The Moving Finger by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

THE dining-room at Thornedale Lodge looked particularly cozy in the soft lamplight, and old black Cato, surveying the room, could not repress a smile of subdued gratification. He considered himself "one ob de fam'ly," and it was doubtful if even Beverly Thorne had as great an affection for his ancestral home as did the old man who in his youth had been a slave on the Thorne plantation. Year in and year out he had worked on the place, being advanced from field hand to house servant in the early days following the Civil War, and when the fortunes of the Thornes were at the lowest ebb he had worked without wages so as to help "Old Miss" educate her boy, Beverly, and keep the homestead from going under the hammer. Illiterate, kindly, faithful, Cato epitomized the spirit of the old-style darky, to whose watchful care Southern men had not feared to leave their wives and children when they went to fight with Robert Lee.

Cato had been true to every trust reposed in him. In his humble hands Mrs. Thorne had left the farming of the few acres still remaining to the once large estate, and but for his "truck garden" she would have gone without many necessities. And when Mrs. Thorne grew older and more feeble, Cato, when crops were bad, did not hesitate to do odd "chores" for neighboring farmers, receiving in return poultry or fresh vegetables which would be served to Mrs. Thorne as only Cato knew how to cook them. But even these delicacies could not prolong Mrs. Thorne's feeble hold on life, and Cato, bottling up his own sorrow, turned to his "young marster" with the same blind devotion which had characterized his affection for Colonel and Mrs. Thorne.