“Hole on marster! hole on!” she cried in a tone of humorous entreaty.  “Don’ knock ’im off till I come!  Gim me a bid at ’im!”

The sheriff paused and smiled.  The crowd made way tumultuously, with broad laughter and comment.

“Stan’ aside theah an’ let Aun’ Charlotte in!”

“Now you’ll see biddin’!”

“Get out of the way foh Aun’ Charlotte!”

“Up, my free niggah!  Hurrah foh Kentucky.”

A moment more and she stood inside the ring of spectators, her basket on the pavement at her feet, her hands plumped akimbo into her fathomless sides, her head up, and her soft, motherly eyes turned eagerly upon the sheriff.  Of the crowd she seemed unconscious, and on the vagrant before her she had not cast a single glance.

She was dressed with perfect neatness.  A red and yellow Madras kerchief was bound about her head in a high coil, and another over the bosom of her stiffly starched and smoothly ironed blue cottonade dress.  Rivulets of perspiration ran down over her nose, her temples, and around her ears, and disappeared mysteriously in the creases of her brown neck.  A single drop accidentally hung glistening like a diamond on the circlet of one of her large brass earrings.

The sheriff looked at her a moment, smiling but a little disconcerted.  The spectacle was unprecedented.

“What do you want heah, Aun’ Charlotte?” he asked kindly.  “You can’t sell yo’ pies an’ gingerbread heah.”

“I don’ wan’ sell no pies en gingerbread,” she replied, contemptuously.  “I wan’ bid on him,” and she nodded sidewise at the vagrant.  “White folks allers sellin’ niggahs to wuk fuh dem; I gwine to buy a white man to wuk fuh me.  En he gwine t’ git a mighty hard mistiss, you heah me!”

The eyes of the sheriff twinkled with delight.

“Ten dollahs is offahed foh ole King Sol’mon.  Is theah any othah bid.  Are you all done?”

“Leben,” she said.

Two young ragamuffins crawled among the legs of the crowd up to her basket and filched pies and cake beneath her very nose.

“Twelve!” cried the student, laughing.

“Thirteen!” she laughed, too, but her eyes flashed.

“You are bidding against a niggah” whispered the student’s companion in his ear.

“So I am; let’s be off,” answered the other, with a hot flush on his proud face.

Thus the sale was ended, and the crowd variously dispersed.  In a distant corner of the courtyard the ragged urchins were devouring their unexpected booty.  The old negress drew a red handkerchief out of her bosom, untied a knot in a corner of it, and counted out the money to the sheriff.  Only she and the vagrant were now left on the spot.

“You have bought me.  What do you want me to do?” he asked quietly.

“Lohd, honey!” she answered, in a low tone of affectionate chiding, “I don’ wan’ you to do no thin’!  I wuzn’ gwine t’ ’low dem white folks to buy you.  Dey’d wuk you till you dropped dead.  You go ’long en do ez you please.”