Poor little thing!  It was not now that her master could not sell her, but he would not!  Out of her own intelligence she had forged her chains; the lameness was a hobble merely in comparison.  She had become too valuable to the negro-trader by her services among his crew, and offers only solidified his determination not to sell her.  Visiting physicians, after short acquaintance with her capacities, would offer what were called fancy prices for her.  Planters who heard of her through their purchases would come to the city purposely to secure, at any cost, so inestimable an adjunct to their plantations.  Even ladies—­refined, delicate ladies—­sometimes came to the pen personally to back money with influence.  In vain.  Little Mammy was worth more to the negro-trader, simply as a kind of insurance against accidents, than any sum, however glittering the figure, and he was no ignorant expert in human wares.  She can tell it; no one else can for her.  Remember that at times she had seen the streets outside.  Remember that she could hear of the outside world daily from the passing chattels—­of the plantations, farms, families; the green fields, Sunday woods, running streams; the camp-meetings, corn-shuckings, cotton-pickings, sugar-grindings; the baptisms, marriages, funerals, prayer-meetings; the holidays and holy days.  Remember that, whether for liberty or whether for love, passion effloresces in the human being—­no matter when, where, or how—­with every spring’s return.  Remember that she was, even in middle age, young and vigorous.  But no; do not remember anything.  There is no need to heighten the coloring.

It would be tedious to relate, although it was not tedious to hear her relate it, the desperations and hopes of her life then.  Hardly a day passed that she did not see, looking for purchases (rummaging among goods on a counter for bargains), some master whom she could have loved, some mistress whom she could have adored.  Always her favorite mistresses were there—­tall, delicate matrons, who came themselves, with great fatigue, to select kindly-faced women for nurses; languid-looking ladies with smooth hair standing out in wide bandeaux from their heads, and lace shawls dropping from their sloping shoulders, silk dresses carelessly held up in thumb and finger from embroidered petticoats that were spread out like tents over huge hoops which covered whole groups of swarming piccaninnies on the dirty floor; ladies, pale from illnesses that she might have nursed, and over-burdened with children whom she might have reared!  And not a lady of that kind saw her face but wanted her, yearned for her, pleaded for her, coming back secretly to slip silver, and sometimes gold, pieces into her hand, patting her turbaned head, calling her “little Mammy” too, instantly, by inspiration, and making the negro-trader give them, with all sorts of assurances, the refusal of her.  She had no need for the whispered “Buy me, master!”