He climbed the tallest trees
to get her nuts; waded into the miriest swamps to find her
more brilliant nosegays of flowers than the other girls had;
spent hours to gather rarer birds' eggs than they had,
and was everywhere and always her silent worshipper and faithful champion.
They soon learned that the way to secure his help in anything was to get
Vashti Mills to ask it, and the little girl quickly discovered her power
and used it as remorselessly over her tall slave as any other despot ever did.
They were to be seen any day trailing along the plantation paths
which the school-children took from the district, the others in a clump,
and the tall boy and little calico-clad girl, who seemed in summer
mainly sun-bonnet and bare legs, either following or going before the others
at some distance.
The death of Darby -- of old Darby, as he had begun to be called --
cut off Little Darby from his "schoolin'", in the middle of his third year,
and before he had learned more than to read and cipher a little and to write
in a scrawly fashion; for he had been rather irregular in his attendance
at all times. He now stopped altogether, giving the teacher as his reason,
with characteristic brevity: "Got to work."
Perhaps no one at the school mourned the long-legged boy's departure
except his little friend Vashti, now a well-grown girl of twelve,
very straight and slim and with big dark eyes.
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