CHAPTER IX.

SARAH'S STORY.

NIMPO did not forget Sarah's promise of a story, I can tell you, for her stories were wonderful things. To be sure, they were apt to be a little of the startling order, and generally ended with scaring her listeners half out of their wits, but that only made them more delightfully exciting. Nimpo and Rush had spent many an evening in the kitchen at home, listening to her storytelling.

So a few days after the party, Rush, with Nimpo and Anna (who were good friends again), started off through the woods for Mrs. Johnson's.

After telling about the party, except the trouble with Anna, which she could not tell before her, they claimed the promised reward.

The Johnson children getting a hint of the

treat, began to crowd around, and Sarah began: "Now, all you young uns must sit 'mazin' still if I'm gwine to tell a story."

Nimpo and Anna were already occupying the only spare chairs. Rush sat on the wood-box, and the biggest Johnson girl on a keg, while the rest of the children squatted around on the floor, making a close semicircle about Sarah.

Sarah's virtue as a story-teller was in her face and manner. She was very black, with large rolling eyes, a very long face, a monstrous mouth, great white teeth, and long thin hands, which had an uncanny white look on the inside, as though the color were coming off.

Perhaps you don't think hands have much to do with story-telling, but they had with Sarah's, I can tell you.

Quieting her audience with threats of "claring 'em all out the house," she began in a low, sol

emn voice:

"Onct upon a time, way down in Ole Kentuck', there lived a MAN! He was a-w-f-u-l rich, and had heaps an' heaps o' nice things in his dark

cellar. Bottles an' bottles o' wine, bar'ls an' bar'ls o' cider, an' lots an' lots o' hams, bar'ls an' bar'ls o' bacon, an' bins an' bins o' apples, an' jars an' jars o' sweetmeats, an' boxes an' boxes o' raisins, an' O! piles o' good things to eat, in that dark cellar."

Sarah paused to see the effect. Rush smacked his lips, and the eyes of the whole Johnson family rolled in ecstasy at the delightful picture.

"But he was a-w-f-u-l stingy! Not a speck of all these yer goodies would he guv to a-n-y body. Lor'! he al'us kep' the key in his own pocket, an' if he wanted ham for dinner, he went down in that yer d-a-r-k cellar, an' cut a slice, nuff fur hisself. An' if he wanted wine, he jes went down an' fotched a bottle, an' al'us locked the do' arter him, an' n-e-v-e-r guv Sam the fustest speck!"

if

"Who's dat ar?" asked one of the children.

"You shet up! I'll crack ye over the head, ye don't stop cuttin' up sich shines!" Sarah replied.

The interrupter shrunk behind his mother, and felt snubbed.

"Well, now," Sarah went on, rolling her eyes, "that ar Sam was a po' nigga,—the only nigga the stingy man had; an' he was that stingy he never half fed him no way. He guv him a little corn-meal fur hoe cakes, an' onct in a g-r-e-a-t while a leetle teeny bit uv a thin slice o' bacon. So Sam got thinner an' thinner, till he was near a shadder, an' his fingers were l-o-n-g and b-o-n-y."

And Sarah held up hers and clawed them in the air, till the children could almost see Sam and his bony hands.

"Well, one day this bad man had to go 'way off to the big city, an' he hadn't got nobody to leave in the house but jes Sam. So he done measured out jes so much corn-meal, an' he said: 'Now, Sam, I shall be gone away three days, an' that'll have to last ye till I get back. I'll warrant ye'd like to jes eat it every scrap the fust day, an' ax fur mo',-it's jes like ye, but not a scrap do get till I come back, fur I've locked every thing up. An' if I find any thing out o' order when

you

I come back, I'll,-I'll,-wallop you; see if I don't!!'

"With that ar d-r-e-f-f-u-l threat, the cruel mah'sr went off, an' left Sam all alone. Well, Sam went to clarin' up the house, an' when he went to hang up his mah'sr's every-day cloze,— fur in course he wore his Sunday ones to go to town,—he hars somethin' hit agin the wall, an' he thought to hisself: 'I'll see what that ar is. Mebby mah'sr's done leff a penny in his pocket. Oh, golly! won't I buy a bun!' An' he put his hand in the pocket, an' what do you s'pose he found?

"THE CELLAR KEY!!!"

Sarah, looking wildly at her listeners, said these thrilling words in an awful whisper, with a roll of the eyes and a dropping of the jaw, that made it still more horrible.

"Oh, Lor'! here's the key!' said Sam to hisself; 'what s-h-a-l-l I do?' An' then he thought awhile. But, sakes! chillen, 'pears like the Debil