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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour
+Sketches, by Ruth McEnery Stuart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches
+
+Author: Ruth McEnery Stuart
+
+Release Date: January 24, 2007 [EBook #20438]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORIAH'S MOURNING AND OTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: "'THANK THE LORD! _NOW I CAN SEE TO LOOK FOR 'EM!_'"]
+
+
+
+MORIAH'S MOURNING
+
+and Other Half-Hour Sketches
+
+
+
+By RUTH MCENERY STUART
+
+_Author of "In Simpkinsville"
+"A Golden Wedding" etc._
+
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+LONDON AND NEW YORK
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+1898
+
+
+Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers.
+_All rights reserved._
+
+_Printed in New York, U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+MORIAH'S MOURNING                                                   3
+
+AN OPTICAL DILEMMA                                                 19
+
+THE SECOND MRS. SLIMM                                              37
+
+APOLLO BELVEDERE. A CHRISTMAS EPISODE OF THE PLANTATION            53
+
+NEAREST OF KIN (ON THE PLANTATION)                                 71
+
+THE DEACON'S MEDICINE                                              93
+
+TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE                                          113
+
+THE REV. JORDAN WHITE'S THREE GLANCES                             131
+
+LADY. A MONOLOGUE OF THE COW-PEN                                  157
+
+A PULPIT ORATOR                                                   165
+
+AN EASTER SYMBOL. A MONOLOGUE OF THE PLANTATION                   175
+
+CHRISTMAS AT THE TRIMBLES'                                        181
+
+A MINOR CHORD                                                     211
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"'THANK THE LORD! _NOW I CAN SEE TO LOOK FOR
+'EM!_'"                                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+"A SURPRISED AND SMILING MAN WAS SITTING AT HER
+POLISHED KITCHEN TABLE"                         _Facing p._         8
+
+"'I'M AC-CHILLY MOST AFEERD _TO_ SEE
+YOU CONVERTED'"                                     "              40
+
+"'I PROMISED HIM I'D PUT ON MO'NIN' FOR HER
+SOON AS I MARRIED INTO DE FAMILY'"                  "              74
+
+"SAYS SHE, 'OPEN YORE MOUTH!' AN' OF CO'SE
+I OPENED IT"                                        "              98
+
+"I DES LETS 'EM LOOSE P'OMISKYUS, TELL
+EV'YBODY SEE BLUE LIGHTNIN'"                        "             134
+
+"SALVATION'S KYAR IS MOVIN'!"                       "             148
+
+"'WON'T YER, PLEASE, SIR, SPELL DAT WORD
+OUT FUR ME SLOW?'"                                  "             168
+
+
+
+
+MORIAH'S MOURNING
+
+
+Moriah was a widow of a month, and when she announced her intention of
+marrying again, the plantation held its breath. Then it roared with
+laughter.
+
+Not because of the short period of her mourning was the news so
+incredible. But by a most exceptional mourning Moriah had put herself
+upon record as the most inconsolable of widows.
+
+So prompt a readjustment of life under similar conditions was by no
+means unprecedented in colored circles.
+
+The rules governing the wearing of the mourning garb are by no means
+stringent in plantation communities, and the widow who for reasons of
+economy or convenience sees fit to wear out her colored garments during
+her working hours is not held to account for so doing if she appear at
+all public functions clad in such weeds as she may find available. It is
+not even needful, indeed, that her supreme effort should attain any
+definite standard. Anybody can collect a few black things, and there is
+often an added pathos in the very incongruity of some of the mourning
+toilettes that pass up the aisles of the colored churches.
+
+Was not the soul of artlessness expressed in the first mourning of a
+certain young widow, for instance, who sewed upon her blue gown all the
+black trimming she could collect, declaring that she "would 'a' dyed de
+frock th'oo an' th'oo 'cep'n' it would 'a' swunked it up too much"? And
+perhaps her sympathetic companions were quite as _naïve_ as she, for,
+as they aided her in these first hasty stitches, they poured upon her
+wounded spirit the healing oil of full and sympathetic approval, as the
+following remarks will testify.
+
+"Dat frock mo'ns all right, now de black bows is on it."
+
+"You kin put any colored frock in mo'nin' 'cep'n' a red one. Sew black
+on red, an' it laughs in yo' face."
+
+"I'm a-sewin' de black fringe on de josey, Sis Jones, 'case fringe hit
+mo'ns a heap mo'nfuler 'n ribbon do."
+
+Needless to say, a license so full and free as this found fine
+expression in a field of flowering weeds quite rare and beautiful to
+see.
+
+Moriah had proven herself in many ways an exceptional person even before
+the occasion of her bereavement, and in this, contrary to all precedent,
+she had rashly cast her every garment into the dye-pot, sparing not even
+so much as her underwear.
+
+Moriah was herself as black as a total eclipse, tall, angular, and
+imposing, and as she strode down the road, clad in the sombre vestments
+of sorrow, she was so noble an expression of her own idea that as a
+simple embodiment of dignified surrender to grief she commanded respect.
+
+The plantation folk were profoundly impressed, for it had soon become
+known that her black garb was not merely a thing of the surface.
+
+"Moriah sho' does mo'n for Numa. She mo'ns f'om de skin out." Such was
+popular comment, although it is said that one practical sister, to whom
+this "inward mo'nin'" had little meaning, ventured so far as to protest
+against it.
+
+"Sis Moriah," she said, timidly, as she sat waiting while Moriah
+dressed for church--"Sis Moriah, look ter me like you'd be 'feerd dem
+black shimmies 'd draw out some sort o' tetter on yo' skin," to which
+bit of friendly warning Moriah had responded, with a groan, and in a
+voice that was almost sepulchral in its awful solemnity, "_When I mo'n
+I mo'n!_"
+
+Perhaps an idea of the unusual presence of this great black woman may be
+conveyed by the fact that when she said, as she was wont to do in
+speaking of her own name, "I'm named Moriah--after a Bible mountain,"
+there seemed a sort of fitness in the name and in the juxtaposition
+neither the sacred eminence or the woman suffered a loss of dignity.
+
+And this woman it was who, after eight years of respectable wifehood and
+but four weeks of mourning her lost mate, calmly announced that she was
+to be married again.
+
+The man of her choice--I use the expression advisedly--was a neighbor
+whom she had always known, a widower whose bereavement was of three
+months' longer standing than her own.
+
+The courtship must have been brief and to the point, for it was
+positively known that he and his _fiancée_ had met but three times
+in the interval when the banns were published.
+
+He had been engaged to whitewash the kitchen in which she had pursued
+her vocation as cook for the writer's family.
+
+The whitewashing was done in a single morning, but a second coating was
+found necessary, and it is said by one of her fellow-servants, who
+professes to have overheard the remark, that while Pete was putting the
+finishing-touches to the bit of chimney back of her stove, Moriah, who
+stooped at the oven door beside him, basting a roast turkey, lifted up
+her stately head and said, archly, breaking her mourning record for the
+first time by a gleaming display of ivory and coral as she spoke,
+
+"Who'd 'a' thought you'd come into my kitchen to do yo' _secon'
+co'tin'_, Pete?"
+
+At which, so says our informant, the whitewash brush fell from the
+delighted artisan's hands, and in a shorter time than is consumed in the
+telling, a surprised and smiling man was sitting at her polished kitchen
+table chatting cosily with his mourning hostess, while she served him
+with giblets and gravy and rice and potatoes "an' coffee b'iled
+expressly."
+
+  [Illustration: "A SURPRISED AND SMILING MAN WAS SITTING AT HER
+  POLISHED KITCHEN TABLE"]
+
+It was discovered that the kitchen walls needed a third coating. This
+took an entire day, "because," so said Pete, "de third coat, hit takes
+mo' time to soak in."
+
+And then came the announcement. Moriah herself, apparently in nowise
+embarrassed by its burden, bore the news to us on the following morning.
+There was no visible change of front in her bearing as she presented
+herself--no abatement of her mourning.
+
+"Mis' Gladys," she said, simply, "I come ter give you notice dat I gwine
+take fo' days off, startin' nex' Sunday."
+
+"I hope you are not in any new trouble, Moriah?" I said,
+sympathetically.
+
+"Well, I don' know ef I is or not. Me an' Pete Pointdexter, we done
+talked it over, an' we come ter de conclusion ter marry."
+
+I turned and looked at the woman--at her black garments, her still
+serious expression. Surely my hearing was playing me false. But catching
+my unspoken protest, she had already begun to explain.
+
+"Dey ain't no onrespec' ter de dead, Mis' Gladys, in _marryin'_,"
+she began. "De onrespec' is in de _carryin's on_ folks does _when_
+dey marry. Pete an' me, we 'low ter have eve'ything quiet an'
+solemncholy--an' pay all due respects--right an' left. Of co'se Pete's
+chillen stands up fur dey mammy, an' dey don't take no stock in him
+ma'yin' ag'in. But Ca'line she been dead _long enough_--mos' six
+mont's--countin' fo' weeks ter de mont'. An' as fur me, I done 'ranged
+ter have eve'ything did ter show respec's ter Numa." (Numa was her
+deceased husband.) "De organ-player he gwine march us in chu'ch by de
+same march he played fur Numa's fun'al, an' look like dat in itse'f is
+enough ter show de world dat I ain't forgot Numa. An', tell de trufe,
+Mis' Gladys, ef Numa was ter rise up f'om his grave, I'd sen' Pete
+a-flyin' so fast you could sen' eggs to market on his coat tail.
+
+"You see, de trouble is I done had my eye on Pete's chillen ever sence
+dey mammy died, an' ef dey ever was a set o' onery, low-down, sassy,
+no-'count little niggers dat need takin' in hand by a able-bodied
+step-mammy, dey a-waitin' fur me right yonder in Pete's cabin. My hand
+has des nachelly itched to take aholt o' dat crowd many a day--an' ever
+sence I buried Numa of co'se I see de way was open. An' des as soon
+as I felt like I could bring myse'f to it, I--well--Dey warn't no
+use losin' time, an' so I _tol' you, missy, dat de kitchen need'
+white-washin'_."
+
+"And so you sent for him--and proposed to him, did you?"
+
+"P'opose to who, Mis' Gladys? I'd see Pete in de sinkin' swamp 'fo' I'd
+p'opose to him!"
+
+"Then how did you manage it, pray?"
+
+"G'way, Mis' Gladys! Any wide-awake widder 'oman dat kin get a widder
+man whar he can't he'p but see her move round at her work for two days
+hand-runnin', an' can't mesmerize him so's he'll ax her to marry
+him--Um--hm! I'd ondertake ter do dat, even ef I warn't no cook; but wid
+seasonin's an' flavors to he'p me--Law, chile! dey warn't no yearthly
+'scape fur dem chillen!
+
+"I would 'a' waited," she added, presently--"I would 'a' waited a
+reas'nable time, 'cep'n dat Pete started gwine ter chu'ch, an' you know
+yo'se'f, missy, when a well-favored widder man go ter seek consolation
+f'om de pulpit, he's might' ap' ter find it in de congergation."
+
+As I sat listening to her quiet exposition of her scheme, it seemed
+monstrous.
+
+"And so, Moriah," I spoke now with a ring of real severity in my
+voice--"and so you are going to marry a man that you confess you don't
+care for, just for the sake of getting control of his children? I
+wouldn't have believed it of you."
+
+"Well--partly, missy." She smiled a little now for the first time.
+"Partly on dat account, an' partly on his'n. Pete's wife Ca'line, she
+was a good 'oman, but she was mighty puny an' peevish; an' besides dat,
+she was one o' deze heah naggers, an' Pete is allus had a purty hard
+pull, an' I lay out ter give him a better chance. Eve'y bit o'
+whitewashin' he'd git ter do 'roun' town, Ca'line she'd swaller it in
+medicine. But she was a good 'oman, Ca'line was. Heap o' deze heah
+naggers is good 'omans! Co'se I don't say I _loves_ Pete, but I looks
+ter come roun' ter 'im in time. Ef I didn't, I wouldn't have him."
+
+"And how about his loving you?"
+
+"Oh, Mis' Gladys, you is so searching!" She chuckled. "Co'se he _say_
+he loves me already better'n he love Ca'line, but of co'se a widder man
+he feels obleeged ter talk dat-a-way. An' ef he didn't have the manners
+ter say it, I wouldn't have him, to save his life; but _ef he meant it,
+I'd despise him_. After Ca'line lovin' de groun' he tread fur nine long
+yeahs, he ain't got no right ter love _no_ 'oman better'n he love her
+des 'caze he's a-projec'in' ter git married to 'er. But of co'se, Mis'
+Gladys, I ca'culates ter outstrip Ca'line in co'se o' time. Ef I
+couldn't do dat--an' she in 'er grave--_an' me a cook_--I wouldn't
+count myse'f much. An' den, time I outstrips her an' git him over,
+heart _an'_ soul, I'll know it by de signs."
+
+"Why will you know it more than you know it now? He can but swear it to
+you."
+
+"Oh no, missy. When de rock bottom of a man's heart warms to a 'oman, he
+eases off f'om swearin' 'bout it. Deze heah men wha' swear so much, dey
+swear des as much ter convince deyselves as dey does ter ketch a 'oman's
+ear. No, missy. Time I got him heart _an'_ soul, I looks for him to
+commence to th'ow up Ca'line's ways ter me. Heap of 'em does dat des ter
+ease dey own consciences an' pacify a dead 'oman's ghost. Dat's de way a
+man nachelly do. But he won't faze me, so long as I holds de fort! An'
+fur de chillen, co'se quick as I gits 'em broke in I'll see dat dey
+won't miss Ca'line none. Dat little teether, I done tol' Pete ter fetch
+her over ter me right away. Time I doctors her wid proper teas, an'
+washes her in good warm pot-liquor, I'll make a fus'-class baby out'n
+her."
+
+Moriah had always been a good woman, and as she stood before me, laying
+bare the scheme that, no matter what the conditions, had in it the
+smallest selfish consideration, I felt my heart warm to her again, and I
+could not but feel that the little whitewasher--a kindly, hard-pressed
+family man of slight account--would do well to lay his brood upon her
+ample bosom.
+
+Of course _she_ was marrying _him_, and her acquisition of family would
+inevitably become pensioners upon our bounty; but this is not a great
+matter in a land where the so-called "cultivation" of the soil is
+mainly a question of pruning and selection, and clothes grow upon the
+commonest bush.
+
+As she turned to go, I even offered her my best wishes, and when I
+laughingly asked her if I might help her with her wedding-dress, she
+turned and looked at me.
+
+"Bless yo' heart, Mis' Gladys," she exclaimed, "_I ain't gwine out o'
+mo'nin'_! I gwine marry Pete in des what I got on my back. I'll _marry_
+him, an' I'll take dem little no-'counts o' his'n, an' I'll make
+_folks_ out'n 'em 'fo' I gits th'ough wid 'em, ef Gord spares me; but
+he nee'n't ter lay out ter come in 'twix' me an' my full year o'
+mo'nin' fur Numa. When I walks inter dat chu'ch, 'cep'n' fur de owange
+wreaf, which of co'se in a Christian ma'iage I'm boun' ter wear, folks
+'ll be a heap mo' 'minded o' Numa 'n dey will o' de bridegroom. An' dem
+chillen o' his'n, which ain't nuver is had no proper mo'nin' fur dey
+mammy--no mo' 'n what color Gord give 'em in dey skins--I gwine put 'em
+in special secon' mo'nin', 'cordin' to de time dey ought ter been
+wearin' it; an' when we walks up de island o' de chu'ch, dey got ter
+foller, two by two, keepin' time ter de fun'al march. You come ter de
+weddin', Mis' Gladys, an' I lay you'll 'low dat I done fixed it so dat,
+while I'm a-lookin' out fur de livin', de dead ain't gwine feel
+slighted, right nur left."
+
+She was starting away again, and once more, while I wished her joy, I
+bade her be careful to make no mistake. A note of sympathy in my voice
+must have touched the woman, for she turned, and coming quite up to me,
+laid her hand upon my lap.
