“Go to them up here?” he said; “never. They would give me my supper with their hypocritical patronage and put it down to charity. You give me something to eat as a favour. Your gift proceeds from disinterested kindness; they would throw me a bone because they thought it would weigh something in the balance against their sins. To you I am an unfortunate man; to them I am a tramp.” The stranger had spoken with much heat and no hesitation; but his ardour did not take the form of offence at Nelse’s question. He seemed perfectly to comprehend the motive which actuated it. Nelse had listened to him with close attention, and at the end of his harangue he said, “You hadn’t ought to be so hard on your own people; they mean well enough.” “My own people!” the stranger flashed back. “My people are the people of the South,—the people who have in their veins the warm, generous blood of Dixie!” “I don’t see what you stay in the North fur ef you don’t like the people.” “I am not staying; I’m getting away from it as fast as I can. I only came because I thought, like a lot of other poor fools, that the North had destroyed my fortunes and it might restore them; but five years of fruitless struggle in different places out of Dixie have shown me that it isn’t the place for a man with blood in his veins. I thought that I was reconstructed; but I’m not. My State didn’t need it, but I did.” “Where’re you from?” “Kentucky; and there’s where I’m bound for now. I want to get back where people have hearts and sympathies.” The coloured man was silent. After a while he said, and his voice was tremulous as he thought of the past, “I’m from Kintucky, myself.” “I knew that you were from some place in the South. There’s no mistaking our people, black or white, wherever you meet them. Kentucky’s a great State, sir. She didn’t secede; but there were lots of her sons on the other side. I was; and I did my duty as clear as I could see it.” “That’s all any man kin do,” said Nelse; “an’ I ain’t a-blamin’ you. I lived with as good people as ever was. I know they wouldn’t ’a’ done nothin’ wrong ef they’d ’a’ knowed it; an’ they was on the other side.” “You’ve been a slave, then?” “Oh, yes, I was born a slave; but the War freed me.” “I reckon you wouldn’t think that my folks ever owned slaves; but they did. Everybody was good to them except me, and I was young and liked to show my authority. I had a little black boy that I used to cuff around a good deal, altho’ he was near to me as a brother. But sometimes he would turn on me and give me the trouncing that I deserved. He would have been skinned for it if my father had found it out; but I was always too much ashamed of being thrashed to tell.” The speaker laughed, and Nelse joined him. “Bless my soul!” he said, “ef that ain’t jes’ the way it was with me an’ my Mas’ Tom—” “Mas’ Tom!” cried the stranger; “man, what’s your name?” “Nelse Hatton,” replied the Negro.