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440 UNCLE TOM'S CABIN- OR
compared with the grinders, and the weary and feeble ones were driven back by the strong, and came on last in their turn.
" Ho yo ! " said Sambo, coming to the mulatto woman, and throwing down a bag of corn before her; " what a cuss yo' name ? "
" Lucy," said the woman.
"Wal, Lucy, yo' my woman now. _, Yo' grind dis yer corn, and get my supper baked, ye har ? "
" I an't your woman, and I won't be ! " said the woman, with the sharp, sudden courage of despair; "you go 'long! "
" I'll kick yo', then! " said Sambo, raising his foot threateningly.
" Ye may kill me, if ye choose, — the sooner the better! Wish 't I was dead ! " said she.
" I say, Sambo, you go to spilin the hands, I '11 tell Mas'r o' you," said Quimbo, who was busy at the mill, from which he had viciously driven two or three tired women, who were waiting to grind their corn.
" And I '11 tell him ye won't let the women come to the mills, yo' old nigger! " said Sambo. " Yo' jes keep to yor own row."
Tom was hungry with his day's journey, and almost faint for want of food.
"Thar, yo'! " said Quimbo, throwing down a coarse bag, which contained a peck of corn; " thar, nigger, grab, take car' on 't, — yo' won't get no more, dis yer week."
Tom waited till a late hour, to get a place at the mills ,* and then, moved by the utter weariness of two women, whom he saw trying to grind their corn there, he ground for them, put together the decaying brands of the fire where many had baked cakes before them, and then went about getting his own supper. It was a new kind of work there, — a deed of charity, small as it was; but it woke an answering touch in their hearts, — an expression of womanly kindness came over thmr hard faces ; they mixed |
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