+
+"Missy," she said, "I don't believe I gwine make no mistake. You know I
+allus did love chillen, an' I ain't nuver is had none o' my own, an'
+dis heah seemed like my chance. An' I been surveyin' de lan'scape o'er
+tryin' ter think about eve'ything I can do _ter start right_. I'm
+a-startin' wid dem chillen, puttin' 'em in mo'nin' fur Ca'line. Den,
+fur Pete, I gwine ring de changes on Ca'line's goodness tell he ax me,
+_for Gord sake, ter stop_, so, in years ter come, he won't have nothin'
+ter th'ow up ter me. An' you know de reason I done tooken fo' days off,
+missy? I gwine on a weddin'-trip down ter Pine Bluff, an' I wants time
+ter pick out a few little weddin'-presents to fetch home ter Pete."
+
+"Pete!" I cried. "Pete is going with you, of course?"
+
+"Pete gwine wid me? Who sesso? No, ma'am! Why, missy, how would it look
+fur me ter go a-skylarkin' roun' de country wid Pete--_an' me in
+mo'nin'_?
+
+"No, indeedy! I gwine leave Pete home ter take keer dem chillen, an' I
+done set him a good job o' whitewashin' to do while I'm gone, too. De
+principles' weddin'-present I gwine fetch Pete is a fiddle. Po' Pete
+been wantin' a good fiddle all his life, an' he 'ain't nuver is had one.
+But, of co'se, I don't 'low ter let him play on it tell de full year of
+mo'nin' is out."
+
+
+
+
+AN OPTICAL DILEMMA
+
+
+Elder Bradley had lost his spectacles, and he was in despair. He was
+nearly blind without them, and there was no one at home to hunt them for
+him. His wife had gone out visiting for the afternoon; and he had just
+seen Dinah, the cook, stride gleefully out the front gate at the end of
+the lane, arrayed in all her "s'ciety uniform," on her way to a church
+funeral. She would not be home until dark.
+
+It was growing late in the afternoon, and the elder had to make out his
+report to be read at the meeting of the session this evening. It _had
+to be done_.
+
+He could not, from where he sat, distinguish the pink lion's head from
+the purple rose-buds on the handsome new American Brussels rug that his
+wife had bought him as a Christmas gift--to lay under her
+sewing-machine--although he could put out his boot and touch it. How
+could he expect to find anything so small as a pair of spectacles?
+
+The elder was a very old man, and for years his focal point had been
+moving off gradually, until now his chief pleasures of sight were to be
+found out-of-doors, where the distant views came gratefully to meet him.
+
+He could more easily distinguish the dark glass insulators from the
+little sparrows that sometimes came to visit them upon the telegraph
+pole a quarter of a mile away than he could discriminate between the
+beans and the pie that sometimes lay together on his dinner plate.
+
+Indeed, when his glasses stayed lost over mealtimes, as they had
+occasionally done, he had, after vainly struggling to locate the various
+viands upon his plate and suffering repeated palatal disappointments,
+generally ended by stirring them all together, with the declaration that
+he would at least get one certain taste, and abide by it.
+
+This would seem to show him to have been an essentially amiable man,
+even though he was occasionally mastered by such outbursts of impatience
+as this; for, be it said to his credit, he always left a clean plate.
+
+The truth is, Elder Bradley was an earnest, good man, and he had tried
+all his life, in a modest, undeclared way, to be a Christian
+philosopher. And he would try it now. He had been, for an hour after his
+mishap, walking more rapidly than was his habit up and down the entire
+length of the hall that divided the house into two distinct sides, and
+his head had hung low upon his bosom. He had been pondering. Or perhaps
+he had been praying. His dilemma was by no means a thing to be taken
+lightly.
+
+Suddenly realizing, however, that he had squandered the greater part of
+a valuable afternoon in useless repining, he now lifted his head and
+glanced about him.
+
+"I'm a-goin' to find them blame spec's--eyes or no eyes!" He spoke with
+a steady voice that had in it the ring of the invincible spirit that
+dares failure. And now, having resolved and spoken, he turned and
+entered the dining-room--and sat down. It was here that he remembered
+having last used the glasses. He would sit here and think.
+
+It was a rather small room, which would have been an advantage in
+ordinary circumstances. But to the elder its dimensions were an
+insurmountable difficulty. How can one compass a forty-rod focus within
+the limits of a twelve by sixteen foot room?
+
+But if his eyes could not help him, his hands must. He had taken as few
+steps as possible in going about the room, lest he should tread upon the
+glasses unawares; and now, stepping gingerly, and sometimes merely
+pushing his feet along, he approached his writing-table and sat down
+before it. Then he began to feel. It was a tedious experiment and a
+hazardous one, and after a few moments of nervous and fruitless groping,
+he sought relief in expression.
+
+"That's right! turn over!" he exclaimed. "I s'pose you're the red ink!
+Now if I could jest capsize the mucilage-bottle an' my bag o' snuff, an'
+stir in that Seidlitz-powder I laid out here to take, it would be purty
+cheerful for them fiddle-de-dees an' furbelows thet's layin' everywhere.
+I hope they'll ketch it ef anything does! They's nothin' I feel so much
+like doin' ez takin' a spoon to the whole business!"
+
+The elder was a popular father, grandfather, uncle, husband, and
+Bible-class teacher to a band of devoted women of needle-work and
+hand-painting proclivities, and his writing-table was a favorite target
+for their patiently wrought love-missiles.
+
+One of the strongest evidences of the old man's kindliness of nature was
+that it was only when he was wrought up to the point of desperation, as
+now, that he spoke his mind about the gewgaws which his soul despised.
+
+There are very few good old elders in the Presbyterian Church who care
+to have pink bows tied on their penholders, or to be reminded at every
+turn that they are hand-painted and daisy-decked "Dear Grandfathers." It
+is rather inconvenient to have to dodge a daisy or a motto every time
+one wants to dry a letter on his blotting-pad, and the hand-painted
+paper-cutter was never meant to cut anything.
+
+"Yes," the good old man repeated, "ef I knowed I could stir in every
+blame thing thet's got a ribbon bow or a bo'quet on it, I'd take a spoon
+to this table now--an' stir the whole business up--an' start fresh!"
+
+Still, as his hand tipped a bottle presently, he caught it and set it
+cautiously back in its place.
+
+He had begun now to systematically feel over the table, proceeding
+regularly with both hands from left to right and back again, until on a
+last return trip he discerned the edge of the mahogany next his body.
+And then he said--and he said it with spirit:
+
+"Dod blast it! They ain't here--nowheres!"
+
+He sat still now for a moment in thought. And then he began to remember
+that he had sat talking to his wife at the sewing-machine just before
+she left the house. He rose and examined the table of the machine and
+the floor beneath it. Then he tried the sideboard and the window-sill,
+where he had read his morning chapter from St. Paul's Epistle to the
+Romans, chapter viii.
+
+He even shook out the leaves of his Testament upon the floor between his
+knees and felt for them there. There had been a Biblical surrender of
+this sort more than once in the past, and he never failed to go to the
+Good Book for relief, even when, as now, he distinctly remembered having
+worn the glasses after his daily reading.
+
+Failing to find them here, he suddenly ran his hand over his forehead
+with an eager movement. Many a time these very spectacles had come back
+to him there, and, strange to say, it was always one of the last places
+he remembered to examine. But they were not there now.
+
+He chuckled, even in his despair, as he dropped his hand.
+
+"I'll look there ag'in after a while. Maybe when he's afeerd I'll clair
+lose my soul, he'll fetch 'em back to me!"
+
+The old man had often playfully asserted that his "guardeen angel" found
+his lost glasses, and laid them back on his head for him when he saw him
+tried beyond his strength. And maybe he was right. Who can tell? That
+there is some sort of so-called "supernatural" intervention in such
+matters there seems to be little doubt.
+
+There is a race--of brownies, probably, or maybe they are imps--whose
+business in life seems to be to catch up any needed trifle--a suddenly
+dropped needle, the very leaf in the morning paper that the reader held
+a moment ago and that holds "continuations," the scissors just now at
+his elbow, his collar button--and to hide it until the loser swears his
+ultimate, most desperate swear!
+
+When the profanity is satisfactory, the little fellows usually fetch
+back the missing article, lay it noiselessly under the swearer's nose,
+and vanish.
+
+At other times, when the victim persistently declines profanity, they
+have been known to amiably restore the articles after a reasonable time,
+and to lay them so absurdly in evidence that the hitherto forbearing man
+breaks his record in a volley of imprecations.
+
+When this happens, if one has presence of mind to listen, he can
+distinctly hear a fine metallic titter along the tops of the furniture
+and a hasty scamper, as of tiny scurrying feet.
+
+This may sound jocund, but the writer testifies that it is true.
+
+Of course when the victim is a lady the pixies do not require of them
+men's oaths. But they will have only her best.
+
+When the elder had tried in vain all the probable places where the
+glasses might be hidden, he began to realize that there was only one
+thing left for him to do. He must feel all over the floor.
+
+He was a fat old man and short of neck.
+
+For five years he had realized a feeling of thankfulness that the
+Presbyterian form of worship permitted standing in prayer. It hurt him
+to kneel. But nothing could hurt him so much as to fail to hand in his
+report to-night. Indeed, the missionary collection would be affected by
+it. It _must be written_.
+
+He found a corner in the room and got down on his marrow-bones, throwing
+his hands forward and bringing them back in far-reaching curves, as one
+swimming. This was hard work, and before many minutes great drops of
+perspiration were falling upon the carpet and the old man's breath came
+in quick gasps.
+
+"Ef I jest had the blame things _for a minute_ to slip on my eyes, why,
+_I could find 'em_--easy enough!" he ejaculated--desperation in his
+voice.
+
+And then he proceeded to say a number of things that were lacking in
+moderation, and consequently very sinful--in an elder of the church.
+
+The "bad words" spoken in the vacant house fell accusingly upon the
+speaker's ears, and they must have startled him, for he hastened to add:
+"I don't see where no sense o' jestice comes in, nohow, in allowin' a
+man on the very eve of doin' his Christian duty to lose his most
+important wherewithal!"
+
+This plea was no doubt in mild extenuation of the explosive that had
+preceded it, and as he turned and drew himself forward by his elbows to
+compass a new section of the room, which, by-the-way, seemed suddenly
+expanded in size, he began to realize that the plea was in itself most
+sinful--even more so than the outburst, perhaps, being an implication of
+divine injustice.
+
+A lump came into his throat, and as he proceeded laboriously along on
+his dry swim, he felt for a moment in danger of crying.
+
+Of course this would never do, but there was just so much emotion within
+him, and it had begun to ferment.
+
+Before he realized his excitement his arms were flying about wildly and
+he was shrieking in a frenzy.
+
+"But _I must have 'em_! I _must have 'em_! I must, I say; O Lord, I
+must--I MUST HAVE THEM SPECTACLES! Lor-r-d, I have work to do--FOR
+THEE--an' I am eager to perform it. All I ask is FIVE MINUTES' USE O'
+MY EYES, so thet I may pursue this search in patience--"
+
+His voice broke in a sob.
+
+And just now it was that his left hand, fumbling over the foot of the
+sewing-machine treadle, ran against a familiar bit of steel wire.
+
+If it had connected with an ordinary electric battery, the resulting
+shock could scarcely have been more pronounced.
+
+There was something really pathetic in the spasmodic grasp with which he
+seized the glasses, and as he rose to a sitting posture and lifted them
+to his eyes, his hand shook pitifully.
+
+"Thank the Lord! _Now I can see to look for 'em!_" And as he
+tremblingly brought the curved ends of the wire around his ears he
+exclaimed with fervor, "Yas, Lord, with Thy help I will keep my
+vow--an' pursue this search in patience." His wet, red face beamed
+with pleasure over the recovery of his near vision. So happy was he,
+indeed, in the new possession, that, instead of rising, he sat still
+in the middle of the floor, running his eyes with rapid scrutiny over
+the carpet near him. He sat here a long time--even forgetting his
+discomfort, while he turned as on a pivot as the search required.
+Though the missing articles did not promptly appear at his side,
+Bradley felt that he was having a good time, and so he was,
+comparatively. Of course he would find the glasses presently. He
+looked at his watch. What a joy to see its face! He would still have
+time to do the report, if he hurried a little. He began to rise by
+painful stages.
+
+"Lemme see! The last thing I done was to open the sideboa'd an' cut
+a piece o' pie an' eat it. I _must_ o' had my glasses on then. I
+ricollec' it was sweet-potato pie, an' it was scorched on one side.
+Lordy! but what a pleasure it is to look for a thing when a person
+_can_ look!" He crossed over to the sideboard.
+
+"Yas"--he had opened the door and was cutting another piece of pie.
+"Yas. Sweet-potato pie, an' burnt on one side--the side thet's left.
+Yas, an' I'll leave it ag'in!" He chuckled as he took a deep bite.
+
+"Of co'se I _must 'a'_ had 'em on _when I cut the pie_, or I couldn't
+'ve _saw_ it so distinc'--'an I finished that slice a-settin' down
+talkin' to her at the sewin'-machine. Ricollec' I told _her_ how mother
+used to put cinnamon in hers. I'll go set there ag'in, an' maybe by
+lookin' 'round--They might 'a' dropped in her darnin'-basket."
+
+It was while he sat here, running one hand through the basket and
+holding the slice of pie in the other, that he heard a step, and,
+looking up, he saw his wife standing in the door.
+
+"Why, Ephraim! What on earth!" she exclaimed. "I lef you there eatin'
+that pie fo' hours ago, an' I come back an' find you settin' there yet!
+You cert'n'y 'ain't forgot to make out yo' report?"
+
+"Forgot nothin', Maria." He swallowed laboriously as he spoke. "I 'ain't
+done a thing sence you been gone but look for my glasses--not a blame
+thing. An' I'm a-lookin' for 'em yet."
+
+Mrs. Bradley was frightened. She walked straight up to her husband and
+took his hand. "Ephraim," she said, gently, and as she spoke she drew
+the remainder of the pie from his yielding fingers--"Ephraim, I
+wouldn't eat any mo' o' that heavy pie ef I was you. You ain't well.
+Ef you can't make no mo' headway'n that on yo' favor_ite_ pie in fo'
+hours, you're shorely goin' to be took sick." She took her handkerchief
+and wiped his forehead. And then she added, with a sweet, wifely
+tenderness: "To prove to you thet you ain't well, honey, yo' glasses
+are on yo' nose right now. You better go lay down."
+
+Bradley looked straight into her face for some moments, but he did not
+even blink. Then he said, in an awe-stricken voice: "Ef what you say
+is true, Maria--an' from the clairness with which I see the serious
+expression of yo' countenance I reckon it must be so--ef it _is_ so--"
+He paused here, and a new light came into his eyes, and then they
+filled with tears. "Why, Maria honey, _of co'se it's so_! I know when
+I found 'em! But I was so full o' the thought thet _ef I jest had
+my sight_ I could _look for 'em_ thet I slipped 'em on my nose an'
+continued the search. Feel my pulse, honey; I've no doubt you're right.
+I'm a-goin' to have a spell o' sickness."
+
+"Yes, dearie, I'm 'feered you are."
+
+The good woman drew him over to the lounge and carefully adjusted a
+pillow to his head. "Now take a little nap, an' I'll send word over to
+Elder Jones's thet you ain't feelin' well an' can't come to
+prayer-meetin' to-night. What you need is rest, an' a change o' subject.
+I jest been over to May Bennett's, an' she's give out thet she an' Pete
+Sanders has broke off their engagement--an' Joe Legget, why his leg's
+amputated clean off--an' Susan Tucker's baby had seven spasms an'--"
+
+"That so? I'm glad to hear it, wife. But ef you send word over to him
+thet I ain't well, don't send tell the last minute, please. Ef you was
+to, he'd come by here, shore--an' they'd be questions ast, an' I
+couldn't stand it. Jest send word when the second bell starts a-ringin'
+thet I ain't well. _An' I ain't_, Maria."
