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s HIS MASTER'S SON 0
By Allene Tupper Wilkes
""TYRUS, Tyrus!"
I "Yas, Honey, he-ar I is."
Colonel TenBroek's body servant, Cyrus, turned from the long tan coat he had taken to the back piazza to brush, and grinned down into his little master's upturned face.
"Tyrus, muvver's callin' you.'7 And then, as his little white hand crept into the big black one, "I fink she's cryin', Tyrus."
"Law, chile," Cyrus answered reassuringly. "Don't yo' pester yo' little heed about yo' ma. Cyrus gwine to take keer uv her an' yo' pa, too."
But some of his assurance melted away, as, with little James, he entered the long high-ceilinged parlor. It held now but the ghost of its former splendor. Portraits of long departed TenBroeks stood wrapped and corded against the walls, from which they had so lately looked down with dignity and pride. The graceful lines of the old mahogany furniture was hidden under padding and crating, and everywhere there was an air of change in this room that had known so little change for generations.
Col. TenBroek stood by the window, his arm about his wife, and there, before him, his house servants. Many of the field hands had wandered away during the bitter struggle of the last few years, and still others had left when the war was over, after they found that they were legally free to go. But this faithful group had remained, unwilling to accept any freedom save that which the Colonel willingly gave them. It had been given, however, but almost as much against his will as against their wishes. He realized that many of them were unfitted to go out
into the world unprovided for, and, if it had been possible for him to do so, he would have kept the old home for them.
It was the story, and a sad one, of so many of the big southern planters of the day. There was no money to pay the negroes, no money to enrich the impoverished land, no money even for seed and implements with which to raise new crops.
The plantation and house had been sold, and the Colonel, his wife and little son were to go to Chicago, where friends awaited them. There, far from the scenes of so much joy and sorrow, they were to begin a new life. Something of all of this Cyrus knew, but the real meaning of it came to him for the first time now that he stood in the strange denuded parlor with little James, the Colonel's only son, clinging to his hand.
"You are free," Colonel TenBroek was saying in a little speech to the servants. "I give to you the freedom that has been yours for months, which, as you know, you each could have taken, if you had wished. I appreciate the faithfulness that has made you stay, but the time has come when I can no longer keep you with me — Jinnie, what is the matter with you?" asked the Colonel, turning to his wife's colored maid, who had begun swaying and moaning.
"De Laud hev mercy/' she wailed. "How Mes Emmie gwine dress hussef? What gwine ter become uv ma angel chile?"
"Oh, Jinnie !" cried Mrs. TenBroek, leaning her head on the bosom of the black woman, who had nursed both her and her little son. "It is hard, Mammy Jinnie, but we can't afford to take
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