All in all, his earnings did increase. His old, unbusiness-like arrangement had in the past sufficed. There was always a little money; there was sometimes a considerable sum. He might go home with one dollar, or two, or even five; or he might trudge up the hill with only a few pennies to show for his night’s singing. On the whole, however, there had always been enough. He lived in some measure of comfort; and he laid up something for a rainy day. This hoard had been long years accumulating.... Eph told no one his troubles; no one had known of his little wealth; no one knew that it was gone. Eph was bankrupt; and not only that, but he had mortgaged his earnings. He had pledged his future. He had given hostages to fortune. He had promised to find and send to Jim Forrest’s mother the sum of ten dollars every week. And in spite of the fact that in the past he had never averaged earning ten dollars a week, he proposed to keep his word. He believed, in the beginning, that this would not be hard. He would have to demean himself, to ask for money, to invite gifts.... The thought irked him; yet he was ready to do it. And to help out, he himself prepared to make sacrifices. Down in his boarding house, he gave up his comfortable little two dollar room and took another, in the very top of the house, which cost him half a dollar less. Likewise he cut down on his food. He gave up altogether the sliced, roast ham that had always been his delight; the occasional eggs; the bananas. He ate meagerly, and scouted the scolding insistences of his old colored landlady when she tried to force food upon him. “I ain’ no beggar, Mis’ Hopkins,” he told her, over and over. “When old Eph cain’ pay his way, he gwine git out o’ here to som’eres where he can.” In the beginning, matters went well enough. The people who stopped to listen to his singing opened their purses at his unwilling hints to them. He was able to take the promised ten dollars to the lawyer every week, and to live on what remained. And when he heard Jim Forrest was in the army, the old darky sang in a fashion that he had not equalled for a dozen years, and the next day he boasted to his landlady of the matter. “Ol’ Eph ain’ here, at all, Mis’ Hopkins,” he told her gleefully. “Y’all jes’ thinks he is. He ain’ here, I’m tellin’ you.” She shooed him, with fat hands. “Go ’long, Eph, you ol’ scamp,” she scolded. “I’m tellin’ you,” he repeated. “Eph ain’ here. Ol’ Eph’s in de army, now. Ain’ old Eph no more; he’s a fine, stroppin’ boy big enough to cut de Dutch. A fixin’ tuh fight, Mis’ Hopkins. A fixin’ tuh fight!” “Whut you tryin’ let out, anyhows?” she demanded. “You sayin’ somethin; or is you jes’ talkin’ th’ough yore hat?” “I’m tellin’ you,” he chanted. “Eph’s in de army, now.”