"Don't you
want it?"
The mother squeezed his little hand:
"When you're a man will you build your mother one?"
He looked into her eyes a moment, caught the pensive longing and
answered:
"Yes. I will."
She stooped and kissed the firm mouth and was about to lead him into the
large work-room where the women were gathering around the quilts
stretched on their frames, when a negro slave suddenly appeared to take
her horse to the stable. He was fat, jolly and coal black. His yellow
teeth gleamed in their blue gums with a jovial welcome.
The Boy stood rooted to the spot and watched until the negro
disappeared. It was the first black man he had ever seen. He had heard
of negroes and that they were slaves. But he had no idea that one human
being could be so different from another.
In breathless awe he asked:
"Is he folks?"
"Of course, Boy," his mother answered, smiling.
"What made him so black?"
"The sun in Africa."
"What made his nose so flat and his lips so thick?"
"He was born that way."
"What made him come here?"
"He didn't. The slave traders put him in chains and brought him across
the sea and sold him into slavery."
The little body suddenly stiffened:
"Why didn't he kill 'em?"
"He didn't know how to defend himself."
"Why don't he run away?"
"He hasn't sense enough, I reckon.
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