winters, after Christmas, which usually terminated the picking-season,
Lizay was called to the place of head assistant of the plantation
seamstress. Indeed, she did little field-service except in times of special
pressure and during the quarter of cotton-picking. She was so
nimble-fingered and swift that she could not be spared from the field in
picking-season, especially if, as was the case this year, there was a heavy
crop. And occasionally in the winter, when there was unusual company at the
Hortons' in the city, Little Lizay was sent for and had the advantage of a
season in town. She felt her superiority to the average plantation-negro,
and had not married, though not unsolicited. When, therefore, Alston came
she at once recognized in him a companion, and she was not long in making
over her favor to the distinguished-looking stranger. He was, as she, a
half-breed, and Lizay liked her own color. Had Alston courted her favor,
she might have yielded it less readily, but he did not take easily to his
new companions. Some called him proud: others reckoned he had left a
sweetheart, a wife perhaps, in Virginia. Little Lizay's evident preference
laid her open to the rude jokes and sneers of the other negroes--in
particular Big Sam, who was her suitor, and Edny Ann, who was fond of
Alston. But Edny Ann did not care for Alston as Little Lizay did--could
not, indeed. She was incapable of the devotion that Lizay felt. She would
not have left her sleep and gone to the dew-wet field before daybreak for
the sake of helping Alston: she would not have taken the risk of falling
behind in her picking, and thus incurring a flogging, by dividing her
gatherings with him. And if she had helped him at all, it would not have
been delicately, as Lizay's help had been given. Edny Ann would have wanted
Alston to know that she had helped him: Little Lizay wished to hide it from
him, both because she feared he would decline her help, and because she
wanted to spare him the humiliation.

When night came not only Alston lingered, picking by moonlight, but Little