+
+"I'm convinced o' that, Ephraim--or I wouldn't send the message--an' you
+know it. We ain't so hard pressed for excuses thet we're goin' to lie
+about it. I knowed you wasn't well ez soon ez I see that piece o' pie."
+
+Bradley coughed a little. "Appearances is sometimes deceitful, Maria. I
+hadn't wrastled with that pie ez unsuccessful ez I seemed. That was the
+second slice I'd et sence you left. No, the truth is, I lost my glasses,
+an' I got erritated an' flew into a temper an' said things. An' the
+Lord, He punished me. He took my reason away. He gimme the glasses an'
+denied me the knowledge of 'em. But I'm thankful to Him for lettin' me
+have 'em--anyhow. Ef I was fo'ordained to search for 'em, it was mighty
+merciful in Him to loan 'em to me to do it with."
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND MRS. SLIMM
+
+
+Ezra Slimm was a widower of nearly a year, and, as a consequence, was in
+a state of mind not unusual in like circumstances.
+
+True, the said state of mind had not in his case manifested itself in
+the toilet bloomings, friskiness of demeanor, and protestations of youth
+renewed which had characterized the first signs of the same in the usual
+run of Simpkinsville widowers up to date. If he had for several months
+been mentally casting about for another wife, he had betrayed it by no
+outward and visible sign. The fact is Ezra's case was somewhat
+exceptional, as we shall presently see.
+
+Although he was quite diminutive in size, there was in his bearing, as
+with hands clasped behind him he paced up and down before his lonely
+fireside, a distinct dignity that was not only essentially manly--it was
+_gentlemanly_.
+
+The refinement of feeling underlying this no doubt aggravated the
+dilemma in which he found himself, and which we cannot sooner comprehend
+than by attending to his soliloquy as he reviewed his trials in the
+following somewhat rambling fashion:
+
+"No, 'twouldn't never do in the world--never, never. 'Twouldn't never do
+to marry any o' these girls round here thet knows all my ups an' downs
+with--with pore Jinny. 'Twouldn't never do. Any girl thet knew thet her
+husband had been chastised by his first wife the way I've been would
+think thet ef she got fretted she was lettin' 'im off easy on a
+tongue-lashin'. An' I s'pose they is times when any woman gits sort o'
+wrought up, livin' day in an' day out with a man. No, 'twouldn't never
+do," he repeated, as, thrusting both hands in his pockets, he stopped
+before the fire, and steadying the top of his head against the mantel,
+studied the logs for a moment.
+
+"An' so the day pore Jinny took it upon herself to lay me acrost her lap
+an' punish me in the presence of sech ill-mannered persons ez has seen
+fit to make a joke of it--though I don't see where the fun comes
+in--well, that day she settled the hash for number two so fur ez this
+town goes.
+
+"No, 'twouldn't never do in the world! Even ef she never throwed it up
+to me, I'd be suspicious. She couldn't even to say clap her hands
+together to kill a mosquito less'n I'd think she was insinuatin'. An'
+jest ez quick ez any man suspicions thet his wife is a-naggin' him
+intentional, it's good-by happiness.
+
+"Ef 'twasn't for that, of co'se they's more'n one young woman roun' this
+county thet any man might go further an' do worse than git.
+
+"Not thet I hold it agin Jinny, now she's gone, but--"
+
+He had resumed his promenade, extending it through a second room as he
+proceeded:
+
+"--but it does seem strange how a woman gifted in prayer ez she was,
+an' with all her instinc's religious the way hers was, should o' been
+allowed to take sech satisfaction in naggin' the very one she agonized
+most over in prayer, which I _know_ she done over me, _for I've heerd
+'er_. An' ef she had o' once-t mentioned me to the Lord confidential
+ez a person fitten to commingle with the cherubim an' seraphim, 'stid
+of a pore lost sinner not fitten to bresh up their wing-feathers for
+'em, I b'lieve I might o' give in. I don't wonder I 'ain't never had a
+call to enter the Kingdom on her ricommendation. 'Twouldn't o' been
+fair to the innocent angels thet would 'a' been called on to associate
+with me. That's the way I look at it.
+
+"An' yit Jinny 'lowed herself thet my _out'ard ac's_ was good, but
+bein' ez they didn't spring from a converted _heart_, they was jest
+nachel _hypocercy_, an' thet ef I'd o' lied an' stole, _or even
+answered her back_, she'd o' had more hope for me, because, sez she,
+a 'consistent sinner is ap' to make a consistent Christian.'
+
+"She even tol' me one day--pore Jinny! I can see her face light up now
+when she said it--sez she, 'I'm ac-chilly most afeerd _to_ see you
+converted, less'n you'll break out in some devilment you hadn't never
+thought about before-you're that inconsistent.'
+
+  [Illustration: "'I'M AC-CHILLY MOST AFEERD _TO_ SEE YOU CONVERTED'"]
+
+"Sometimes I feel mean to think I don't miss 'er more'n what I do--an'
+she so lively, too. Tell the truth, I miss them little devils she used
+to print on the butter pads she set at my plate ez a warnin' to me--seem
+to me I miss them jest about ez much ez I miss her.
+
+"The nearest I ever _did_ come to answerin' her back--'cept, of co'se,
+the time she chastised me--was the way I used regular to heat my
+knife-blade good an' hot 'twix' two batter-cakes an' flatten that devil
+out _de_lib'rate. But he'd be back nex' day, pitchfork an' all.
+
+"But with it all Jinny loved me--in her own way, of co'se. Doubt if I'll
+ever git another to love me ez well; 'n' don't know ez I crave it,
+less'n she was different dispositioned.
+
+"I've done paid her all the respec's I know--put up a fine Bible-texted
+tombstone for her, an' had her daguerre'type enlarged to a po'tr'it. I
+don't know's I'm obligated to do any more, 'cep'n, of co'se, to wait
+till the year's out, which, not havin' no young children in need of a
+mother, I couldn't hardly do less than do."
+
+It was about a week after this that Ezra sat beside his fire reading his
+paper, when his eye happened to fall upon the following paragraph among
+the "personals":
+
+    "The Claybank Academy continues to thrive under the able management
+    of Miss Myrtle Musgrove. That accomplished and popular young lady
+    has abolished the use of the rod, and by substituting the law of
+    kindness she has built up the most flourishing academy in the
+    State."
+
+Ezra read the notice three times. Then he laid the paper down, and
+clapping his hand upon it, exclaimed: "Well, I'll be doggoned ef that
+ain't the woman for me! _Any_ girl thet could teach a county school an'
+abolish whuppin'--not only a chance to do it, but a crowd o' young
+rascals _needin_' it all around 'er, an' her _not doin' it_! An' yit
+some other persons has been known to strain a p'int to whup a person
+they 'ain't rightly got no business _to_ whup." He read the notice
+again. "Purty name that, too, Myrtle Musgrove. Sounds like a girl to go
+out walkin' with under the myrtle-trees in the grove moonlight nights,
+Myrtle Musgrove does.
+
+"I declare, I ain't to say religious, but I b'lieve that notice was
+sent to me providential.
+
+"Of co'se, maybe she wouldn't look at me ef I ast her; but one thing
+shore, she _can't if I don't_.
+
+"Claybank is a good hund'ed miles from here 'n' I couldn't leave the
+farm now, noways; besides, the day I start a-makin' trips from home,
+talk'll start, an' I'll be watched close-ter'n what I'm watched now--ef
+that's possible. But th' ain't nothin' to hender me _writin_'--ez I
+can see."
+
+This idea, once in his mind, lent a new impulse to Ezra's life, a fresh
+spring to his gait, so evident to solicitous eyes that during the next
+week even his dog noticed it and had a way of running up and sniffing
+about him, as if asking what had happened.
+
+An era of hope had dawned for the hitherto downcast man simply because
+Miss Myrtle Musgrove, a woman he had never seen, had abolished whipping
+in a distant school.
+
+Two weeks passed before Ezra saw his way clearly to write the proposed
+letter, but he did, nevertheless, in the interval, walk up and down his
+butter-bean arbor on moonlight nights, imagining Miss Myrtle beside
+him--Miss Myrtle, named for his favorite flower. He _had_ preferred
+the violet, but he had changed his mind. Rose-colored crêpe-myrtles were
+blooming in his garden at the time. Maybe this was why he began to think
+of her as a pink-faced laughing girl, typified by the blushing flower.
+Everything was so absolutely real in her setting that the ideal girl
+walked, a definite embodiment of his fancy, night after night by his
+side, and whether it was from his life habit or an intuitive fancy, he
+looked _upward_ into her face. He had always liked tall women.
+
+And all this time he was trying to frame a suitable letter to the real
+"popular and accomplished Miss Musgrove," of Claybank Academy.
+
+Finally, however, the ambitious and flowery document was finished.
+
+It would be unfair to him whose postscript read, "For Your Eyes alone,"
+to quote in full, for the vulgar gratification of prying eyes, the
+pathetic missive that told again the old story of a lonely home, the
+needed woman. But when it was sent, Ezra found the circuit of the
+butter-bean arbor too circumscribed a promenade, and began taking the
+imaginary Miss Myrtle with him down through his orchard and
+potato-patch.
+
+It was during these moonlight communings that he seemed to discover that
+she listened while he talked--a new experience to Ezra--and that even
+when he expressed his awful doubts as to the existence of a personal
+devil she only smiled, and thought he might be right.
+
+Oh, the joy of such companionship! But, oh, the slowness of the mails!
+
+A month passed, and Ezra was beginning to give up all hope of ever
+having an answer to his letter, when one day it came, a dainty envelope
+with the Claybank postmark.
+
+Miss Musgrove thanked him for his letter. She would see him. It would
+not be convenient now, but would he not come down to the academy's
+closing exercises in June--a month later? Until then she was very
+respectfully his friend, Myrtle Musgrove.
+
+The next month was the longest in Ezra's life. Still, the Lord's
+calendar is faithful, and the sun not a waiter upon the moods of men.
+
+In twenty-nine days exactly a timid little man stood with throbbing
+heart at the door of Claybank Academy, and in a moment more he had
+slipped into a back seat of the crowded room, where a young orator was
+ringing Poe's "Bells" through all the varying cadences of his changing
+voice to a rapt audience of relations and friends. Here unobserved Ezra
+hoped to recover his self-possession, remove the beads of perspiration
+one by one from his brow with a corner of his neatly folded
+handkerchief, and perhaps from this vantage-ground even enjoy the
+delight of recognizing Miss Myrtle without an introduction.
+
+He had barely deposited his hat beneath his chair when there burst upon
+his delighted vision a radiant, dark-eyed, red-haired creature in pink,
+sitting head and shoulders above her companions on a bench set at right
+angles with the audience seats, in front of the house. There were a
+number of women in the row, and they were without bonnets. Evidently
+these were the teachers, and of course the pink goddess was Miss Myrtle
+Musgrove.
+
+Ezra never knew whether the programme was long or short. The bells had
+tintinabulated and musically welled into "Casabianca" which, in turn,
+had merged into "The Queen o' the May," and presently before he realized
+it Freedom was ringing in the closing notes of "America," and everybody
+was standing up, pupils filing out, guests shaking hands, babel
+reigning, and he had seen only a single, towering, handsome woman in all
+the assembly.
+
+Indeed, it had never occurred to him to doubt his own intuition, until
+suddenly he heard his own name quite near, and turning quickly, he saw a
+stout matronly woman of forty years or thereabouts standing beside him,
+extending her hand.
+
+Every unmarried woman is a "young lady" by courtesy south of Mason and
+Dixon's line.
+
+"I knew you as soon as I saw you, Mr. Slimm," she was saying. "I am Miss
+Musgrove. But you didn't know me," she added, archly, while Ezra made
+his bravest effort at cordiality, seizing her hand in an agony which it
+is better not to attempt to describe.
+
+Miss Musgrove's face was wholesome, and so kindly that not even a
+cross-eye had power to spoil it. But Ezra saw only the plain middle-aged
+woman--the contrast to the blooming divinity whose image yet filled his
+soul. And he was committed to her who held his hand, unequivocally
+committed in writing. If he sent heavenward an agonized prayer for
+deliverance from a trying crisis, his petition was soon answered. And
+the merciful instrument was even she of the cross-eye. Before he had
+found need of a word of his own, she had drawn him aside, and was
+saying:
+
+"You see, Mr. Slimm, the only trouble with me is that I am already
+married."
+
+"Married!" gasped Ezra, trying in vain to keep the joy out of his voice.
+"Married, you--you don't mean--"
+
+"Yes, married to my profession--the only husband I shall ever take. But
+your letter attracted me. I am a Normal School psychology student--a
+hard name for a well-meaning woman--and it seemed to me you were worth
+investigating. So I investigated. Then I knew you ought to be helped.
+And so I sent for you, and I am going to introduce you to three of the
+sweetest girls in Dixie; and if you can't find a wife among them, then
+you are not so clever as I think you--that's all about it. And here
+comes one of them now. Kitty, step here a minute, please. Miss Deems, my
+friend, Mr. Slimm."
+
+And Miss Myrtle Musgrove was off across the room before Ezra's gasp had
+fully expanded into the smile with which he greeted Miss Kitty Deems, a
+buxom lass with freckles and dimples enough to hold her own anywhere.
+
+Two other delightful young women were presented at intervals during the
+afternoon in about the same fashion, and but for a certain pink Juno who
+flitted about ever in sight, Ezra would have confessed only an
+embarrassment of riches.
+
+"And how do you get on with my girls?" was Miss Musgrove's greeting
+when, late in the evening, she sought Ezra for a moment's _tête-à-tête_.
+
+He rubbed his hands together and hesitated.
+
+"'Bout ez fine a set o' young ladies ez I ever see," he said, with real
+enthusiasm; "but, tell the truth, I--but you've a'ready been so
+kind--but--There she is now! That tall, light-complected one in pink--"
+
+"Why, certainly, Mr. Slimm. If you say so, I'll introduce her. A fine,
+thorough-going girl, that. You know we have abolished whipping in the
+academy, and that girl thought one of her boys needed it, and she
+followed him home, and gave it to him there, and his father interfered,
+and--well, _she whipped him too_. Fine girl. Not afraid of anything
+on earth. Certainly I'll introduce you, if you say so."
+
+She stopped and looked at Ezra kindly. And he saw that she knew all.
+
+"Well, I ain't particular. Some other time," he began to say; then
+blushing scarlet, he seized her hand, and pressing it, said, fervently,
+"God bless you!"
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+The second Mrs. Slimm is a wholesome little body, with dimples and
+freckles, whom Ezra declares "God A'mighty couldn't o' made without
+thinkin' of Ezra Slimm an' his precize necessities."
+
+No one but himself and Miss Musgrove ever knew the whole story of his
+wooing, nor why, when in due season a tiny dimpled Miss Slimm came into
+the family circle, it was by Ezra's request that she was called Myrtle.
+
+
+
+
+APOLLO BELVEDERE
+
+A CHRISTMAS EPISODE OF THE PLANTATION
+
+
+He was a little yellow man with a quizzical face and sloping shoulders,
+and when he gave his full name, with somewhat of a flourish, as if it
+might hold compensations for physical shortcomings, one could hardly
+help smiling. And yet there was a pathos in the caricature that
+dissipated the smile half-way. It never found voice in a laugh. The
+pathetic quality was no doubt a certain serious ingenuousness--a
+confiding look that always met your eye from the eager face of the
+diminutive wearer of second-hand coats and silk hats.
+
+"Yas, I'm named 'Pollo Belvedere, an' my marster gi'e me dat intitlemint
+on account o' my shape," he would say, with a strut, on occasion, if he
+were bantered, for he had learned that the name held personal
+suggestions which it took a little bravado to confront. Evidently
+Apollo's master was a humorist.
