pulled out.So I went to studying it out. I says to myself,I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, though I ain’t had no experience, and can’t say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here’s a case where I’m blest if it don’t look to me like the truth is better and actuly _safer_ than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and think it over some time or other, it’s so kind of strange and unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last, I’m a-going to chance it; I’ll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go to. Then I says:
“Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you could go and stay three or four days?”
“Yes; Mr. Lothrop’s. Why?”
“Never mind why yet.If I’ll tell you how I know the niggers will see each other again inside of two weeks—here in this house—and _prove_ how I know it—will you go to Mr. Lothrop’s and stay four days?”
“Four days!” she says; “I’ll stay a year!”