Shamefacedly and ill at ease, Solon lolled and smoked, but, still preserving her silence, Juno prepared a sumptuous supper for her prodigal. After they had eaten she threw a crimson paper flower, ragged and dirty, upon his knee, and, drawing her chair close, she lighted her pipe from his, for she knew that her woes were ended. “A KINGDOM FOR MICAJAH” “So you want your freedom, Micajah?” The negro who had shambled up to the broad veranda dropped his eyes and shuffled uneasily, for there was a world of wonderment and kindliness in the master’s tone. “And this is the meaning of all the devilment I’ve heard of lately—all this talking among the negroes?” “I reckon so, sar.” “At your age, Micajah, when you’ve been a self-respecting negro all your life, to go cutting up and making mischief among the other negroes because you want your freedom—that’s a fine way to get it! Haven’t you always gotten all you asked for? If you wanted freedom, why didn’t you come and ask for it?” The master lifted his glasses to his forehead and looked reproachfully into the queer black face before him. “Didn’t ’low, Ole Marse, as how you’d gib hit ter me,” said the negro, humbly, but persistently. Judge Naylor looked from the rose-twined piazza across the spacious lawn, under whose oaks his own father had romped, and beyond whose limits had joyously hunted with another Micajah, as small and as black as the one before him. _He_ had never dreamed of freedom. Was this the innate craving of the human for something higher, or only a reflection of an external picture? The Judge resolved upon an experiment. “You are mistaken,” said the Judge, gravely, as he knocked the ash from his pipe. “I will give it to you. And what sort of freedom is it that you want, Micajah?” The old slave scratched his head and swayed uncomfortably. “Why, des freedom, Ole Marse.” “What kind of freedom, Micajah? What is it that you want? Speak out, for I am going to give you your freedom for a whole month, and you shall have all that you want to go with it,” added the Judge. Uncle Cage gasped. The enormity of the idea was too much for him. “And here were Ole Marse des er-talkin’ ’bout hit lack hit were er chaw er terbaccy—des es easy an’ quiet lack,” said Micajah, afterwards, in confidence. “Well,” queried the Judge, “what do you want as a free nigger, Micajah?” Micajah scraped the dust with his foot; twice he made a little mound of it with his toes and twice smoothed it out. “I don’t wanter be no ’free nigger,’ Ole Marse. I des wants freedom.” “Well, go on; don’t be afraid; you shall have what you want.” Cage’s eyes sparkled, and at last his tongue was loosened.