+
+Apollo had always been a house-servant, and had for several years served
+with satisfaction as coachman to his master's family; but after the
+breaking up, when the place went into other hands, he failed to find
+favor with the new-comers, who had an eye for conventional form, and so
+Apollo was under the necessity of accepting lower rank on the place as a
+field-hand. But he entered plantation circles with his head up. He had
+his house rearing, his toilets, and his education--all distinguishing
+possessions in his small world--and he was, in his way, quite a
+gentleman. Apollo could read a chapter from the Bible without stopping
+to spell. He seized his words with snap-shots and pronounced them with
+genius. Indeed, when not limited by the suggestions of print, as when on
+occasion he responded to an invitation to lead in public prayer, he was
+a builder of words of so noble and complex architecture that one hearing
+him was pleased to remember that the good Lord, being omniscient, must
+of course know all tongues, and would understand.
+
+That the people of the plantation thought well of Apollo will appear
+from the fact that he was more than once urged to enter the ministry;
+but this he very discreetly declined to do, and for several reasons. In
+the first place he didn't feel "called to preach"; and in the second
+place he did feel called or impelled to play the fiddle; and more than
+that, he liked to play dance music, and to have it "danced by."
+
+As Apollo would have told you himself, the fact that he had never
+married was not because he couldn't get anybody to have him, but simply
+that he hadn't himself been suited. And, indeed, it is because of the
+romance of his life that Apollo comes at all into this little sketch
+that bears his name. Had he not been so pathetic in his serious and
+grotesque personality, the story would probably have borne the name of
+its heroine, Miss Lily Washington, of Lone Oak Plantation, and would
+have concerned a number of other people.
+
+Lily was a beauty in her own right, and she was belle of the plantation.
+She stood five feet ten in her bare feet, and although she tipped the
+scales at a hundred and sixty, she was as slim and round as a reed, and
+it was well known that the grip of her firm fingers applied to the
+closed fist of any of the young fellows on the place would make him
+howl. She was an emotional creature, with a caustic tongue on occasion,
+and when it pleased her mood to look over her shoulder at one of her
+numerous admirers and to wither him with a look or a word, she did not
+hesitate to do it. For instance, when Apollo first asked her to marry
+him--it had been his habit to propose to her every day or so for a year
+or two past--she glanced at him askance from head to foot, and then she
+said: "Why, yas. Dat is, I s'pose, of co'se, you's de sample. I'd order
+a full-size by you in a minute." This was cruel, and seeing the pathetic
+look come into his face, she instantly repented of it, and walked home
+from church with him, dismissing a handsome black fellow, and saying
+only kind things to Apollo all the way. And while he walked beside her,
+he told her that, although she couldn't realize it, he was as tall as
+she, for his feet were not on the ground at all; which was in a manner
+true, for when Lily was gracious to him, he felt himself borne along on
+wings that the common people could not see.
+
+Of course no one took Apollo seriously as Lily's suitor, much less the
+chocolate maid herself. But there were other lovers. Indeed, there were
+all the others, for that matter, but in point of eligibility the number
+to be seriously regarded was reduced to about two. These were Pete
+Peters, a handsome griff, with just enough Indian in his blood to give
+him an air of distinction, and a French-talking mulatto who had come up
+from New Orleans to repair the machinery in the sugar-house, and who was
+buying land in the vicinity, and drove his own sulky. Pete was less
+prosperous than he, but although he worked his land on shares, he owned
+two mules and a saddle-horse, and would be allowed to enter on a
+purchase of land whenever he should choose to do so. Although Pete and
+the New Orleans fellow, whose name was also Peter, but who was called
+Pierre, met constantly in a friendly enough way, they did not love each
+other. They both loved Lily too much for that. But they laughed
+good-naturedly together at Apollo and his "case," which they inquired
+after politely, as if it were a member of his family.
+
+"Well, 'Pollo, how's yo' case on Miss Lily comin' on?" either one would
+say, with a wink at the other, and Apollo would artlessly report the
+state of the heavens with relation to his particular star, as when he
+once replied to this identical question,
+
+"Well, Miss Lily was mighty obstropulous 'istiddy, but she is mo'
+cancelized dis mornin'."
+
+It was Pete who had asked the question, and he laughed aloud at the
+answer. "Mo' cancelized dis mornin', is she?" he replied. "How you know
+she is?"
+
+"'Caze she lemme tote her hoe all de way up f'om de field," answered the
+ingenuous Apollo.
+
+"She did, did she? An' who was walkin' by her side all dat time, I like
+to know?"
+
+Apollo winced a little at this, but he answered, bravely, "I don't kyah
+ef Pier was walkin' wid her; I was totin' her hoe, all de samee."
+
+At this Pete seemed to forget all about Apollo and his case, and he
+remarked that he never could see what some folks saw in city niggers,
+nohow--and neither could Apollo. And they felt a momentary sense of
+nearness to each other that was not exactly a bond, but they did not
+talk any more as they walked along.
+
+It is probable that the coming of the "city fellow" into her circle
+hastened to culmination more than one pending romance, and there were
+now various and sundry coldnesses existing between Lily and a number of
+the boys on the place, where there had recently existed only warm and
+hopeful friendships. The intruder, who had a way of shrugging his
+shoulders and declaring of almost any question, "Well, me, I dun'no',"
+seemed altogether _too sure_ when it came to a question of Lily. At
+least so he appeared to her more timid rural lovers.
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+The Christmas-eve dance in the sugar-house had been for years an annual
+function on the plantation. At this, since her début, at fourteen,
+three Christmases before, Lily had held undisputed sway, and all former
+belles amiably accepted their places as lesser lights. But there had
+been some quarrelling and even a fight or two on Lily's account,
+indirectly, and the church people had declared against the ball, on the
+score of domestic peace on the place. They had fought dancing _per se_
+as long as they could, but Terpsichore finally waltzed up the church
+aisle, figuratively speaking, and flaunted her ruffled skirts in the
+very faces of elders and minister, and they had had to smile and give
+her a pew to keep her still. And she was in the church yet, a
+troublemaker sometimes, and a disturber of spiritual peace--but still
+there.
+
+If they had forcibly ejected her, some of their most promising and
+important members would have followed. But they could preach to her, and
+so they did. Mayhap in time they would convert her and have her and her
+numerous votaries for their own. As the reverend brother thundered out
+his denunciations of the ungodly goddess he cast his eyes often in the
+direction of the leading dancer, and from her they would wander to the
+small fiddler who sat beside the tall hat in a back pew. But somehow
+neither Lily nor Apollo seemed in the least conscious of any personal
+appeal in his glance, and when finally the question of the Christmas
+ball was put to vote, they both rose and unequivocally voted for it. So,
+for that matter, did so large a majority that one of the elders got up
+and proposed that the church hold revival meetings, in the hope of
+rousing her people to a realization of her dangers. And then Lily
+whispered something to her neighbor, a good old man of the church, and
+he stood up and announced that Miss Lily Washington proposed to have the
+revival _after Christmas_. There was some laughter at this, and the
+pastor very seriously objected to it as thwarting the very object for
+which the meetings would be held; and then, seeing herself in danger of
+being vanquished in argument, Lily, blushing a fine copper-color in real
+maidenly embarrassment, rose in the presence of the congregation, to say
+that when she proposed to have the revival after Christmas, she "didn't
+mean no harm." She was only thinking that "it was a heap better to
+repent 'n to backslide."
+
+This brought down the house, an expression not usually employed in this
+connection, but which seems to force its way here as particularly
+fitting. As soon as he could get a hearing the reverend brother gave out
+a hymn, followed it with a short prayer, and dismissed the congregation.
+And on the Sunday following he gave notice that for several reasons it
+had been decided as expedient to postpone the revival meetings in the
+church until _after Christmas_. No doubt he had come over to Lily's
+way of thinking.
+
+Lily was perfectly ravishing in her splendor at the dance. The white
+Swiss frock she wore was high in the neck, but her brown shoulders and
+arms shone through the thin fabric with fine effect. About her slim
+waist she tied a narrow ribbon of blue, and she carried a pink feather
+fan, and the wreath about her forehead was of lilies-of-the-valley. She
+had done a day's scouring for them, and they had come out of the summer
+hat of one of the white ladies on the coast. This insured their quality,
+and no doubt contributed somewhat to the quiet serenity with which she
+bore herself as, with her little head held like that of the Venus of
+Milo, she danced down the centre of the room, holding her flounces in
+either hand, and kicking the floor until she kicked both her slippers to
+pieces, when she finished the figure in her stocking feet.
+
+She had a relay of slippers ready, and there was a scramble as to who
+should put them on; but she settled that question by making 'Pollo rise,
+with his fiddle in his arms, and lend her his chair for a minute while
+she pulled them on herself. Then she let Pete and Pierre each have one
+of the discarded slippers as a trophy. Lily had always danced out
+several pairs of slippers at the Christmas dance, but she had never
+achieved her stocking feet in the first round until now, and she was in
+high glee over it. If she had been admired before, she was looked upon
+as a raving, tearing beauty to-night--and so she was. Fortunately 'Pollo
+had his fiddling to do, and this saved him from any conspicuous folly.
+But he kept his eyes on her, and when she grew too ravishingly lovely to
+his fond vision, and he couldn't stand it a minute longer in silence, he
+turned to the man next him, who played the bones, and remarked, "Ef--ef
+anybody but Gord A'mighty had a-made anything as purty as Miss Lily,
+dey'd 'a' stinted it somewhar," and, watching every turn, he lent his
+bow to her varying moods while she tired out one dancer after another.
+It was the New Orleans fellow who first lost his head utterly. He had
+danced with her but three times, but while she took another's hand and
+whizzed through the figures he scarcely took his eyes from her, and
+when, at about midnight, he succeeded in getting her apart for a
+promenade, he poured forth his soul to her in the picturesque English of
+the quadroon quarter of New Orleans. "An' now, to proof to you my lorv,
+Ma'm'selle Lee-lee"--he gesticulated vigorously as he spoke--"I am
+geeving you wan beau-u-tiful Christmas present--I am goin' to geeve
+you--w'at you t'ink? My borgee!" With this he turned dramatically and
+faced her. They were standing now under the shed outside the door in the
+moonlight, and, although they did not see him, Apollo stood within
+hearing, behind a pile of molasses-barrels, where he had come "to cool
+off."
+
+Lily had several times been "buggy-ridin'" with Pierre in this same
+"borgee," and it was a very magnificent affair in her eyes. When he told
+her that it was to be hers she gasped. Such presents were unknown on the
+plantation. But Lily was a "mannerly" member of good society, if her
+circle was small, and she was not to be taken aback by any compliment a
+man should pay her. She simply fanned herself, a little flurriedly,
+perhaps, with her feather fan, as she said: "You sho' must be jokin',
+Mr. Pier. You cert'n'y must." But Mr. Pierre was not joking. He was
+never more in earnest in his life, and he told her so, and there is no
+telling what else he would have told her but for the fact that Mr. Pete
+Peters happened to come out to the shed to cool off about this time, and
+as he almost brushed her shoulder, it was as little as Lily could do to
+address a remark to him, and then, of course, he stopped and chatted a
+while; and after what appeared a reasonable interval, long enough for it
+not to seem that she was too much elated over it, she remarked, "An'
+by-de-way, Mr. Peters, I must tell you what a lovely Christmas gif' I
+have just received by de hand of Mr. Pier. He has jest presented me wid
+his yaller-wheeled buggy, an' I sho' is proud of it." Then, turning to
+Pierre, she added, "You sho' is a mighty generous gen'leman, Mr.
+Pier--you cert'n'y is."
+
+Peters gave Lily one startled look, but he instantly realized, from her
+ingenuous manner, that there was nothing back of the gift of the
+buggy--that is, it had been, so far as she was concerned, simply a
+Christmas present. Pierre had not offered himself with the gift. And if
+this were so, well, he reckoned he could match him.
+
+He reached forward and took Lily's fan from her hand. He hastened to do
+this to keep Pierre from taking it. Then, while he fanned her, he said,
+"Is dat so, Miss Lily, dat Mr. Pier is give you a buggy? Dat sholy is a
+fine Christmas gif'--it sho' is. An' sence you fin' yo'se'f possessed of
+a buggy, I trust you will allow me de pleasure of presentin' you wid a
+horse to drive _in_ de buggy." He made a graceful bow as he spoke, a
+bow that would have done credit to the man from New Orleans. It was so
+well done, indeed, that Lily unconsciously bowed in return, as she
+said, with a look that savored a little of roguishness: "Oh, hursh, Mr.
+Peters! You des a-guyin' me--dat what you doin'."
+
+"Guyin' nothin'," said Peters, grinning broadly as he noted the
+expression of Pierre's face. "Ef you'll jes do me de honor to accep' of
+my horse, Miss Lily, I'll be de proudest gen'leman on dis plantation."
+
+At this she chuckled, and took her fan in her own hand. And then she
+turned to Pierre. "You sho' has set de style o' mighty expensive
+Christmas gif's on dis plantation, Mr. Pier--you cert'n'y has. An' I
+wants to thank you bofe mos' kindly--I cert'n'y does."
+
+Having heard this much, 'Pollo thought it time to come from his hiding,
+and he strolled leisurely out in the other direction first, but soon
+returned this way. And then he stopped, and reaching over, took the
+feather fan--and for a few moments he had his innings. Then some one
+else came along and the conversation became impersonal, and one by one
+they all dropped off--all except 'Pollo. When the rest had gone he and
+Lily found seats on the cane-carrier, and they talked a while, and when
+a little later supper was announced, it was the proud fiddler who took
+her in, while Pierre and Peters stood off and politely glared at each
+other; and after a while Pierre must have said something, for Peters
+suddenly sprang at him and tumbled him out the door and rolled him over
+in the dirt, and they had to be separated. But presently they laughed
+and shook hands, and Pierre offered Pete a cigarette, and Pete took it,
+and gave Pierre a light--and it was all over.
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+It was next day--Christmas morning--and the young people were standing
+about in groups under the China-trees in the campus, when Apollo joined
+them, looking unusually chipper and beaming. He was dressed in his
+best--Prince Albert, beaver, and all--and he sported a bright silk
+handkerchief tied loosely about his neck.
+
+He was altogether a delightful figure, absolutely content with himself,
+and apparently at peace with the world. No sooner had he joined the
+crowd than the fellows began chaffing him, as usual, and presently some
+one mentioned Lily's name and spoke of her presents. The two men who had
+broken the record for generosity in the history of plantation lovers
+were looked upon as nabobs by those of lesser means. Of course everybody
+knew the city fellow had started it, and they were glad Peters had come
+to time and saved the dignity of the place; indeed he was about the only
+one on the plantation who could have done it.
+
+As they stood talking it over the two heroes had nothing to say, of
+course, and 'Pollo began rolling a cigarette--an art he had learned from
+the man from New Orleans.
+
+Finally he remarked, "Yas, Miss Lily got sev'al mighty nice presents
+last night."
+
+At this Pierre turned, laughing, and said, "I s'pose you geeve 'er
+somet'ing too, eh?"
+
+"Pity you hadn't a-give her dat silk hankcher. Hit'd become her a heap
+better'n it becomes you," Peters said, laughing.
+
+"Yas, I reckon it would," said 'Pollo; "but de fact is _she_ gi' _me_
+dis hankcher--an' of co'se I accepted it."
+
+"But why ain't you tellin' us what you give her?" insisted Peters.
+
+'Pollo put the cigarette to his lips, deliberately lit it, puffed
+several times, and then, removing it in a leisurely way, he drawled:
+
+"Well, de fact is I heerd Mr. Pier here give her a buggy, an'--an' Mr.
+Peters, he up an' handed over a horse,--an' so, quick as I got a
+chance, I des balanced my ekalub'ium an' went an' set down beside her
+an' ast her ef she wouldn't do me de honor to accep' of a _driver_,
+an'--an' _she say yas_.
+
+"You know I'm a coachman by trade.
+
+"An' dat's huccome I come to say she got sev'al presents las' night."
+
+And he took another puff of his cigarette.
+
+
+
+
+NEAREST OF KIN
+
+(ON THE PLANTATION)
+
+
+When Tamar the laundress was married to the coachman Pompey, there was a
+big time on the plantation. Tamar wore white tarlatan and an orange
+wreath--although it was her severalth marriage--and she had six
+bridemaids and a train-bearer. The last, a slim little black girl of
+about ten years, was dressed somewhat after the fashion of the ballet,
+in green tarlatan with spangles, and her slender legs were carefully
+wrapped with gilt paper that glistened through the clocked stockings
+with fine effect. Otherwise the "clockings" in the black stockinet would
+have lost their value.
