“I need some firewood.” As she spoke she allowed her glance to rest on Big Joe. Gill looked at the sullen negro for half a minute, and then he shrugged his shoulders as if indecision were a burden to be shaken off, and mumbling something inaudible he went out to the woodpile and brought in an armful of fuel. “A pore beginning,” his wife said, as he put it down on the hearth. “I know it,” retorted Gill, angrily. “You needn’t begin that sort o’ talk, fer I won’t stand it. I’m a-doin’ all I can.” And Gill went back to his chair. The good housewife fried some slices of dark red ham. She boiled a pot of sweet potatoes, peeled off their jackets, and made a pulp of them in a pan; into the mass she stirred sweet milk, butter, eggs, sugar, and grated nutmeg. Then she rolled out a sheet of dough and cut out some open-top pies. “I never knowed a nigger that could keep his teeth out of ‘em,” she chuckled. Half an hour later she called out to Gill to come in. He paused in the doorway, staring in astonishment. “Well, I never!” he ejaculated. She had laid the best white cloth, got out her new knives and forks with the bone handles, and some dishes that were never used except on rare occasions. She had placed Gill’s plate at the head of the table, hers at the foot, and was wiping a third--the company plate with the blue decorations. “Whar’s he goin’ to set an’ eat?” she asked. “Blast me ef I know any more ’n a rat,” Gill told her, with alarmed frankness. “I hain’t thought about it a bit, but it never will do fer ‘im to set down with me an’ you. Folks might see it, an’ it would give ‘em more room for fun.” Mrs. Gill laid the plate down and sighed. “I declare, I’m afeered this nigger is a-goin’ to stick us up, whether or no. I won’t feel much Christian humility with him at one table an’ us at another, but of course I know it ain’t common fer folks to eat with their slaves.” Gill’s glance was sweeping the table and its tempting dishes with an indescribable air of disapproval. “You are a-fixin’up powerful,” was his slow comment; “a body would think, to look at all this, that it was the fourth Sunday an’ you was expectin’ the preacher. You’d better begin right; we cayn’t keep this up an’ make a crop.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “You had no business to bring Big Joe heer, then,” she fumed. “You know well enough he’s used to fine doin’s, an’ I’m not a-goin’ to have ‘im make light of us, ef we _are_ pore. I was jest a-thinkin’; the Whitneys always tied napkins ‘round the’r necks to ketch the gravy they drap, an’ Big Joe’s bound to notice that we ain’t used to sech.” It was finally agreed that for that day at least the slave was to have his dinner served to him where he sat; so Mrs. Gill arranged it temptingly on a piece of plank, over which a piece of cloth had been spread, and took it out to him. She found him almost asleep, but he opened his eyes as she drew near.