Was she bad?  Was she worse than the general run of her race?  No.  They had an unfair show in the battle of life, and they held it no sin to take military advantage of the enemy—­in a small way; in a small way, but not in a large one.  They would smouch provisions from the pantry whenever they got a chance; or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an emery bag, or a paper of needles, or a silver spoon, or a dollar bill, or small articles of clothing, or any other property of light value; and so far were they from considering such reprisals sinful, that they would go to church and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their plunder in their pockets.  A farm smokehouse had to be kept heavily padlocked, or even the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham when Providence showed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a thing hung lonesome, and longed for someone to love.  But with a hundred hanging before him, the deacon would not take two—­that is, on the same night.  On frosty nights the humane Negro prowler would warm the end of the plank and put it up under the cold claws of chickens roosting in a tree; a drowsy hen would step on to the comfortable board, softly clucking her gratitude, and the prowler would dump her into his bag, and later into his stomach, perfectly sure that in taking this trifle from the man who daily robbed him of an inestimable treasure—­his liberty—­he was not committing any sin that God would remember against him in the Last Great Day.

“Name the thief!”

For the fourth time Mr. Driscoll had said it, and always in the same hard tone.  And now he added these words of awful import: 

“I give you one minute.”  He took out his watch.  “If at the end of that time, you have not confessed, I will not only sell all four of you, but—­I will sell you down the river!”

It was equivalent to condemning them to hell!  No Missouri Negro doubted this.  Roxy reeled in her tracks, and the color vanished out of her face; the others dropped to their knees as if they had been shot; tears gushed from their eyes, their supplicating hands went up, and three answers came in the one instant.

“I done it!”

“I done it!”

“I done it!—­have mercy, marster—­Lord have mercy on us po’ niggers!”

“Very good,” said the master, putting up his watch, “I will sell you here though you don’t deserve it.  You ought to be sold down the river.”

The culprits flung themselves prone, in an ecstasy of gratitude, and kissed his feet, declaring that they would never forget his goodness and never cease to pray for him as long as they lived.  They were sincere, for like a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of hell against them.  He knew, himself, that he had done a noble and gracious thing, and was privately well pleased with his magnanimity; and that night he set the incident down in his diary, so that his son might read it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds of gentleness and humanity himself.