+
+Pompey, as groom, was resplendent in the full glare of a white duck
+suit, and he wore a rosette of satin ribbon--"so's to 'stinguish him out
+f'om de groomsmen," each of whom was likewise "ducked" out in immaculate
+linen; and if there were some suggestive misfits among them, there were
+ample laundry compensations in the way of starch and polish--a proud
+achievement of the bride.
+
+There was a good deal of marching up and down the aisles of the church
+by the entire party before the ceremony, which was, altogether, really
+very effective. Pompey was as black as his bride, and his face was as
+carefully oiled and polished for the occasion as hers, which is saying a
+good deal, both as to color and shine.
+
+After the ceremony everybody repaired, for a supper and dance, to the
+sugar-house, where there was a bride's cake, with all the usual
+accessories, such as the ring and thimble, to be cut for. And of course,
+before the end of the evening, there was the usual distribution of bits
+of cake to be "dreamed on." This last, indeed, was so important that
+nearly every girl on the plantation slept in a neighbor's cabin that
+night, so as to command the full potency of the charm by dreaming her
+great dream in a strange bed. The whole wedding was, in fact, so
+disturbing a social function that everything on the place was more or
+less disarranged by it--even the breakfast hour at the great house,
+which was fully three-quarters of an hour late next morning. But that
+was no great matter, as all the family had been witnesses to the wedding
+and were somewhat sleepy in consequence--and the "rising-bell" was a
+movable form anyway.
+
+Perhaps if the nuptials had been less festive the demeanor of the bride
+immediately afterwards would not have been so conspicuous. As it was,
+however, when she appeared at the wash-house, ready for duty, on the
+second morning following, dressed in heavy mourning, and wearing,
+moreover, a pseudo-sorrowful expression on her every-otherwise shining
+face, they wondered, and there was some nudging and whispering among the
+negroes. Some hastily concluded that the marriage had been rashly
+repudiated as a failure; but when presently the groom strolled into the
+yard, smiling broadly, and when he proceeded with many a flourish to
+devotedly fill her wash-tubs from the well for his bride, they saw that
+there must be some other explanation. The importance of the central
+figure in so recent a pageant still surrounded her with somewhat of a
+glamour in the eyes of her companions, setting her apart, so that they
+were slow to ask her any questions.
+
+Later in the day, though, when her mistress, happening to pass through
+the yard, saw the black-gowned figure bending low over the tubs, she
+hastened to the wash-shed.
+
+"Why, Tamar," she exclaimed, "what on earth--"
+
+At this Tamar raised her face and smiled faintly. Then, glancing down at
+her dress to indicate that she understood, she drawled, demurely:
+
+"Ain't nothin' de matter, missy. I jes mo'nin' for Sister Sophy-Sophia."
+
+"Sophy-Sophia! You don't mean--"
+
+"Yas, 'm, I does. I means Pompey's las' wife, Sis' Sophy-Sophia. She
+didn't have no kinfolks to go in mo'nin' for her, an' time Pompey an' me
+got ingaged he made known his wushes to me, an' I promised him I'd put
+on mo'nin' for her soon as I married into de family. Co'se I couldn't do
+it 'fo' I was kin to her."
+
+  [Illustration: "'I PROMISED HIM I'D PUT ON MO'NIN' FOR HER, SOON AS
+  I MARRIED INTO DE FAMILY.'"]
+
+"Kin to her!" the mistress laughed. "Why, Tamar, what relation on earth
+are you to Pompey's former wife, I'd like to know?"
+
+The black woman dropped the garment she was wringing and thought a
+moment.
+
+"Well, missy," she said, presently, "looks to me like I'm a speritu'l
+foster-sister to her, ef I ain't no mo'--an' I done inherited all her
+rights an' privileges, so Pompey say--an' ef I 'ain't got a right to
+mo'n for her, _who is_? Dey tell me a 'oman is got a right to go in
+mo'nin' for her husband's kin anyway; but of co'se, come down to it,
+she warn't no blood-kin to Pompey, nohow. Howsomever, eve'ybody knows a
+widder or a widderer is intitled to wear _all de mo'nin' dey is_; an'
+his wife, why, she's intitled to a equal sheer in it, if she choose to
+seize her rights. I'd 'a' put it on befo' de weddin', 'cep'n I didn't
+have no title to it, an' it wouldn't 'a' been no comfort to her noways.
+Set down, missy." She began wiping off one of her wash-benches with her
+apron as she spoke. "Set down, mistus, an' lemme talk to you."
+
+The situation was interesting, and the mistress sat down.
+
+"You see, missy"--she had come nearer now, and assumed a confidential
+tone--"you see, Sister Sophy-Sophia she 'ain't nuver found rest yit, an'
+dat frets Pompey. Hit troubles 'im in de sperit--an' I promised him to
+try to pacify her."
+
+"Pacify her! Why, Tamar! How can you pacify a person who is dead? And
+how do you know that her spirit isn't at rest?"
+
+The black woman turned and looked behind her to make sure that no one
+should overhear. Then, lowering her voice, she whispered:
+
+"Her grave 'ain't nuver settled yit, mistus. She been buried ever sence
+befo' Christmus, an' hit ain't evened down yit. An' dat's a shore sign
+of a onrestless sperit--yas, 'm."
+
+Her face had grown suddenly anxious as she spoke. And presently she
+added:
+
+"Of co'se, when a grave settles _too_ quick, dat's a sign dey'll soon
+be another death, an' nobody don't crave to see a grave sink too
+sudden. But it'll ease down gradual--ef de dead sleeps easy--yas, 'm.
+No, Sister Sophy-Sophia she 'ain't took no comfort in her grave yit.
+An' Pompey, righteously speakin', ought to pacified her befo' he set
+out to marry ag'in. Heap o' 'omans would 'a' been afeerd to marry a man
+wid a unsunk grave on his hands--'feerd she'd ha'nt her. But I done had
+'spe'unce, an' I'm mo' 'feerd o' live ha'nts 'n I is o' dead ones. I
+know Sis' Sophy-Sophia she's _layin' dar_--an' she _can't git out_. You
+know, she died o' de exclammatory rheumatism, an' some say hit was a
+jedgmint f'om heaven. You know, Sis' Sophy-Sophia she was a devil for
+fun. She would have her joke. An' some say Gord A'mighty punished her
+an' turned eve'y bone in 'er body into funny-bones, jes to show her dat
+eve'y funny thing ain't to be laughed at. An' ef you ever got a sudden
+whack on de funny-bone in yo' elbow, missy, you know how she suffered
+when she was teched. An' she ain't at rest yit. She done proved dat. Of
+co'se, ef she died wid some'h'n' on 'er mind, we can't do nothin' for
+her; but ef she jes need soothin', I'll git her quieted down."
+
+She leaned forward and resumed her washing--that is to say, she raised a
+garment from the suds and looked at it, turned it over idly in her hands
+several times, and dipped it languidly.
+
+Her visitor watched her in amused silence for a while.
+
+"And how are you going to soothe her, Tamar?" she asked, presently.
+"Tell me all about it."
+
+At this the woman began wiping her hands upon her apron, and dropping
+into a seat between two of the tubs and resting her arms upon their
+rims, she faced her mistress.
+
+"Of co'se, honey," she began, "de fust thing is to _wear mo'nin_'--an'
+dat ain't no special trouble to me--I got consider'ble black frocks
+lef' over from my widderhoods. An' in addition to dat, I gwine carry it
+around in my countenance--an' _ef she sees it_--an' I b'lieve de dead
+does see--_maybe it'll ease her mind_. Of co'se, when a pusson ain't
+able to sorrer in her heart, dey 'bleeged to wear it in dey face--"
+
+There was something in her voice as she said these last words--an
+indescribable note that seemed to express detachment from all feeling in
+the matter--that made her listener turn and look narrowly into her face.
+Still, she was not in the least prepared for the hearty laughter that
+greeted her question.
+
+"And don't you mourn for her in your heart, Tamar?" She eyed her
+narrowly as she put the question.
+
+The black woman did not even attempt an answer. Nor did she apparently
+even try to control her mirth. But, after a while, when she had laughed
+until she was tired, she suddenly rose to her feet, and as she gathered
+up a handful of wet garments, and began rubbing them on the wash-board,
+she exclaimed, still chuckling:
+
+"Lemme git to my washin', honey, befo' I disgrace my mo'nin'."
+
+In a little while, however, she grew serious again, and although she
+still seemed to have trouble with her shoulders, that insisted upon
+expressing merriment, she said:
+
+"I 'clare, I talks like a plumb hycoprite, missy--I sho' does. But I
+ain't. No, 'm, I ain't. Of co'se I grieves for Sis' Sophy-Sophia. I'd
+grieve for any po' human dat can't find rest in 'er grave--an' I'm gwine
+to consolate her, good as I kin. Soon as de dark o' de moon comes, I
+gwine out an' set on her grave an' moan, an' ef dat don't ease her,
+maybe when her funer'l is preached she'll be comforted."
+
+"And hasn't she had her funeral sermon yet, Tamar?"
+
+"Oh no, 'm. 'Tain't time, hardly, yit. We mos' gin'ly waits two or
+three years after de bury-in' befo' we has members' funer'ls preached.
+An' we don't nuver, sca'cely, have 'em under a year. You see, dey's a
+lot o' smarty folks dat 'ain't got nothin' better to do 'n to bring up
+things ag'in dead folks's cha'acter, so we waits tell dey been restin'
+in de groun' a year or so. Den a preacher he can expec' to preach dey
+funer'ls in peace. De fac' is, some o' our mos' piousest elders an'
+deacons is had so many widders show up at dey funer'ls dat de chu'ches
+is most of 'em passed a law dat dey compelled to wait a year or so an'
+give all dese heah p'omiscu'us widders time to marry off--an' save
+scandalizement. An' Pompey an' Sophy-Sophia dey didn't have no mo'n a
+broomstick weddin' nohow--but of co'se _dey did have de broomstick. I'm
+a witness to dat, 'caze dey borried my broom--yas, 'm._ Ricollec', I
+had one o' dese heah green-handle sto'e brooms, an' Pompey he come over
+to my cabin one mornin' an' he say, 'Sis' Tamar,' he say, 'would you
+mind loandin' Sis' Sophy-Sophia dat green-handle straw broom dat you
+sweeps out de chu'ch-house wid?' You 'member, I was married to Wash
+Williams dat time--Wash Williams wha' live down heah at de cross-roads
+now. He's married to Yaller Silvy now. You know dat red-head
+freckled-face yaller gal dat use to sew for Mis' Ann Powers--always
+wear a sailor hat--wid a waist on her no thicker'n my wris'--an' a
+hitch in her walk eve'y time she pass a man? Dat's de gal. She stole
+Wash f'om me--an' she's welcome to 'im. Any 'oman is welcome to any man
+she kin git f'om me. Dat's my principle. But dese heah yaller freckle
+niggers 'ain't got no principle _to_ 'em. I done heerd dat all my
+life--an' Silvy she done proved it. Time Wash an' me was married he was
+a man in good chu'ch standin'--a reg'lar ordained sexton, at six
+dollars a month--an' I done de sweepin' for him. Dat's huccome I
+happened to have dat green-handle sto'e broom. Dat's all I ever did git
+out o' his wages. Any day you'd pass Rose-o'-Sharon Chu'ch dem days you
+could see him settin' up on de steps, like a gent'eman, an' I sho' did
+take pride in him. An' now, dey tell me, Silvy she got him down to
+shirt-sleeves--splittin' rails, wid his breeches gallused up wid twine,
+while she sets in de cabin do' wid a pink caliker Mother Hubbard
+wrapper on fannin' 'erse'f. An' on Saturdays, when he draw his pay,
+you'll mos' gin'ally see 'em standin' together at de hat an' ribbon
+show-case in de sto'e--he grinnin' for all he's worth. An' my belief is
+he grins des to hide his mizry."
+
+"You certainly were very good to do his sweeping for him." Tamar's
+graphic picture of a rather strained situation was so humorous that it
+was hard to take calmly. But her mistress tried to disguise her
+amusement so far as possible. To her surprise, the question seemed to
+restore the black woman to a fresh sense of her dignity in the
+situation.
+
+"Cert'ny I done it," she exclaimed, dramatically. "Cert'ny. You reckon
+I'd live in de house wid a man dat 'd handle a broom? No, ma'am. Nex'
+thing I'd look for him to sew. No, ma'am. But I started a-tellin' you
+huccome I come to know dat Pompey an' Sis' Sophy-Sophia was legally
+married wid a broom. One day he come over to my cabin, jes like I
+commenced tellin' you, an' he s'lute me wid, 'Good-mornin', Sis' Tamar;
+I come over to see ef you won't please, ma'am, loand Sister Sophy-Sophia
+Sanders dat straw broom wha' you sweeps out de chu'ch-house wid, please,
+ma'am?' An' I ricollec's de answer I made him. I laughed, an' I say,
+'Well, Pompey,' I say, 'I don't know about loandin' out a chu'ch broom
+to a sinner like you.' An' at dat he giggle, 'Well, we wants it to
+play preacher--an' dat seems like a mighty suitable job for a chu'ch
+broom.' An' of co'se wid dat I passed over de broom, wid my best
+wushes to de bride; an' when he fetched it back, I ricollec', he
+fetched me a piece o' de weddin'-cake--but it warn't no mo'n common
+one-two-three-fo'-cup-cake wid about seventeen onfriendly reesons
+stirred into it wid brown sugar. I 'clare, when I looks back, I sho'
+is ashamed to know dat dey was ever sech a po' weddin'-cake in my
+family--I sho' is. Now you know, missy, of co'se, dese heah
+broom--weddin's dey ain't writ down in nuther co't-house nur chu'ch
+books--an' so ef any o' dese heah smarty meddlers was to try to bring
+up ole sco'es an' say dat Sister Sophy-Sophia wasn't legally married,
+dey wouldn't be no witnesses _but me an' de broom_, an' I'd have to
+witness _for it_, an'--an' _I_ wouldn't be no legal witness."
+
+"Why wouldn't you be a legal witness, Tamar?"
+
+"'_Caze I got de same man_--an' dat's de suspiciouses' thing dey kin
+bring up ag'ins' a witness--so dey tell me. Ef 'twarn't for dat, I'd
+'a' had her fun'al preached las' month."
+
+"But even supposing the matter had been stirred up--and you had been
+unable to prove that everything was as you wished--wouldn't your
+minister have preached a funeral sermon anyway?"
+
+"Oh yas, 'm, cert'n'y. On'y de fun'al he'd preach wouldn't help her to
+rest in her grave--dat's de on'ies' diffe'ence. Like as not dey'd git
+ole Brother Philemon Peters down f'om de bottom-lands to preach
+wrath--an' I wants grace preached at Sister Sophy-Sophia's fun'al, even
+ef I has to wait ten years for it. She died in pain, but I hope for her
+to rest in peace--an' not to disgrace heaven wid crutches under her
+wings, nuther. I know half a dozen loud-prayers, now, dat 'd be on'y too
+glad to 'tract attention away f'om dey own misdoin's by rakin' out
+scandalizemint on a dead 'oman. Dey'd 'spute de legalness of dat
+marriage in a minute, jes to keep folks f'om lookin' up dey own weddin'
+papers--yas, 'm. But me an' de broom--we layin' low, now, an' keepin'
+still, but we'll speak when de time comes at de jedgmint day, ef she
+need a witness."
+
+"But tell me, Tamar, why didn't Pompey take his bride to the church if
+they wanted a regular wedding?"
