free papers now. You can go North with her and you can pay me back
when you find work."

"No," replied Ben doggedly. "Ef she cain't wait fu' me she don' want
me, an' I won't roller her erroun' an' be in de way."

"You're a fool!" said his master.

"I loves huh," said the slave. And so this plan came to naught.

Then came the night on which Viney was getting together her
belongings. Ben sat in a corner of the cabin silent, his head bowed in
his hands. Every once in a while the woman cast a half-frightened
glance at him. He had never once tried to oppose her with force,
though she saw that grief had worn lines into his face.

The door opened and Si Johnson came in. He had just dropped in to see
if everything was all right. He was not to go for a week.

"Let me look at yo' free papahs," he said, for Si could read and liked
to show off his accomplishment at every opportunity. He stumbled
through the formal document to the end, reading at the last: "This is
a present from Ben to his beloved wife, Viney."

She held out her hand for the paper. When Si was gone she sat gazing
at it, trying in her ignorance to pick from the, to her, senseless
scrawl those last words. Ben had not raised his head.

Still she sat there, thinking, and without looking her mind began to
take in the details of the cabin. That box of shelves there in the