“‘Missis,’ says I, ‘I’ll have my son back agin!’

“She laughed.

“‘You will, you nigger?  How you goin’ to do it?  You ha’n’t got no money.’

“‘No, Missis,—­but God has,—­an’ you’ll see He’ll help me!’—­an’ I turned round an’ went out.

“Oh, but I was angry to have her speak to me so haughty an’ so scornful, as ef my chile wasn’t worth anything.  I said to God, ’O Lord, render unto her double!’ It was a dreadful prayer, an’ I didn’t know how true it would come.

“Well, I didn’t rightly know which way to turn; but I went to the Lord, an’ I said to Him, ‘O Lord, ef I was as rich as you be, an’ you was as poor as I be, I’d help you,—­you know I would; and, oh, do help me!’ An’ I felt sure then that He would.

“Well, I talked with people, an’ they said I must git the case before a grand jury.  So I went into the town when they was holdin’ a court, to see ef I could find any grand jury.  An’ I stood round the court-house, an’ when they was a-comin’ out, I walked right up to the grandest-lookin’ one I could see, an’ says I to him,—­

“‘Sir, be you a grand jury?’

“An’ then he wanted to know why I asked, an’ I told him all about it; an’ he asked me all sorts of questions, an’ finally he says to me,—­

“’I think, ef you pay me ten dollars, that I’d agree to git your son for you.’  An’ says he, pointin’ to a house over the way, ’You go ‘long an’ tell your story to the folks in that house, an’ I guess they’ll give you the money.’

“Well, I went, an’ I told them, an’ they gave me twenty dollars; an’ then I thought to myself, ’Ef ten dollars will git him, twenty dollars will git him sartin.’  So I carried it to the man all out, an’ said,—­

“‘Take it all,—­only be sure an’ git him’

“Well, finally they got the boy brought back; an’ then they tried to frighten him, an’ to make him say that I wasn’t his mammy, an’ that he didn’t know me; but they couldn’t make it out.  They gave him to me, an’ I took him an’ carried him home; an’ when I came to take off his clothes, there was his poor little back all covered with scars an’ hard lumps, where they’d flogged him.

“Well, you see, honey, I told you how I prayed the Lord to render unto her double.  Well, it came true; for I was up at ole missis’ house not long after, an’ I heerd ’em readin’ a letter to her how her daughter’s husband had murdered her,—­how he’d thrown her down an’ stamped the life out of her, when he was in liquor; an’ my ole missis, she giv a screech, an’ fell flat on the floor.  Then says I, ’O Lord, I didn’t mean all that!  You took me up too quick.’

“Well, I went in an’ tended that poor critter all night.  She was out of her mind,—­a-cryin’, an’ callin’ for her daughter; an’ I held her poor ole head on my arm, an’ watched for her as ef she ‘d been my babby.  An’ I watched by her, an’ took care on her all through her sickness after that, an’ she died in my arms, poor thing!”