+
+"Dey couldn't, missy. Dey couldn't on account o' Sis' Sophy-Sophia's
+secon' husband, Sam Sanders. He hadn't made no secon' ch'ice yit--an',
+you know, when de fust one of a parted couple marries ag'in, dey
+'bleeged to take to de broomstick--less'n dey go whar 'tain't known on
+'em. Dat's de rule o' divo'cemint. When Yaller Silvy married my Joe wid
+a broomstick, dat lef' me free for a chu'ch marriage. An' I tell you,
+_I had it, too_. But ef she had a'tempted to walk up a chu'ch aisle
+wid Joe--an' me still onmarried--well, I wush dey'd 'a' tried it! I'd
+'a' been standin' befo' de pulpit a-waitin' for 'em--an' I'd 'a' quoted
+some Scripture at 'em, too. But dey acted accordin' to law. Dey married
+quiet, wid a broomstick, an' de nex' Sunday walked in chu'ch together,
+took de same pew, an' he turned her pages mannerly for her--an' dat's de
+ladylikest behavior Silvy ever been guilty of in her life, I reckon. She
+an' him can't nair one of 'em read, but dey sets still an' holds de book
+an' turns de pages--an' Gord Hisself couldn't ax no mo' for chu'ch
+behavior. But lemme go on wid my washin', missy--for Gord's sake."
+
+Laughing again now, she drew a match from the ledge of one of the
+rafters, struck it across the sole of her bare foot, and began to light
+the fire under her furnace. And as she flattened herself against the
+ground to blow the kindling pine, she added, between puffs, and without
+so much as a change of tone:
+
+"Don't go, please, ma'am, tell I git dis charcoal lit to start dese
+shirts to bile. I been tryin' to fix my mouf to ax you is you got air
+ole crêpe veil you could gimme to wear to chu'ch nex' Sunday--please,
+ma'am? I 'clare, I wonder what's de sign when you blowin' one way an' a
+live coal come right back at yer 'gins' de wind?" And sitting upon the
+ground, she added, as she touched her finger to her tongue and rubbed a
+burnt spot upon her chin: "Pompey 'd be mighty proud ef I could walk in
+chu'ch by his side in full sisterly mo'nin' nex' Sunday for po' Sister
+Sophy-Sophia--yas, 'm. I hope you kin fin' me a ole crêpe veil, please,
+ma'am."
+
+Unfortunately for the full blossoming of this mourning flower of
+Afro-American civilization, as it is sometimes seen to bloom along the
+by-ways of plantation life, there was not a second-hand veil of crêpe
+forth-coming on this occasion. There were small compensations, however,
+in sundry effective accessories, such as a crêpe collar and bonnet, not
+to mention a funereal fan of waving black plumes, which Pompey
+flourished for his wife's benefit during the entire service. Certainly
+the "speritu'l foster-sister" of the mourning bride, if she witnessed
+the tribute paid her that Sunday morning in full view of the entire
+congregation--for the bridal pair occupied the front pew under the
+pulpit--would have been obdurate indeed if she had not been somewhat
+mollified.
+
+Tamar consistently wore her mourning garb for some months, and, so far
+as is known, it made no further impression upon her companions than to
+cause a few smiles and exchanges of glances at first among those of
+lighter mind among them, some of whom were even so uncharitable as to
+insinuate that Sis' Tamar wasn't "half so grieved as she let on." The
+more serious, however, united in commending her act as "mos'
+Christian-like an' sisterly conduc'." And when, after the gentle
+insistence of the long spring rains, added to the persuasiveness of
+Tamar's mourning, the grave of her solicitude sank to an easy level,
+bespeaking peace to its occupant, Tamar suddenly burst into full flower
+of flaming color, and the mourning period became a forgotten episode of
+the past. Indeed, in reviewing the ways and doings of the plantation in
+those days, it seems entitled to no more prominence in the retrospect
+than many another incident of equal ingenuousness and novelty. There was
+the second wooing of old Aunt Salina-Sue, for instance, and Uncle
+'Riah's diseases; but, as Another would say, these are other stories.
+
+Another year passed over the plantation, and in the interval the always
+expected had happened to the house of Pompey the coachman. It was a tiny
+girl child, black of hue as both her doting parents, and endowed with
+the name of her sire, somewhat feminized for her fitting into the rather
+euphonious Pompeylou. Tamar had lost her other children in infancy, and
+so the pansy-faced little Pompeylou of her mid-life was a great joy to
+her, and most of her leisure was devoted to the making of the pink
+calico slips that went to the little one's adorning.
+
+On her first journey into the great world beyond the plantation,
+however, she was not arrayed in one of these. Indeed, the long gown she
+wore on this occasion was, like that of her mother, as black as the
+rejuvenated band of crêpe upon her father's stovepipe hat; for, be it
+known, this interesting family of three was to form a line of chief
+mourners on the front pew of Rose-of-Sharon Church on the occasion of
+the preaching of the funeral of the faithfully mourned and long-lamented
+Sophy-Sophia, whose hour of posthumous honor had at length arrived. The
+obsequies in her memory had been fixed for an earlier date, but in
+deference to the too-recent arrival of her "nearest of kin" was then too
+young to attend, they had been deferred by Tamar's request, and it is
+safe to say that no child was ever brought forward with more pride at
+any family gathering than was the tiny Miss Pompeylou when she was
+carried up the aisle "to hear her step-mammy's funeral preached."
+
+It was a great day, and the babe, who was on her very best
+six-months-old behavior, listened with admirable placidity to the
+"sermon of grace," on which at a future time she might, perhaps, found a
+genealogy. Her only offence against perfect church decorum was a
+sometimes rather explosive "Agoo!" as she tried to reach the
+ever-swaying black feather fan that was waved by her parents in turn for
+her benefit. Before the service was over, indeed, she had secured and
+torn the proud emblem into bits; but Tamar only smiled at its demolition
+by the baby fingers. It was a good omen, she said, and meant that the
+day of mourning was over.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEACON'S MEDICINE
+
+
+When the doctor drove by the Gregg farm about dusk, and saw old Deacon
+Gregg perched cross-legged upon his own gatepost, he knew that something
+was wrong within, and he could not resist the temptation to drive up and
+speak to the old man.
+
+It was common talk in the neighborhood that when Grandmother Gregg made
+things too warm for him in-doors, the good man, her spouse, was wont to
+stroll out to the front gate and to take this exalted seat.
+
+Indeed, it was said by a certain Mrs. Frequent, a neighbor of prying
+proclivities and ungentle speech, that the deacon's wife sent him there
+as a punishment for misdemeanors. Furthermore, this same Mrs. Frequent
+did even go so far as to watch for the deacon, and when she would see
+him laboriously rise and resignedly poise himself upon the narrow area,
+she would remark:
+
+"Well, I see Grandma Gregg has got the old man punished again. Wonder
+what he's been up to now?"
+
+Her constant repetition of the unkind charge finally gained for it such
+credence that the diminutive figure upon the gate-post became an object
+of mingled sympathy and mirth in the popular regard.
+
+The old doctor was the friend of a lifetime, and he was sincerely
+attached to the deacon, and when he turned his horse's head towards the
+gate this evening, he felt his heart go out in sympathy to the old man
+in durance vile upon his lonely perch.
+
+But he had barely started to the gate when he heard a voice which he
+recognized as the deacon's, whereupon he would have hurried away had not
+his horse committed him to his first impulse by unequivocally facing the
+gate.
+
+"I know three's a crowd," he called out cheerily as he presently drew
+rein, "but I ain't a-goin' to stay; I jest--Why, where's grandma?" he
+added, abruptly, seeing the old man alone. "I'm shore I heard--"
+
+"You jest heerd me a-talkin' to myself, doctor--or not to myself,
+exactly, neither--that is to say, when you come up I was addressin' my
+remarks to this here pill."
+
+"Bill? I don't see no bill." The doctor drew his buggy nearer. He was a
+little deaf.
+
+"No; I said this pill, doctor. I'm a-holdin' of it here in the pa'm o'
+my hand, a-studyin' over it."
+
+"What's she a-dosin' you for now, Enoch?"
+
+The doctor always called the deacon by his first name when he approached
+him in sympathy. He did not know it. Neither did the deacon, but he felt
+the sympathy, and it unlocked the portals of his heart.
+
+"Well"--the old man's voice softened--"she thinks I stand in need of
+'em, of co'se. The fact is, that yaller-spotted steer run ag'in her
+clo'esline twice-t to-day--drug the whole week's washin' onto the
+ground, an' then tromped on it. She's inside a-renchin' an' a-starchin'
+of 'em over now. An' right on top o' that, I come in lookin' sort o'
+puny an' peaked, an' I happened to choke on a muskitty jest ez I come
+in, an' she declared she wasn't a-goin' to have a consumpted man sick on
+her hands an' a clo'es-destroyin' steer at the same time. An' with that
+she up an' wiped her hands on her apron, an' went an' selected this here
+pill out of a bottle of assorted sizes, an' instructed me to take it.
+They never was a thing done mo' delib'rate an' kind--never on earth. But
+of co'se you an' she know how it plegs me to take physic. You could
+mould out ice-cream in little pill shapes an' it would gag me, even ef
+'twas vanilly-flavored. An' so, when I received it, why, I jest come out
+here to meditate. You can see it from where you set, doctor. It's a
+purty sizeable one, and I'm mighty suspicious of it."
+
+The doctor cleared his throat. "Yas, I can see it, Enoch--of co'se."
+
+"Could you jedge of it, doctor? That is, of its capabilities, I mean?"
+
+"Why, no, of co'se not--not less'n I'd taste it, an' you can do that ez
+well ez I can. If it's quinine, it'll be bitter; an' ef it's soggy
+an'--"
+
+"Don't explain no mo', doctor. I can't stand it. I s'pose it's jest ez
+foolish to investigate the inwardness of a pill a person is bound to
+take ez it would be to try to lif the veil of the future in any other
+way. When I'm obligated to swaller one of 'em, I jest take a swig o'
+good spring water and repeat a po'tion of Scripture and commit myself
+unto the Lord. I always seem foreordained to choke to death, but I
+notice thet ef I recover from the first spell o' suffocation, I always
+come through. But I 'ain't never took one yet thet I didn't in a manner
+prepare to die."
+
+"Then I wouldn't take it, Enoch. Don't do it." The doctor cleared his
+throat again, but this time he had no trouble to keep the corners of his
+mouth down. His sympathy robbed him for the time of the humor in the
+situation. "No, I wouldn't do it--doggone ef I would."
+
+The deacon looked into the palm of his hand and sighed. "Oh yas, I
+reckon I better take it," he said, mildly. "Ef I don't stand in need of
+it now, maybe the good Lord'll sto'e it up in my system, some way,
+'g'inst a future attackt."
+
+"Well"--the doctor reached for his whip--"well, _I_ wouldn't do
+it--_steer or no steer_!"
+
+"Oh yas, I reckon you would, doctor, ef you had a wife ez worrited over
+a wash-tub ez what mine is. An' I had a extry shirt in wash this week,
+too. One little pill ain't much when you take in how she's been
+tantalized."
+
+The doctor laughed outright.
+
+"Tell you what to do, Enoch. Fling it away and don't let on. She don't
+question you, does she?"
+
+"No, she 'ain't never to say questioned me, but--Well, I tried that
+once-t. Sampled a bitter white capsule she gave me, put it down for
+quinine, an' flung it away. Then I chirped up an' said I felt a heap
+better--and that wasn't no lie--which I suppose was on account o' the
+relief to my mind, which it always did seem to me capsules was jest
+constructed to lodge in a person's air-passages. Jest lookin' at a box
+of 'em'll make me low-sperited. Well, I taken notice thet she'd look at
+me keen now an' ag'in, an' then look up at the clock, an' treckly I see
+her fill the gou'd dipper an' go to her medicine-cabinet, an' then she
+come to me an' she says, says she, 'Open yore mouth!' An' of co'se I
+opened it. You see that first capsule, ez well ez the one she had jest
+administered, was mostly morphine, which she had give me to ward off a
+'tackt o' the neuraligy she see approachin', and here I had been tryin'
+to live up to the requi'ements of quinine, an' wrastlin' severe with a
+sleepy spell, which, ef I'd only knew it, would o' saved me. Of co'se,
+after the second dose-t, which I swallered, I jest let nature take its
+co'se, an' treckly I commenced to doze off, an' seemed like I was a
+feather-bed an' wife had hung me on the fence to sun, an' I remember how
+she seemed to be a-whuppin' of me, but it didn't hurt. Of co'se nothin'
+couldn't hurt me an' me all benumbed with morphine. An' I s'pose what
+put the feather-bed in my head was on account of it bein' goose-pickin'
+time, an' she was werrited with windy weather, an' she tryin' to fill
+the feather-beds. No, I won't never try to deceive her ag'in. It never
+has seemed to me thet she could have the same respect for me after
+ketchin' me at it, though she 'ain't never referred to it but once-t,
+an' that was the time I was elected deacon, an' even then she didn't do
+it outspoke. She seemed mighty tender over it, an' didn't no mo'n remind
+me thet a officer in a Christian church ought to examine hisself mighty
+conscientious an' be sure he was free of deceit, which, seemed to me,
+showed a heap 'o' consideration. She 'ain't got a deceitful bone in her
+body, doctor."
+
+  [Illustration: "SAYS SHE, 'OPEN YORE MOUTH.' AN' OF CO'SE I OPENED
+  IT"]
+
+"Why, bless her old soul, Enoch, you know thet I think the world an' all
+o' Grandma Gregg! She's the salt o' the earth--an' rock-salt at that.
+She's saved too many o' my patients by her good nursin', in spite o' my
+poor doctorin', for me not to appreciate her. But that don't reconcile
+me to the way she doses you for her worries."
+
+"It took me a long time to see that myself, doctor. But I've reasoned it
+out this a-way: I s'pose when she feels her temper a-risin' she's 'feerd
+thet she might be so took up with her troubles thet she'd neglect my
+health, an' so she wards off any attackt thet might be comin' on. I
+taken notice that time her strawberry preserves all soured on her hands,
+an' she painted my face with iodine, a man did die o' the erysipelas
+down here at Battle Creek, an' likely ez not she'd heerd of it. Sir? No,
+I didn't mention it at the time for fear she'd think best to lay on
+another coat, an' I felt sort o' disfiggured with it. Wife ain't a
+scoldin' woman, I'm thankful for that. An' some o' the peppermints an'
+things she keeps to dole out to me when she's fretted with little
+things--maybe her yeast'll refuse to rise, or a thunder-storm'll kill a
+settin' of eggs--why, they're so disguised thet _'cep'n thet I know
+they're medicine_--"
+
+"Well, Kitty, I reckon we better be a-goin'." The doctor tapped his
+horse. "Be shore to give my love to grandma, Enoch. An' ef you're bound
+to take that pill--of co'se I can't no mo'n speculate about it at this
+distance, but I'd advise you to keep clear o' sours an' acids for a day
+or so. Don't think, because your teeth are adjustable, thet none o' yore
+other functions ain't open to salivation. _Good_-night, Enoch."
+
+"Oh, she always looks after that, doctor. She's mighty attentive, come
+to withholdin' harmful temptations. Good-bye, doctor. It's did me good
+to open my mind to you a little.
+
+"Yas," he added, looking steadily into his palm as the buggy rolled
+away--"yas, it's did me good to talk to him; but I ain't no more
+reconciled to you, you barefaced, high-foreheaded little roly-poly, you.
+Funny how a pill thet 'ain't got a feature on earth can look me out o'
+countenance the way it can, and frustrate my speech. Talk about whited
+sepulchures, an' ravenin' wolves! I don't know how come I to let on thet
+I was feelin' puny to-night, nohow. I might've knew--with all them
+clo'es bedaubled over--though I can't, ez the doctor says, see how me
+a-takin' a pill is goin' to help matters--but of co'se I wouldn't let on
+to him, an' he a bachelor."
+
+He stopped talking and felt his wrist.
+
+"Maybe my pulse is obstropulous, an' ought to be sedated down. Reckon
+I'll haf to kill that steer--or sell him, one--though I swo'e I
+wouldn't. But of co'se I swo'e that in a temper, an' temp'rate vows
+ain't never made 'cep'in' to be repented of."
