HOW JUNE FOUND MASSA LINKUM. 73

was a natural consequence, because there was so much earth
between that you would n’t feel the stick. The only objec-
tion would be leaving Hungry. Hungry was the kitten.
June had named it so because it was black. She had an idea
that everything black was hungry, in the nature of things.

That there had been a war, June had gathered from old
Creline, who told her the ghost stories. What it was all
about she did not know. Madame Joilet said some terrible
giants, called Yankees, were coming down to eat up all the
little black girls in Richmond. Creline said that the Yankees
were the Messiah’s people, and were coming to set the
negroes free. Who the Messiah was June did not know;
but she had heard vague legends from Creline of old-time
African princes, who lived in great free forests, and sailed
on sparkling rivers in boats of painted bark, and she thought
that he must be one of them.

Now, this morning Creline had whispered mysteriously to
June, as she went up the street to sell some eggs for Madame
Joilet, that Massa Linkum was coming that very day. June
knew nothing about Massa Linkum, and nothing about those
grand, immortal words of his which had made every slave in
Richmond free; it had never entered Madame Joilet’s plan
that she should know. No one can tell, reasoned Madame,
what notions the little nigger will get if she finds it out. She
might even ask for wages, or take a notion to learn to read,
or run away, or something. June saw no one; she kept her

prudently jn the house. Tell her? Non, non, impossible !
4