FOLKS FROM DIXIE
puttin' yourself on a level with tramps." This with fine scorn.
"Be careful, 'Lizy, be careful; you don't know who a tramp may turn out to be."
"That ol' humbug in there has been tellin' you some big tale, an' you ain't got no more sense 'an to believe it; I 'spect he's crammin' his pockets full of my things now. Ef you don't care, I do."
The woman rose and started toward the door, but her husband stopped her. "You must n't go out there that way," he said. "I want you to go out, you an' the childern; but I want you to go right that man is the son of my ol' master, my young Mas' Tom, as I used to call him."
She fell back suddenly and stared at him with wide-open eyes.
"Your master!"
"Yes, it's young Mas' Tom Hatton."
"An' you want me an' the childern to see him, do you?"
"Why, yes, I thought—"
"Humph! that's the slave in you yet," she interrupted. "I thought thirty years had made you free! Ain't that the man you told me used to knock you 'round so?"
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