+
+Several times during the last few minutes, while the deacon spoke, there
+had come to him across the garden from the kitchen the unmistakable odor
+of fried chicken.
+
+He had foreseen that there would be a good supper to-night, and that the
+tiny globule within his palm would constitute for him a prohibition
+concerning it.
+
+Grandmother Gregg was one of those worthy if difficult women who never
+let anything interfere with her duty as she saw it magnified by the
+lenses of pain or temper. It usually pleased her injured mood to make
+waffles on wash-day, and the hen-house owed many renovations, with a
+reckless upsetting of nests and roosts, to one of her "splittin'
+headaches." She would often wash her hair in view of impending company,
+although she averred that to wet her scalp never failed to bring on the
+"neuraligy." And her "neuraligy" in turn meant medicine for the deacon.
+
+It was probably the doctor's timely advice, augmented, possibly, by the
+potencies of the frying-pan, with a strong underlying sympathy with the
+worrying woman within--it was, no doubt, all these powers combined that
+suddenly surprised the hitherto complying husband into such
+unprecedented conduct that any one knowing him in his old character, and
+seeing him now, would have thought that he had lost his mind.
+
+With a swift and brave fling he threw the pill far into the night. Then,
+in an access of energy born of internal panic, he slid nimbly from his
+perch and started in a steady jog-trot into the road, wiping away the
+tears as he went, and stammering between sobs as he stumbled over the
+ruts:
+
+"No, I won't--yas, I will, too--doggone shame, and she frettin' her life
+out--of co'se I will--I'll sell 'im for anything he'll fetch--an' I'll
+be a better man, yas, yas I will--but I won't swaller another one o'
+them blame--not ef I die for it."
+
+This report, taken in long-hand by an amused listener by the road-side,
+is no doubt incomplete in its ejaculatory form, but it has at least the
+value of accuracy, so far as it goes, which may be had only from a
+verbatim transcript.
+
+It was perhaps three-quarters of an hour later when Enoch entered the
+kitchen, wiping his face, nervous, weary, embarrassed. Supper was on the
+table. The blue-bordered dish, heaped with side bones and second joints
+done to a turn, was moved to a side station, while in its accustomed
+place before Enoch's plate there sat an ominous bowl of gruel. The old
+man did not look at the table, but he saw it all. He would have realized
+it with his eyes shut. Domestic history, as well as that of greater
+principalities and powers, often repeats itself.
+
+Enoch's fingers trembled as he came near his wife, and standing with his
+back to the table, began to untie a broad flat parcel that he had
+brought in under his arm. She paused in one of her trips between the
+table and stove, and regarded him askance.
+
+"Reckon I'll haf to light the lantern befo' I set down to eat, wife," he
+said, by way of introduction. "Isrul'll be along d'rec'ly to rope that
+steer. I've done sold him." The good woman laid her dish upon the table
+and returned to the stove.
+
+"Pity you hadn't 'a' sold 'im day befo' yesterday. I'd 'a' had a heap
+less pain in my shoulder-blade." She sniffed as she said it; and then
+she added, "That gruel ought to be e't warm."
+
+By this time the parcel was open. There was a brief display of colored
+zephyrs and gleaming card-board. Then Enoch began re-wrapping them.
+
+"Reckon you can look these over in the morn-in', wife. They're jest a
+few new cross-stitch Bible texts, an' I knowed you liked Scripture
+motters. Where'll I lay 'em, wife, while I go out an' tend to lightin'
+that lantern? I told Isrul I'd set it in the stable door so's he could
+git that steer out o' the way immejate."
+
+The proposal to lay the mottoes aside was a master-stroke.
+
+The aggrieved wife had already begun to wipe her hands on her apron.
+Still, she would not seem too easily appeased.
+
+"I do hope you 'ain't gone an' turned that whole steer into perforated
+paper, Enoch, even ef 'tis Bible-texted over."
+
+Thus she guarded her dignity. But even as she spoke she took the parcel
+from his hands. This was encouragement enough. It presaged a thawing
+out. And after Enoch had gone out to light the lantern, it would have
+amused a sympathetic observer to watch her gradual melting as she looked
+over the mottoes:
+
+    "A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS FAR ABOVE RUBIES."
+
+    "A PRUDENT WIFE IS FROM THE LORD."
+
+    "BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS WHERE LOVE IS--"
+
+She read them over and over. Then she laid them aside and looked at
+Enoch's plate. Then she looked at the chicken-dish, and now at the bowl
+of gruel which she had carefully set on the back of the stove to keep
+warm.
+
+"Don't know ez it would hurt 'im any ef I'd thicken that gruel up into
+mush. He's took sech a distaste to soft food sense he's got that new
+set."
+
+She rose as she spoke, poured the gruel back into the pot, sifted and
+mixed a spoonful of meal and stirred it in. This done, she hesitated,
+glanced at the pile of mottoes, and reflected. Then with a sudden
+resolve she seized the milk-pitcher, filled a cup from it, poured the
+milk into the little pot of mush, hastily whipped up two eggs with some
+sugar, added the mixture to the pot, returned the whole to the yellow
+bowl, and set it in the oven to brown.
+
+And just then Enoch came in, and approached the water-shelf.
+
+"Don't keer how you polish it, a brass lantern an' coal ile is like
+murder on a man's hands. It will out."
+
+He was thinking of the gruel, and putting off the evil hour. It had been
+his intention to boldly announce that he hadn't taken his medicine, that
+he never would again unless he needed it, and, moreover, that he was
+going to eat his supper to-night, and always, as long as God should
+spare him, etc., etc., etc.
+
+But he had no sooner found himself in the presence of long-confessed
+superior powers than he knew that he would never do any of these things.
+
+His wife was thinking of the gruel too when she encouraged delay by
+remarking that he would better rest up a bit before eating.
+
+"And I reckon you better soak yo' hands good. Take a pinch o' that bran
+out o' the safe to 'em," she added, "and ef that don't do, the Floridy
+water is in on my bureau."
+
+When finally Enoch presented himself, ready for his fate, she was able
+to set the mush pudding, done to a fine brown, before him, and her tone
+was really tender as she said:
+
+"This ain't very hearty ef you're hungry; but you can eat it all. There
+ain't no interference in it with anything you've took."
+
+The pudding was one of Enoch's favorite dishes, but as he broke its
+brown surface with his spoon he felt like a hypocrite. He took one long
+breath, and then he blurted:
+
+"By-the-way, wife, this reminds me, I reckon you'll haf to fetch me
+another o' them pills. I dropped that one out in the grass--that is, ef
+you think I still stand in need of it. I feel consider'ble better'n I
+did when I come in this evenin'."
+
+The good woman eyed him suspiciously a minute. Then her eyes fell upon
+the words "ABOVE RUBIES" lying upon the table. Reaching over, she lifted
+the pudding-bowl aside, took the dish of fried chicken from its
+sub-station, and set it before her lord.
+
+"Better save that pudd'n' for dessert, honey, an' help yo'self to some
+o' that chicken, an' take a potater an' a roll, and eat a couple o' them
+spring onions--they're the first we've had. Sence you're a-feelin'
+better, maybe it's jest ez well thet you mislaid that pill."
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+The wind blows sometimes from the east in Simkinsville, as elsewhere,
+and there are still occasional days when the deacon betakes himself to
+the front gate and sits like a nineteenth-century Simon Stilites on his
+pillar, contemplating the open palm of his own hand, while he enriches
+Mrs. Frequent's _répertoire_ of gossip by a picturesque item.
+
+But the reverse of the picture has much of joy in it; for, in spite of
+her various tempers, Grandmother Gregg is a warm-hearted soul--and she
+loves her man. And he loves her.
+
+Listen to him to-night, for instance, as, having finished his supper, he
+remarks:
+
+"An' I'm a-goin' to see to it, from this on, thet you ain't fretted with
+things ez you've been, ef I can help it, wife. Sometimes, the way I act,
+I seem like ez ef I forgit you're all I've got--on earth."
+
+"Of co'se I reelize that, Enoch," she replies. "We're each one all the
+other's got--an' that's why I don't spare no pains to keep you in
+health."
+
+
+
+
+TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE
+
+
+One could see at a glance that they were gentlemen as they strolled
+leisurely along, side by side, through Madison Square, on Christmas
+morning.
+
+A certain subtle charm--let us call it a dignified aimlessness--hung
+about them like an easy garment, labelling them as mild despisers of
+ambitions, of goals, of destinations, of conventionalities.
+
+The observer who passed from casual contemplation of their unkempt locks
+to a closer scrutiny perceived, even in passing them, that their shoes
+were not mates, while the distinct bagging at the knees of their
+trousers was somewhat too high in one case, and too low in the other, to
+encompass the knees within which were slowly, but surely, gaining tardy
+secondary recognitions at points more or less remote from the first
+impressions.
+
+One pair was a trifle short in the legs, while the other--they of the
+too-low knee-marks--were turned up an inch or two above the shoes: a
+style which in itself may seem to savor of affectation, and yet, taken
+with the wearer on this occasion, dispelled suspicion.
+
+It seemed rather a cold day to sit on a bench in Madison Square, and yet
+our two gentlemen, after making a casual tour of the walks, sat easily
+down; and, indeed, though passers hurried by in heavy top-coats and
+furs, it seemed quite natural that these gentlemen should be seated.
+
+One or two others, differing more or less as individuals from our
+friends, but evidently members of the same social caste, broadly
+speaking, were also sitting in the square, apparently as oblivious to
+the cold as they.
+
+"The hardest thing to bear," the taller one, he of the short trousers,
+was saying, as he dropped his shapely wrist over the iron arm of the
+bench, "the hardest thing for the individual, under the present system,
+is the arbitrariness of the assignments of life. The chief advantage of
+the Bellamy scheme seems to me to be in its harmonious adjustments, so
+to speak. Every man does professionally what he can best do. If you and
+I had been reared under that system, now--"
+
+"What, think you, would Bellamy the prophet have made of you, Humphrey?"
+
+"Well, sir, his government would have taken pains to discover and
+develop my tendency, my drift--"
+
+"Ah, I see. I should judge that nature had endowed you with a fine bump
+of drift, Humphrey. But has it not been rather well cared for? The
+trouble with drifting is, so say the preachers, that it necessarily
+carries one downstream."
+
+"To the sea, the limitless, the boundless, the ultimatum--however, this
+is irrelevant and frivolous. I am serious--and modest, I assure
+you--when I speak of my gifts. I have, as you know, a pronounced gift at
+repartee. Who knows what this might have become under proper
+development? But it has been systematically snubbed, misunderstood,
+dubbed impertinence, forsooth."
+
+"If I remember aright, it was your gift of repartee that--wasn't it
+something of that sort which severed your connection with college?"
+
+"Yes, and here I am. That's where the shoe pinches. Ha! and by way of
+literal illustration, speaking of the mal-adjustments of life, witness
+this boot."
+
+The speaker languidly extended his right foot.
+
+"The fellow who first wore it had bunions, blast him, and I come into
+his bunion-bulge with a short great toe. As a result, here I am in New
+York in December, instead of absorbing sunshine and the odor of violets
+in Jackson Square in New Orleans, with picturesqueness and color all
+about me. No man could start South with such a boot as that.
+
+"I do most cordially hope that the beastly vulgarian who shaped it has
+gone, as my friend Mantalini would express it, 'to the demnition
+bow-wows.' You see the beauty of the Bellamy business is that all
+callings are equally worthy. As a social factor I should have made a
+record, and would probably have gone into history as a wit."
+
+"Condemn the history! You'd have gone into life, Humphrey. That's
+enough. You'd have gone into the home--into your own bed at night--into
+dinner in a dress-coat--into society, your element--into posterity in
+your brilliant progeny, paterfamilias--"
+
+"Enough, Colonel. There are some things--even from an old comrade like
+yourself--"
+
+"Beg pardon, Humphrey. No offence meant, I assure you.
+
+"It's only when life's fires are burning pretty low that we may venture
+to stir the coals and knock off the ashes a little.
+
+"For myself, I don't mind confessing, Humphrey, that there have been
+women--Don't start; there isn't even a Yule-log smouldering on my
+heart's hearth to-day. I can stir the smoking embers safely. I say there
+have been women--a woman I'll say, even--a nursemaid, whom I have seen
+in this park--a perfect Juno. She was well-born I'd swear, by her
+delicate ears, her instep, her curved nostrils--"
+
+"Did you ever approach your goddess near enough to catch her curved
+articulation, Colonel? Or doubtless it flowed in angles, Anglo-Saxon
+pura."
+
+"You are flippant, Humphrey. I say if this woman had had educational
+advantages and--and if my affairs had looked up a little, well--there's
+no telling! And yet, to tell you this to-day does not even warm my
+heart."
+
+"Nor rattle a skeleton within its closet?"
+
+"Not a rattle about me, sir, excepting the rattle of these beastly
+newspapers on my chest. Have a smoke, Humphrey?"
+
+The Colonel presented a handful of half-burned cigar-stubs.
+
+"No choice. They're all twenty-five-centers, assorted from a Waldorf
+lot."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+Humphrey took three. The Colonel, reserving one for his own use, dropped
+the rest into his outer pocket.
+
+And now eleven men passed, smoking, eleven unapproachables, before one
+dropped a burning stump.
+
+As Humphrey rose and strode indolently forward to secure the fragment,
+there was a certain courtliness about the man that even a pair of short
+trousers could not disguise. It was the same which constrains us to
+write him down Sir Humphrey.
+
+"I never appropriate the warmth of another man's lips," said he, as,
+having first presented the light to his friend, he lit a fragment for
+himself. Then, pressing out the fire of the last acquisition, he laid it
+beside him to cool before adding it to his store.
+
+"Nor I," responded the Colonel--"at least, I never did but once. I
+happened to be walking behind General Grant, and he dropped a smoking
+stub--"
+
+"Which you took for Granted--"
+
+"If you will, yes. It was a bit sentimental, I know, but I rather
+enjoyed placing it warm from his lips to mine. It was to me a sort of
+calumet, a pipe of peace, for rebel that I was, and am, I always
+respected Grant. Then, too, I fancied that I might deceive the fragment
+into surrendering its choicest aroma to me, since I surprised it in the
+attitude of surrender, and I believe it did."
+
+"Sentimental dog that you are!" said Sir Humphrey, smiling, as he
+inserted the remaining bit of his cigar into an amber tip and returned
+it to his lips.
+
+"You have never disclosed to me, Humphrey, where you procured that piece
+of bric-à-brac?"
+
+"Haven't I? That is because of my Bostonian reticence. No secret, I
+assure you. I found it, sir, in the lining of this coat. The fair donor
+of this spacious garment on one occasion, at least, gave a _tip_ to
+a beggar unawares."
+
+"Exceptional woman. Seems to me the exceptional beggar would have
+returned the article."
+
+"Exceptional case. Didn't find the tip for a month. I was in Mobile at
+the time. I should have written my benefactress had stationery been
+available and had I known her name. When I returned to New York in the
+spring there was a placard on the house. Otherwise I should have
+restored the tip, and trusted to her courtesy for the reward of virtue."
+
+"You have forgotten that that commodity is its own reward?"
+
+"Yes, and the only reward it ever gets, as a New Orleans wit once
+remarked. Hence, here we are. However, returning to my fair
+benefactress, I haven't much opinion of her. Any woman who would mend
+her husband's coat-sleeve with glue--look at this! First moist spell,
+away it went. Worst of it was I happened to have no garment under it at
+the time. However, the incident secured me quite a handsome acquisition
+of linen. Happened to run against a clever little tub-shaped woman whose
+ample bosom, I take it, was ordered especially for the accommodation of
+assorted sympathies. She, perceiving my azure-veined elbow, invited me
+to the dispensing-room of the I. O. U. Society, of which she was a
+member, and presented me with a roll of garments, and--would you believe
+it?--there wasn't a tract or leaflet in the bundle--and as to my soul,
+she never mentioned the abstraction to me. Now, that is what I call
+Christianity. However, I may come across a motto somewhere, yet. Of
+course, at my first opportunity, I put on those shirts--one to wear, and
+the other three to carry. So I've given them only a cursory examination
+thus far."
