Puddnhead Wilson | Page 8

had a good home, and a
new one was likely to be a change for the worse. The denial was

general. None had stolen anything--not money, anyway--a little sugar,
or cake, or honey, or something like that, that "Marse Percy wouldn't
mind or miss" but not money--never a cent of money. They were
eloquent in their protestations, but Mr. Driscoll was not moved by them.
He answered each in turn with a stern "Name the thief!"
The truth was, all were guilty but Roxana; she suspected that the others
were guilty, but she did not know them to be so. She was horrified to
think how near she had come to being guilty herself; she had been
saved in the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church,
a fortnight before, at which time and place she "got religion." The very
next day after that gracious experience, while her change of style was
fresh upon her and she was vain of her purified condition, her master
left a couple dollars unprotected on his desk, and she happened upon
that temptation when she was polishing around with a dustrag. She
looked at the money awhile with a steady rising resentment, then she
burst out with:
"Dad blame dat revival, I wisht it had 'a' be'n put off till tomorrow!"
Then she covered the tempter with a book, and another member of the
kitchen cabinet got it. She made this sacrifice as a matter of religious
etiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be wrested
into a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety, then she
would be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left out in the
cold would find a comforter--and she could name the comforter.
Was she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No.
They had an unfair show in the battle of life, and they held it no sin to
take military advantage of the enemy--in a small way; in a small way,
but not in a large one. They would smouch provisions from the pantry
whenever they got a chance; or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an
emery bag, or a paper of needles, or a silver spoon, or a dollar bill, or
small articles of clothing, or any other property of light value; and so
far were they from considering such reprisals sinful, that they would go
to church and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their
plunder in their pockets. A farm smokehouse had to be kept heavily
padlocked, or even the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham

when Providence showed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a
thing hung lonesome, and longed for someone to love. But with a
hundred hanging before him, the deacon would not take two--that is, on
the same night. On frosty nights the humane Negro prowler would
warm the end of the plank and put it up under the cold claws of
chickens roosting in a tree; a drowsy hen would step on to the
comfortable board, softly clucking her gratitude, and the prowler would
dump her into his bag, and later into his stomach, perfectly sure that in
taking this trifle from the man who daily robbed him of an inestimable
treasure--his liberty--he was not committing any sin that God would
remember against him in the Last Great Day.
"Name the thief!"
For the fourth time Mr. Driscoll had said it, and always in the same
hard tone. And now he added these words of awful import:
"I give you one minute." He took out his watch. "If at the end of that
time, you have not confessed, I will not only sell all four of you,
BUT--I will sell you DOWN THE RIVER!"
It was equivalent to condemning them to hell! No Missouri Negro
doubted this. Roxy reeled in her tracks, and the color vanished out of
her face; the others dropped to their knees as if they had been shot;
tears gushed from their eyes, their supplicating hands went up, and
three answers came in the one instant.
"I done it!"
"I done it!"
"I done it!--have mercy, marster--Lord have mercy on us po' niggers!"
"Very good," said the master, putting up his watch, "I will sell you here
though you don't deserve it. You ought to be sold down the river."
The culprits flung themselves prone, in an ecstasy of gratitude, and
kissed his feet, declaring that they would never forget his goodness and

never cease to pray for him as long as they lived. They were sincere,
for like a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the
gates of hell against them. He