"Pooh!" said Bobby, "it's not--"

But before he could say anything more, excited voices were heard, and
four black and shining faces appeared over the top of the fence, while a
guilty eye looked through a knot-hole farther down.

"Has you all seen anything of a low down black pickaninny which is
los'?" This remark came from 'Vada.

"Which is _stole_," corrected a mountain of flesh, quivering with wrath.

"Is it Samuel Saul?" asked Ethelwyn.

"It is so; will you projus him?" asked the mountain.

"He's in the attic asleep; his sister sold him to us for a present to
Bobby and Nan--"

"O let's see him," cried Nan, with lively interest.

"You all is gwine to leab him alone--" began the mountain, when Mandy
turned ponderously in her direction.

"Will you, Martha Jane Jenkins, please kindly rec'lect dat you is
'sociatin' wid quality now, an' take a good care how you talk, though
sholy it may be de fus time dat you has ebber been in good sassity--"

"Dat is sholy de trufe w'en I has been wid you," said Martha Jane
Jenkins, wrathfully.