that for a moment she did not quite know what to do or how to act. Then
her breast began to heave, the tears came, and in her forlornness she was
moved to try that other dream of hers--an appeal to her boy's charity;
and so, upon the impulse, and without reflection, she offered her
supplication:

"Oh, Marse Tom, de po' ole mammy is in sich hard luck dese days; en she's
kinder crippled in de arms and can't work, en if you could gimme a
dollah--on'y jes one little dol--"

Tom was on his feet so suddenly that the supplicant was startled into a
jump herself.

"A dollar!--give you a dollar! I've a notion to strangle you! Is _that_
your errand here? Clear out! And be quick about it!"

Roxy backed slowly toward the door. When she was halfway she stopped,
and said mournfully:

"Marse Tom, I nussed you when you was a little baby, en I raised you all
by myself tell you was 'most a young man; en now you is young en rich, en
I is po' en gitt'n ole, en I come heah b'leavin' dat you would he'p de
ole mammy 'long down de little road dat's lef' 'twix' her en de grave,
en--"

Tom relished this tune less than any that he preceded it, for it began to
wake up a sort of echo in his conscience; so he interrupted and said with
decision, though without asperity, that he was not in a situation to help
her, and wasn't going to do it.