energetically, at once, perceiving that his leisure was observed.
Wilson inspected the children and asked:
“How old are they, Roxy?”
“Bofe de same age, sir–five months. Bawn de fust o’ Feb’uary.”
“They’re handsome little chaps. One’s just as handsome as the other, too.”
A delighted smile exposed the girl’s white teeth, and she said:
“Bless yo’ soul, Misto Wilson, it’s pow’ful nice o’ you to say dat,
‘ca’se one of ’em ain’t on’y a nigger. Mighty prime little nigger,
_I_ al’ays says, but dat’s ‘ca’se it’s mine, o’ course.”
“How do you tell them apart, Roxy, when they haven’t any clothes on?”
Roxy laughed a laugh proportioned to her size, and said:
“Oh, _I_ kin tell ’em ‘part, Misto Wilson, but I bet Marse Percy
couldn’t, not to save his life.”
Wilson chatted along for awhile, and presently got Roxy’s fingerprints
for his collection–right hand and left–on a couple of his glass strips;
then labeled and dated them, and took the “records” of both children,
and labeled and dated them also.
Two months later, on the third of September, he took this trio of finger
marks again. He liked to have a “series,” two or three “takings”
at intervals during the period of childhood, these to be followed at
intervals of several years.
The next day–that is to say, on the fourth of September–something
occurred which profoundly impressed Roxana. Mr. Driscoll missed another
small sum of money–which is a way of saying that this was not a new thing,
but had happened before. In truth, it had happened three times before.
Driscoll’s patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man toward
slaves and other animals; he was an exceedingly humane man toward the
erring of his own race. Theft he could not abide, and plainly there was
a thief in his house. Necessarily the thief must be one of his Negros.
Sharp measures must be taken. He called his servants before him.
There were three of these, besides Roxy: a man, a woman, and a boy
twelve years old. They were not related. Mr. Driscoll said:
“You have all been warned before. It has done no good. This time I
will teach you a lesson. I will sell the thief. Which of you is
the guilty one?”
They all shuddered at the threat, for here they had a good home,
and a new one was likely to be a change for the worse. The denial
was general. None had stolen anything–not money, anyway–a little sugar,
or cake, or honey, or something like that, that “Marse Percy wouldn’t
mind or miss” but not money–never a cent of money. They were eloquent
in their protestations, but Mr. Driscoll was not moved by them.
He answered each in turn with a stern “Name the thief!”
The truth was, all were guilty but Roxana; she suspected that the others
were guilty, but she did not know them to be so. She was horrified
to think how near she had come to being guilty herself; she had been
saved in the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church,
a fortnight before, at which time and place she “got religion.”
The very next day after that gracious experience, while her change of
style was fresh upon her and she was vain of her purified condition,
her master left a couple dollars unprotected on his desk, and she happened
upon that temptation when she was polishing around with a dustrag.
She looked at the money awhile with a steady rising resentment,
then she burst out with:
“Dad blame dat revival, I wisht it had ‘a’ be’n put off till tomorrow!”
Then she covered the tempter with a book, and another member of the
kitchen cabinet got it. She made this sacrifice as a matter of
religious etiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to
be wrested into a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety,
then she would be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left
out in the cold would find a comforter–and she could name the comforter.
Was she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No.