remark, "He arrived just at the right moment; I was full to the brim with
bitter thinkings, and nobody to take it out of. How refreshing it was!
I feel better."

Tom's mother entered now, closing the door behind her, and approached her
son with all the wheedling and supplication servilities that fear and
interest can impart to the words and attitudes of the born slave. She
stopped a yard from her boy and made two or three admiring exclamations
over his manly stature and general handsomeness, and Tom put an arm under
his head and hoisted a leg over the sofa back in order to look properly
indifferent.

"My lan', how you is growed, honey! 'Clah to goodness, I wouldn't
a-knowed you, Marse Tom! 'Deed I wouldn't! Look at me good; does you
'member old Roxy? Does you know yo' old nigger mammy, honey? Well now, I
kin lay down en die in peace, 'ca'se I'se seed--"

"Cut it short, Goddamn it, cut it short! What is it you want?"

"You heah dat? Jes the same old Marse Tom, al'ays so gay and funnin' wid
de ole mammy. I'uz jes as shore--"

"Cut it short, I tell you, and get along! What do you want?"

This was a bitter disappointment. Roxy had for so many days nourished
and fondled and petted her notion that Tom would be glad to see his old
nurse, and would make her proud and happy to the marrow with a cordial
word or two, that it took two rebuffs to convince her that he was not
funning, and that her beautiful dream was a fond and foolish variety, a
shabby and pitiful mistake. She was hurt to the heart, and so ashamed