finished my lesson, without knowing anything about the scolding he had had, I went out into the garden, where Horace was working, and asked him[18] to fasten a wheel on my little wagon, and help me to gear up my dog, Branch, to it.

[18]

"No! go 'long—I'se busy!" said he, without looking at me, and puffing out his great lips. Then he added, in a muttering way, to himself, "Nebber did see sich a bother as dese yer boys is!"

I was rather a passionate boy, and this roused me at once. I said something saucy back to him; then he said something else; then I said something in return, ending by calling him "an old nigger," and went back to the house.

Nothing could have offended Horace more than that "old nigger," which had slipped off my tongue in the heat of my passion, and for which I was heartily sorry a moment after—for, like a great many other negroes I have known, although he frequently called himself so, he would suffer no one else to.

All day long he did not speak to me, nor look at me, though I made a pretence of[19] having several errands to the garden and went right by him—and at night I went to bed quite unhappy about it.

[19]

The next morning, I moped about the house, and tried to amuse myself with my humming-top, but it would not spin to suit me, and I threw it aside pettishly and went down to the kitchen, to ask old Wangie, the cook, to tell me a story, while she washed the breakfast things.

I found Wangie and Horace, with the other servants, still at their breakfast; so, without saying anything, I went up to the window and began to blow my breath against the glass, and make figures on it with my fingers. Once I turned my head, and found Horace looking at me with an earnest, wistful look that seemed to say, "I am ready to make up;" but I was proud, and could not bring myself to say anything—though a little soundless voice down in my heart kept urging me to, and though I knew I had been[20] most in fault—until just as Horace was getting up from the table, when the little voice overcame my pride, and, tilting one of the loose flag-stones of the floor up and down with my foot, I said, without looking at him,

[20]

"Horace, I ain't mad at you, if you ain't mad at me." When I had got thus far I felt so much better that I looked up frankly into his face, and added, "And I am sorry I called you what I did."

 Prev. P 6/53 next