Phoebus took the chain in his short, powerful arms, and, giving a
little run from the root of the tree, threw all the strength of his
compact, heavy body into a jerk, and let his weight fall upon it, but
did not produce the slightest impression.
"There's jess two people can unfasten this chain," exclaimed Jimmy,
blowing hard and kneading his palms, after two such exertions, "one of
em's a blacksmith and t'other's a woodchopper. Gal, how did you git
yer?"
The woman, a young and once comely person of about twenty-eight years of
age, sang on a moment as if she did not understand the question, till
Phoebus repeated it with a kinder tone:
"Pore, abused creatur, tell me as your friend! I ain't none of these
kidnappers. Git your pore, scattered wits together an tell a friend of
all women an' little childern how he kin help you, fur time's worth a
dollar a second, an' bloody vultures are nigh by. Speak, Mary!"
The universal name seemed timely to this woman; she stopped her chanting
and burst into tears.
"My husband brought me here," she said, between her long sobs. "He sold
me. I give him everything I had and loved him, too, and he sold me--me
and my baby."
"I reckon you don't belong fur down this way, Mary? You don't talk like
it."
"No, sir; I belong to Philadelphia. I was a free woman and a widow; my
husband left me a little money and a little house and this child;
another man come and courted me, a han'some mulatto man, almost as white
as you.
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