"But I didn't know all that them days, an' that Cynthy o' Mistah Masterson's look mighty peart an' talk mighty knowen', an' seem like as we both hed travelled considerable we both hed a heap of talk 'bout; an' the upshot of it was I felt boun' an' sot to buy that gal, if so be they'd give me a fair chance an' plenty o' time. Well, sah, I talk it ovah with Mahs Duke, an' he fix it so I can have Cynthy fo' three hundred dollars. "Seem like it's a mighty small price to ask fo' a likely young gal like her, but I so conjured with the notion o' buyen' her I nevah stopped to study into the reasons why o' things, special as I had part o' the money right by me to pay; a pocket full o' money gets a man into mo' trouble mostly than an empty one. "Well, sah, I hadn't owned her no time, till I was mo' sot in my mind than evah as how freedom was a hoodoo. If I hadn't been free I'd nevah took the notion to have a free wife o' my own, an' I'd a been saved a lot o' torment, _I_ tell yo'. "She jest no good no how--that Cynthy. How they got work out o' her ovah on the Masterson plantation I don't know, fo' _I_ couldn't. Think she'd even cook vittels fo' her own self if she could help it? No, sah! She too plum lazy. She jes' had a notion that bein' free meant doen' nothen' 'tall fo' no body. It needed a whole meeten' house full o' religion to get along with that gal, 'thout cussen' at her, an' as I'd done trained in the race course an' not in a pulpit, seem like I noways fit for the 'casion. But I devilled along with her for three yeahs, and she had two boys by that time--didn't make no sort o' difference. She got worse 'stead o' better o' her worthlessness, but I tried to put up with it till she jest put the cap sheaf on the hull business by getten' religion up thah in the gum tree settlement, an' I drew the line at that, _I_ tell yo.' Thah she was, howlen' happy every night in the week 'long-side o' Brother Peter Mosely. Brother Mosely's wife didn't seem to favah their religion no more'n I did; so, seen' as I couldn't follow roun' aftah her with a hickory switch, an' couldn't keep her home or at work no othah way, I just got myself a divorce, an' settled down alone on a patch o' lan' I bought o' Mahs Duke, an' I kep' on looken' aftah his stables long as he kept any. He died just afore young Mahs Tom married Miss Leo Masterson." "But what of the divorce? Did it improve her religion or cure her laziness?" asked Delaven, who found more of novelty in the black man's affairs than the master's.