"He's a half-strainer," said the woman, with sudden anger. "How he gwine help it? Ain' you got crap on it?" She felt that there must be a defence against such an outrage. "He say he ain' gwine wait no longer; dat I wuz to have tell Christmas to finish payin' for it, an' I ain' do it, an' now he done change he min'." "Tell dis Christmas comin'," said his wife, with the positiveness of one accustomed to expound contracts. "Yes; but I tell you he say he done change he min'." The man had evidently given up all hope; he was dead beat. "De crap's yourn," said she, affected by his surrender, but prepared only to compromise. "He say he gwine teck all dat for de rent, and dat he gwine drive Ole 'Stracted 'way too." "He ain' nuttin but po' white trash!" It expressed her supreme contempt. "He say he'll gi' me jes one week mo' to pay him all he ax for it," continued he, forced to a correction by her intense feeling, and the instinct of a man to defend the absent from a woman's attack, and perhaps in the hope that she might suggest some escape. "He ain' nuttin sep po' white trash!" she repeated. "How you gwine raise eight hundred dollars at once? Dee kyarn nobody do dat. Gord mout! He ain' got good sense." "You ain' see dat corn lately, is you?" he asked. "Hit jes as rank! You can almos' see it growin' ef you look at it good. Dat's strong land. I know dat when I buy it." He knew it was gone now, but he had been in the habit of calling it his in the past three years, and it did him good to claim the ownership a little longer. "I wonder whar Marse Johnny is?" said the woman. He was the son of her former owner; and now, finding her proper support failing her, she instinctively turned to him. "He wouldn' let him turn we all out." "He ain' got nuttin, an' ef he is, he kyarn get it in a week," said Ephraim. "Kyarn you teck it in de co't?" "Dat's whar he say he gwine have it ef I don' git out," said her husband, despairingly. Her last defence was gone. "Ain' you hongry?" she inquired. "What you got?" "I jes gwine kill a chicken for you." It was her nearest approach to tenderness, and he knew it was a mark of special attention, for all the chickens and eggs had for the past three years gone to swell the fund which was to buy the home, and it was only on special occasions that one was spared for food. The news that he was to be turned out of his home had fallen on him like a blow, and had stunned him; he could make no resistance, he could form no plans. He went into a rough estimate as he waited. "Le' me see: I done wuck for it three years dis Christmas done gone; how much does dat meek?" "An' fo' dollars, an' five dollars, an' two dollars an' a half last Christmas from de chickens, an' all dem ducks I done sell he wife, an' de washin' I been doin' for 'em; how much is dat?" supplemented his wife. "Dat's what I say!"