“Now, please sir,” broke in Hi, in a kind of free way he had, “don’t you worry about me none. I’m going in that mill, but I ain’t going to stay there—not unless I like it mighty well. I’m going to get on, if I can. I want to get back to my ma, or to have my ma and the kids come here. But I’m done with that there show and that Weary Willie way of living. I ain’t going to trouble you none, don’t you think it. I won’t even come up to the house if you don’t want me to. But I’m thankful to you for what you’ve done for Zalie, and for what you done for her poor ma, and it just come natural to tell you how I was getting on.” “What made you run along in them there bushes the way you did?” asked pa. “Why didn’t you come out fair and square and holler at us and let us know who you was? Why, you like to scared my horses.” Hi was usually ready with an answer, but now he drooped. “Can’t you speak?” demanded pa. “Tell us, Hi,” said ma gently. “It was just that I wanted to see you-all riding along, with Zalie setting up there like she’d been born in the family,” Hi explained, blushing. “It done me good to think that there she was, with nice people like you, and her everybody’s slave a day or two ago. I hadn’t ought to have done it, I know. But honest, I’ve got in some sort of sneaking way, having always to dodge and hide and yarn to get on and have any peace.” Pa turned on Hi almost fiercely. “See here, you,” he said, “don’t you do no more hiding, nor sneaking, nor fibbing. We-all are friends to you, understand? You come up to we-all’s house like it was your own. Stick in the mill a while. It won’t hurt you. Mr. Hitchcock’s a good man—good’s he can be, I reckon. You spend your Sundays with us. You can meet us at church and ride up with us. Ma, what’s happening to that there fool calf? Acts like he knowed he was going to be slaughtered, don’t he? Poor little critter! Say, ma, you do the trading to-day—you and Azalea. Me and Hi and Jim will walk over to the mill and have a little talk. I want them overseers to know the boy’s got his friends.” It was really pa’s way of getting out of facing his curious neighbors at the stores. But ma felt no such timidity. Her heart swelled with pride as Azalea leaped, light as a kitten, from the wagon and turned to help Mrs. McBirney down. Ma nodded right and left to the people gathered to do their Saturday “trading,” and she introduced Azalea, in her gentle, singing voice, to the women and girls who came up to meet her.