“Blamed if I know — that is, what’s become of the raft. That old fool had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but what he’d spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, ‘That little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.'”
“I wouldn’t shake my NIGGER, would I? — the only nigger I had in the world, and the only property.”
“We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we’d come to consider him OUR nigger; yes, we did consider him so — goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there warn’t anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I’ve pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where’s that ten cents? Give it here.”
I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the money I had, and I hadn’t had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:
“Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We’d skin him if he done that!”
“How can he blow? Hain’t he run off?”
“No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money’s gone.”
“SOLD him?” I says, and begun to cry; “why, he was MY nigger, and that was my money. Where is he? — I want my nigger.”
“Well, you can’t GET your nigger, that’s all — so dry up your blubbering. Looky here — do you think YOU’D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I’d trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us –”
He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
“I don’t want to blow on nobody; and I ain’t got no time to blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger.”
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:
“I’ll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you’ll promise you won’t blow, and won’t let the nigger blow, I’ll tell you where to find him.”
So I promised, and he says:
“A farmer by the name of Silas Ph—-” and then he stopped. You see, he started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he was. He wouldn’t trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:
“The man that bought him is named Abram Foster — Abram G. Foster — and he lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette.”
“All right,” I says, “I can walk it in three days. And I’ll start this very afternoon.”
“No you wont, you’ll start NOW; and don’t you lose any time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along, and then you won’t get into trouble with US, d’ye hear?”
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans.
“So clear out,” he says; “and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim IS your nigger — some idiots don’t require documents — leastways I’ve heard there’s such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward’s bogus, maybe he’ll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting ’em out. Go ‘long now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you don’t work your jaw any BETWEEN here and there.”