Clem, for his part, cut the Colonel dead on Main Street one day and never afterwards betrayed to him any consciousness of his existence.  It was said that their final disagreement hinged upon a matter of thirty odd dollars earned by Clem in a Cincinnati restaurant and confided later to the Colonel’s too thorough keeping.

Be as it may, Clem had formed other and more profitable connections.  From a doer of odd jobs of wood-sawing, house-cleaning, and stove-polishing he had risen to the dignity of a market gardener.  A small house and a large garden a block away from my place were now rented by him.  Also he caught fish, snared rabbits, gathered the wild fruits in their seasons, and was janitor of the Methodist church; all this in addition to looking after my own home.  It was not surprising that he had money in the bank.  He worked unceasingly.  The earliest risers in Little Arcady found him already busied, and those abroad latest at night would see or hear him about the little unpainted house in the big garden.

I suspect he had come out into the strange world of the North with large, loose notions that the fortune he needed might be speedily amassed.  Such tales had been told him in his Southland, where he had not learned to question or doubt.  If so, his disappointment was not to be seen in his bearing.  That look of patient endurance may have eaten a little deeper the lines about his inky eyes, but I am sure his purpose had never wavered, nor his faith that he would win at last.

As I ate my breakfast that morning he told me of his good year.  The early produce of his garden had sold well.  Soon there would be half an acre of potatoes to dig, and now there was a fine crop of melons just coming ripe.  These he would begin to sell on the morrow.

At this point, breakfast being done, the cloth brushed, and a light brought for my pipe, Clem came from the kitchen with a new pine board, upon which he had painted a sign with shoe polish.

“Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah,—­Ah beg yo’ t’ see if hit’s raght!” and he held it up to me.  It read:—­

Mellins on Sale Mush & Water Ask Mr. Tuckerman at his House.

I gave the thing a critical survey under his grave regard, then applauded the workmanship and hoped him a prosperous season with the melons.

Then I beguiled him to talk of his land and his “folks,” delighting in his low, soft speech, wherein the vowels languished and the r’s fainted from sheer inertia.

“But, Clem, you are a free man now.  Those people can’t claim your services any longer.”

I knew what he would say, but for the sake of hearing it once more, I had braved his quick look of commiseration for my shallowness of understanding.

“Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah, Ah knows ’bout that theah ’mancipation Procalmashum.  But Ah was a ve’y diffunt matteh.  Yo’-all see Ah was made oveh t’ Miss Cahline pussenly by Ole Mahstah.  Yes, seh, Ah been Miss Catiline’s pussenal propity fo’ a consid’able length of time, eveh sence she was Little Miss.”