“Why, Aunt Mela, I trust you,” sez Maggie in her sweet voice. “I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.” “To hurt you? No, honey. But den how can I tell when ole Mars Saten will jes’ rise up an’ try to hurt ole Mela? He may jes’ make me do sumpin’ mean jes’ to spite me for turnin’ my back on him. He jes’ hates Massa Jesus, ole Saten duz, an’ he’s tried to spite me ebery way sense I jine him. “So you jes’ keep dem keys, Miss Maggie, and if ole Saten tells me to get sumpin’ outen dat stow room to teck to my sister down to Eden Centre, I’ll say: “‘You jes’ go ’long! I can’t do it nohow, for Miss Maggie done got de keys.’” Maggie took the keys and tried to keep them after this. But she told me that many times Aunt Mela had warned her in the same way. One day she had been tellin’ me a good deal about her trials and labors sence the War, and how she and her sister had worked to get them a little home, and how many times they had been cheated and imposed upon, and made to pay over bills time and agin, owin’ to their ignorance of business. And I asked her if she thought she wuz any better off now than when she wuz a slave. She straightened up her tall figure, put her hands on her hips, and looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Betteh off, you say? You go lay down in de dahk, tied to de floah; if dat floah is cahpeted wid velvet an’ sahten, you’d feel betteh to get up an’ go way out on de sand, or de ston’—you feel free—you holt yur haid up—you breeve long brefs—you are free!” “But,” sez I, “the floor of slavery wuzn’t covered with velvet, wuz it?” “It wuz covered wid _blood_ an’ misery. De dungeon house wuz heavy wid groans, an’ teahs, an’ agonies. “My missy wuz good to me, as good as she could be to a slave. But all my chillen, one aftah anoder, wuz stole away from me. “Aftah havin’ fo’teen chillen, lubbin’ ebery one ob ’em, like I would die ef dey wuz tuck away from me—aftah holdin’ dem fo’teen clost to my heart, so dey couldn’t be tuck nohow, I foun’ my ole ahms empty.” She stretched out her gaunt old arms with a indescribable gesture of loneliness and woe, and went on in a voice full of the tears and misery of that old time: “I wuz kep’ jes’ to raise chillen for de mahket, dat wuz my business. An’ when I gin dem chillen my heart’s lub, dat wuz goin’ beyent my business. “Slaves don’ hab no call to be humans nohow; if dey had hearts dey wuz wrung clear outen der bodies; if dey had goodness dey los’ it quick nuff. “To try to be a good woman and true to your ole man wuz goin’ beyent yur business. “Dey sole him too, de fader ob leben ob my chillen. He lubbed dem chillen too, jes’ as well Massy Allen lub little Missy Snow. “He had to leab ’em—toah off, covered wid blood an’ gashes, for he fit for us, fit to stay wid me—we had libbed togedder sense I wuz fo’teen.