she WILL do it sometimes. Our cotton's got to be picked by
SOMEBODY, and who's to do it but you lazy negroes?"

In those days the apple tree would be blooming, and the petals
would sift down on Gabriella. Looking up at the marriage bell of
blossoms, and speaking in the language of her grandmother, she
would say:--

"Milly, when I grow up and get married, I am going to be married
out of doors in spring under an apple tree."

"I don' know whah _I_ gwine be married," Milly would say with a
hoarse, careless cackle. "I 'spec' in a brier-patch."

Gabriella's first discovery of what meanness human nature can
exhibit was connected with this garden. So long as everything was
sour and green, she could play there by the hour; but as soon as
anything got ripe and delicious, the gate with the high latch was
shut and she could never enter it unguarded. What tears she shed
outside the fence as she peeped through! When they did take her in,
they always held her by the hand.

"DON'T hold my hand, Sam," pleadingly to the negro gardener. "It's
so HOT!"

"You fall down and hurt yourself."

"How absurd, Sam! The idea of my falling down when I am walking
along slowly!"