"Done about it!" repeated the general heatedly. "What's to be done about it? Why, the rascal can't starve. I've just told Sampson to wheel him down a barrel of meal. Oh, they'll break me! I shan't have a morsel left!" The next time it was an opposite grievance. "What do you reckon's happened now?" he asked, marching into the brick storeroom, where his sister was slicing ripe, red tomatoes into a blue china bowl. "What do you think that fool Ish has done?" Miss Chris looked up attentively, her large, fresh-coloured face expressing mild apprehension. She had rolled back her linen sleeves, and the juice of the tomatoes stained her full, dimpled wrists. "He hasn't killed himself?" she inquired anxiously. "Killed himself?" roared the general. "He'll live forever. I don't believe he'd die if he were strung up with a halter round his neck. He's moved off." "Moved off!" echoed Miss Chris faintly. "Why, I believe Uncle Ish was living in that cabin on Hickory Hill before I was born. I remember going up there to help him gather hickory nuts when I wasn't six years old. I couldn't have been six because mammy Betsey was with me, and she died before I was seven. I declare there were always more nuts on those trees than any I ever saw--" But the general broke in upon her reminiscences, and she took up a fresh tomato and peeled it carefully with a sharp-edged knife. "Some idiots got after him," said the general, "and told him if he went on living on my land he'd go back to slavery, and, bless your life, he has gone--gone to that little one-room shanty where his daughter used to live, between my place and Burr's--as if I'd have him," he concluded wrathfully. "I wouldn't own that fool again if he dropped into my lap straight from heaven!" Miss Chris laughed merrily. "It is the last place he would be likely to drop from," she returned; "but I'll call him up and talk with him. It is a pity for him to be moving off at his age." So Uncle Ishmael was summoned up to the porch, and Miss Chris explained the error of his ways, but to no purpose. "I ain' got no fault ter fine," he repeated over and over again, scratching his grizzled head. "I ain' got no fault ter fine wid you. You've been used me moughty well, en I'se pow'ful 'bleeged ter you--en Marse Tom, he's a gent'mun ef ever I seed one. I ain' go no fault ter fine." The general lost his temper and started up. "Then what do you mean by turning fool at your age?" he demanded angrily. "Haven't I given you a roof over your head all these years?" "Dat's so, suh." "And food to eat?" "Dat's so." "And never asked you to do a lick of work since you got the rheumatism?" "Dat's es true es de Gospel." "Then what do you mean by going off like mad to that little, broken-down shanty with half the roof gone?" Uncle Ishmael shuffled his heavy feet and scratched his head again.