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’lievin’ 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 had 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.
“Ain’t you ever gwine to he’p me, Marse Tom?”
“No! Now go away and don’t bother me any more.”
Roxy’s head was down, in an attitude of humility. But now the fires of her old wrongs flamed up in her breast and began to burn fiercely. She raised her head slowly, till it was well up, and at the same time her great frame unconsciously assumed an erect and masterful attitude, with all the majesty and grace of her vanished youth in it. She raised her finger and punctuated with it:
“You has said de word. You has had yo’ chance, en you has trompled it under yo’ foot. When you git another one, you’ll git down on yo’ knees en beg for it!”
A cold chill went to Tom’s heart, he didn’t know why; for he did not reflect that such words, from such an incongruous source, and so solemnly delivered, could not easily fail of that effect. However, he did the natural thing: he replied with bluster and mockery:
“You’ll give me a chance—you! Perhaps I’d better get down on my knees now! But in case I don’t—just for argument’s sake—what’s going to happen, pray?”
“Dis is what is gwine to happen. I’s gwine as straight to yo’ uncle as I kin walk, en tell him every las’ thing I knows ’bout you.”
Tom’s cheek blenched, and she saw it. Disturbing thoughts began to chase each other through his head. “How can she know? And yet she must have found out—she looks it. I’ve had the will back only three months, and am already deep in debt again, and moving heaven and earth to save myself from exposure and destruction, with a reasonably fair show of getting the thing covered up if I’m let alone, and now this fiend has gone and found me out somehow or other. I wonder how much she knows? Oh, oh, oh, it’s enough to break a body’s heart! But I’ve got to humor her—there’s no other way.”
Then he worked up a rather sickly sample of a gay laugh and a hollow chipperness of manner, and said:
“Well, well, Roxy dear, old friends like you and me mustn’t quarrel. Here’s your dollar—now tell me what you know.”
He held out the wildcat bill; she stood as she was, and made no movement. It was her turn to scorn persuasive foolery, now, and she did not waste it. She said, with a grim implacability in voice and manner which made Tom almost realize that even a former slave can remember for ten minutes insults and injuries returned for compliments and flatteries received, and can also enjoy taking revenge for them when the opportunity offers:
“What does I know? I’ll tell you what I knows. I knows enough to bu’st dat will to flinders—en more, mind you, more!”
Tom was aghast.
“More?” he said. “What do you call more? Where’s there any room for more?”
Roxy laughed a mocking laugh, and said scoffingly, with a toss of her head, and her hands on her hips—
“Yes!—oh, I reckon! Co’se you’d like to know—wid yo’ po’ little ole rag dollah. What you reckon I’s gwine to tell you for?—you ain’t got no money. I’s gwine to tell yo’ uncle—en I’ll do it dis minute, too—he’ll gimme five dollahs for de news, en mighty glad, too.”
She swung herself around disdainfully, and started away. Tom was in a panic. He seized her skirts, and implored her to wait. She turned and said, loftily—
“Look-a-heah, what ’uz it I tole you?”
“You—you—I don’t remember anything. What was it you told me?”
“I tole you dat de next time I give you a chance you’d git down on yo’ knees en beg for it.”
Tom was stupefied for a moment. He was panting with excitement. Then he said:
“Oh, Roxy, you wouldn’t require your young master to do such a horrible thing. You can’t mean it.”
“I’ll let you know mighty quick whether I means it or not! You call me names, en as good as spit on me when I comes here po’ en ornery en ’umble, to praise you for bein’ growed up so fine en handsome, en tell you how I used to nuss you en tend you en watch you when you ’uz sick en hadn’t no mother but me in de whole worl’, en beg you to give de po’ ole nigger a dollah for to git her som’n’ to eat, en you call me names—names, dad blame you! Yassir, I gives you jes one chance mo’, and dat’s now, en it las’ on’y a half a second—you hear?”
Tom slumped to his knees and began to beg, saying—
“You see, I’m begging, and it’s honest begging, too! Now tell me, Roxy, tell me.”
The heir of two centuries of unatoned insult and outrage looked down on him and seemed to drink in deep draughts of satisfaction. Then she said—
“Fine nice young white gen’l’man kneelin’ down to a nigger-wench! I’s wanted to see dat jes once befo’ I’s