+
+"Which one do you consider yourself wearing, Humphrey, and which do you
+carry?"
+
+"I wear the _outside_ one, of course--and carry the others."
+
+"Do you, indeed? Well, now, if I were in the situation, I should feel
+that I was wearing the one next my body--and carrying the other three."
+
+"That's because you are an egotist and can't project yourself. I have
+the power the giftie gi'e me, and see myself as others see me. How's
+that for quick adaptation?"
+
+"Quite like you. If the Scotch poet had not been at your elbow with his
+offering, no doubt you'd have originated something quite as good. So you
+may be at this moment absorbing condensed theology, _nolens
+volens_."
+
+"For aught I know, yes, under my armpits. However, I sha'n't object,
+just so the dogmas don't crowd out my morals. My moral rectitude is the
+one inheritance I proudly retain. I've never sold myself--to anybody."
+
+"Nor your vote?"
+
+"Nor my vote. True, I have accepted trifling gratuities on election
+occasions; but they never affected my vote. I should have voted the same
+way, notwithstanding."
+
+"Well, sir, I am always persuaded to accept a bonus on such occasions
+for _abstaining_. I have been under pay from both parties, each
+suspecting me of standing with the opposition. Needless to say, I have
+religiously kept my contract. I never vote. It involves too much
+duplicity for a man of my profession."
+
+"Not necessarily. I resided comfortably for quite a period in the
+basement of the dwelling of a certain political leader in this
+metropolis, once. He wished to have me register for his butler, but I
+stickled for private secretary, and private secretary I was written,
+sir, though I discovered later that the rogue had registered me as
+secretary to his coachman. However, the latter was the better man of the
+two--dropped his h's so fast that his master seemed to feel constrained
+to send everything to H---- for repairs."
+
+"What else could you expect for a man of _aspirations_?"
+
+"By thunder, Humphrey, that's not bad. But do you see, by yon clock,
+that the dinner-hour approacheth?"
+
+The Colonel took from his waistcoat-pocket two bits of paper.
+
+"Somehow, I miss Irving to-day. There's nothing Irving enjoyed so much
+as a free dinner-ticket. I see the X. Y. Z.'s are to entertain us at 1
+P.M., and the K. R. G.'s at 4."
+
+Sir Humphrey produced two similar checks.
+
+"Well, sir, were Irving here to-day I'd willingly present him with this
+Presbyterian chip. There are some things to which I remain sensitive,
+and I look this ticket in the face with misgivings. It means being
+elbowed by a lot of English-slaying mendicants in a motto-bedecked
+saloon, where every bite at the Presbyterian fowl seems a confession of
+faith that that particular gobbler, or hen, as the case may be, was
+fore-ordained, before the beginning of time, to be chewed by
+yourself--or eschewed, should you decline it. Somehow theology takes the
+zest out of the cranberries for me. However, _de gustibus_--"
+
+"Well, sir, I am a philosopher, and so was Irving. Poor Irving! He was
+never quite square. It was he, you know, who perpetrated that famous
+roach fraud that went the rounds of the press. I've seen him do it. He
+would enter a restaurant, order a dinner, and, just before finishing,
+discover a huge roach, a Croton bug, floating in his plate. Of course
+the insects were his own contribution, but the fellow had a knack of
+introducing them. He could slip a specimen into his omelette soufflé,
+for instance, dexterously slicing it in half with his knife, with a
+pressure that left nothing to be desired. The interloper, compactly
+imbedded, immediately imparted such an atmosphere to his vicinity that
+even the cook would have sworn he was baked in. I blush to say I was
+Irving's guest on one such occasion."
+
+"And Sir Roach paid for both dinners?"
+
+"Bless you, yes. Sir Roach, F.R.S. (fried, roasted, or stewed). Indeed,
+his hospitality did not end here. We were pressed to call again, and
+begged not to mention the incident. Of course, this was in our more
+prosperous days, before either of us had taken on the stamp of our
+exclusiveness. Even Irving would hesitate to try it now, I fancy."
+
+"Poor Irving! A good fellow, but morally insane. In Baton Rouge now, I
+believe?"
+
+"Yes. He changed overcoats with a gentleman.
+
+"I wonder how the cooking is in that State institution, Humphrey? Irving
+is such an epicure--"
+
+"Oh, he's faring well enough, doubtless. Trust those Louisianians for
+cookery. When Irving is in New Orleans there are special houses where
+he drops in on Fridays, just for _court-bouillon_. I've known him to
+weed a bed of geraniums rather than miss it."
+
+"Such are the vicissitudes of pedestrianism. Well, _tempus fugit_; let
+us be going. We have just an hour to reach our dining-hall. Here come
+the crowd from church. The Christmas service is very beautiful. Do you
+recall it, Humphrey?"
+
+"Only in spots--like the varioloid."
+
+They were quite in the crowd now, and so ceased speaking, and presently
+the Colonel was considerably in advance of his companion. So it happened
+that he did not see Humphrey stop a moment, put his foot on a bit of
+green paper, drop his handkerchief, and in recovering it gather the
+crumpled bill into it.
+
+Thus it came about that when Sir Humphrey overtook his friend, and,
+tapping him upon the shoulder, invited him to follow him into a famous
+saloon, the Colonel raised his eyes in mild surprise.
+
+Sir Humphrey paid for the drinks with a ten-dollar note, and then the
+two proceeded to the side door of a well-known restaurant.
+
+"Private dining-room, please," he said, and he dropped a quarter into
+the hands of the servant at the door as he led the way.
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+It was two hours later when, having cast up his account from the bill of
+fare, Sir Humphrey, calling for cigars, said: "Help yourself, Colonel.
+If my arithmetic is correct, we shall enjoy our smoke, have a half
+dollar for the waiter, and enter the Square with a whole cigar apiece in
+our breast pockets--at peace with the world, the flesh, and his Satanic
+majesty. Allow me to give you a light."
+
+He handed the Colonel one of the free dinner-tickets of the X. Y. Z.
+Society.
+
+"The Presbyterian blue-light I reserve for my own use. Witness it burn.
+
+"Well, Colonel, I hope you have enjoyed your dinner?"
+
+"Thoroughly, sir, thoroughly. This is one of the many occasions in my
+life, Humphrey, when I rejoice in my early good breeding. Were it not
+for that, I should feel constrained to inquire whom you throttled and
+robbed in crossing Fifth Avenue, two hours ago, during the forty seconds
+when my back was turned."
+
+"And my pious rearing would compel me to answer, 'No one.'
+
+"The wherewithal to procure this Christmas dinner dropped straight from
+heaven, Colonel. I saw it fall, and gratefully seized it, just in the
+middle of the crossing."
+
+"Thanks. I have taken the liberty of helping myself to the rest of the
+matches, Humphrey."
+
+"Quite thoughtful of you. We'll use one apiece for the other cigars. Do
+you know I really enjoyed the first half of that smoke. It was quite
+like renewing one's youth."
+
+And so, in easy converse, they strolled slowly down Fifth Avenue.
+
+As Sir Humphrey hesitated in his walk, evidently suffering discomfort
+from his right boot, he presently remarked:
+
+"I say, Colonel, I think I'll call around tomorrow at a few of my
+friends' houses, and see if some benevolent housewife won't let me have
+a shoe for this right foot."
+
+"Or why not try your cigar on the ebony janitor of the apartment-house
+across the way. He has access to the trash-boxes, and could no doubt
+secure you a shoe--maybe a pair."
+
+"Thanks, Colonel, for the suggestion, but there are a few things I never
+do. I never fly in the face of Providence. I shall smoke that cigar
+intact."
+
+And they walked on.
+
+
+
+
+THE REV. JORDAN WHITE'S THREE GLANCES
+
+
+The Reverend Jordan White, of Cold Spring Baptist Church, was so utterly
+destitute of color in his midnight blackness of hue as to be considered
+the most thoroughly "colored" person on Claybank plantation, Arkansas.
+
+That so black a man should have borne the name of White was one of the
+few of such familiar misfits to which the world never becomes insensible
+from familiarity. From the time when Jordan, a half-naked urchin of six,
+tremblingly pronounced his name before the principal's desk in the
+summer free Claybank school to the memorable occasion of his
+registration as an Afro-American voter, the announcement had never
+failed to evoke a smile, accompanied many times by good-humored
+pleasantry.
+
+"Well, sir," so he had often laughed, "I reck'n dey must o' gimme de
+name o' White fur a joke. But de Jordan--I don' know, less'n dey named
+me Jordan 'caze ev'ybody was afeerd ter cross me."
+
+From which it seems that the surname was not an inheritance.
+
+In his clerical suit of black, with standing collar and shirt-front
+matched in fairness only by his marvellously white teeth and eyeballs,
+Jordan was a most interesting study in black and white.
+
+There were no intermediate shades about him. Even his lips were black,
+or of so dark a purple as to fail to maintain an outline of color. They
+looked black, too.
+
+Jordan was essentially ugly, too, with that peculiar genius for ugliness
+which must have inspired the familiar saying current among plantation
+folk, "He's so ogly tell he's purty."
+
+There is a certain homeliness of person, a combined result of type and
+degree, which undeniably possesses a peculiar charm, fascinating the eye
+more than confessed beauty of a lesser degree or more conventional form.
+
+Jordan was ugly in this fashion, and he who glanced casually upon his
+ebony countenance rarely failed to look again.
+
+He was a genius, too, in more ways than one.
+
+If nature gave him two startling eyes that moved independently of each
+other, Jordan made the most of the fact, as will be seen by the
+following confession made on the occasion of my questioning him as to
+the secret of his success as a preacher.
+
+"Well, sir," he replied, "yer see, to begin wid: I got three glances,
+an' dat gimme three shots wid ev'y argimint.
+
+"When I'm a preachin' I looks straight at one man an' lays his case out
+so clair he can't miss it, but, you see, all de time I'm a-layin' him
+out, my side glances is takin' in two mo'."
+
+"But," I protested, "I should think he whom you are looking at and
+describing in so personal a manner would get angry, and--"
+
+"So he would, sir, if he knowed I was lookin' at him. _But he don't
+know it_. You know, dat's my third glance an' hit's my secret glance.
+You see, if my reel glance went straight, I'd have ter do like de rest
+o' you preachers, look at one man while yer hittin' de man behin' 'im,
+an' dat's de way dey _think I is doin_', whiles all de time I'm a
+watchin' 'im wriggle.
+
+"Of cose, sometimes I uses my glances diff'ent ways. Sometimes I des
+lets 'em loose p'omiskyus fur a while tell ev'ybody see blue lightnin'
+in de air, an' de mo'ner's bench is full, an' when I see ev'ybody is
+ready ter run fur 'is life, of co'se I eases up an' settles down on
+whatever sinner seem like he's de leastest skeered tell I nails 'im
+fast."
+
+  [Illustration: "'I DES LETS 'EM LOOSE P'OMISKYUS, TELL EV'YBODY SEE
+  BLUE LIGHTNIN''"]
+
+He hesitated here a moment.
+
+"De onies' trouble," he resumed, presently. "De onies' trouble wid
+havin' mixed glances is 'dat seem like hit confines a man ter preach
+wrath.
+
+"So long as I tried preachin' Heaven, wid golden streets an' harp
+music, I nuver fe'ched in a soul, but 'cep'n' sech as was dis a-waitin'
+fur de open do' _to_ come in. Dat's my onies' drawback, Brer Jones.
+Sometimes seem like when Heaven comes inter my heart I does crave ter
+preach it in a song. Of cose, I does preach Heaven yit, but _I bleege
+ter preach it f'om de Hell side, an' shoo 'em in_!"
+
+There was, I thought, the suspicion of a twinkle lurking in the corners
+of his eyes throughout his talk, but it was too obscure for me to
+venture to interpret it by a responsive smile, and so the question was
+put with entire seriousness when I said:
+
+"And yet, Jordan, didn't I hear something of your going to an oculist
+last summer?"
+
+"Yas, sir. So I did. Dat's true." He laughed foolishly now.
+
+"I did talk about goin' ter one o' deze heah occular-eye doctors las'
+summer, _and I went once-t_, but I ain't nuver tol' nobody, an' you
+mustn't say nothin' 'bout it, please, sir.
+
+"But yer see, sir." He lowered his voice here to a confidential whisper.
+"Yer see dat was on account o' de ladies. I was a widder-man den, an',
+tell de trufe, my mixed glances was gettin' me in trouble. Yer know in
+dealin' wid de ladies, yer don' keer how many glances you got, yer wants
+ter use 'em _one at a time_. Why dey was a yaller lady up heah at de
+crossroads wha' 'blongs ter my church who come purty nigh ter suein' me
+in de co't-house, all on account o' one o' my side glances, an' all de
+time, yer see, my _reel_ glance, hit was settled on Mis' White, wha'
+sot in de middle pew--but in cose she warn't Mis' White den; she was de
+Widder Simpson."
+
+"And so you have been recently married," I asked; "and how does your
+wife feel about the matter?
+
+"Well, yer see, sir," he answered, laughing, "she can't say nothin',
+'caze she's cross-eyed 'erse'f.
+
+"An' lemme tell you some'h'n', boss." He lowered his tone again,
+implying a fresh burst of confidence, while his whole visage seemed
+twinkling with merriment.
+
+"Lemme tell yer some'h'n', boss. You ain't a ma'ied man, is yer?"
+
+I assured him that I was not married.
+
+"Well, sir, I gwine gi'e you my advice. An' I'm a man o' 'spe'unce. I
+been ma'ied three times, an' of cose I done consider'ble co'tin' off'n
+an' on wid all three, not countin' sech p'omiskyus co'tin' roun' as any
+widder gemman is li'ble ter do, an' I gwine gi'e you some good advice.
+
+"Ef ever you falls in love wid air cross-eyed lady, an' craves ter
+co't'er, you des turn down de lamp low 'fo' yer comes ter de fatal
+p'int, ur else set out on de po'ch in de fainty moonlight, whar yer
+can't see 'er eyes, caze dey's nothin' puts a co'tin' man out, and meek
+'im lose 'is pronouns wuss 'n a cross-eye. An' ef it hadn't o' been dat
+_I knowed what a cook she was_, tell de trufe, de Widder Simpson's
+cross-eye would o' discour'ged me off enti'ely.
+
+"But now," he continued, chuckling; "but now I done got usen ter it;
+it's purty ter me--seem like hit's got a searchin' glance dat goes out'n
+its way ter fin' me."
+
+Needless to say, I found the old man amusing, and when we parted at the
+cross-roads I was quite willing to promise to drop in some time to hear
+one of his sermons.
+
+Although somewhat famed as a preacher, Jordan had made his record in
+the pulpit not so much on account of any powers of oratory, _per se_,
+as through a series of financial achievements.
+
+During the two years of his ministry he had built a new church edifice,
+added the imposing parsonage which he occupied, and he rode about the
+country on his pastoral missions, mounted on a fine bay horse--all the
+result of "volunteer" contributions.
+
+And Jordan stood well with his people; the most pious of his fold
+according him their indorsement as heartily as they who hung about the
+outskirts of his congregation, and who indeed were unconsciously
+supplying the glamour of his distinguished career; for the secret of
+Jordan's success lay especially in his power of collecting money from
+_sinners_. So it came about that, without adding a farthing to their
+usual donations, the saints reclined in cushioned pews and listened to
+the words of life from a prosperous, well-fed preacher, who was
+manifestly an acceptable sower of vital seed--seed which took root in
+brick and mortar, branched out in turret and gable, and flowered before
+their very eyes in crimson upholstery.
+
+The truth was that Cold Spring was the only colored church known to its
+congregation that boasted anything approaching in gorgeousness its
+pulpit furnishings of red cotton velvet, and never a curious sinner
+dropped in during any of its services for a peep at its grandeur without
+leaving a sufficient quota of his substance to endow him with a
+comfortable sense of proprietorship in it all.
+
+The man who has given a brick to the building of the walls of a
+sanctuary has always a feeling of interest in the edifice, whether he be
+of its fold or not, and if he return to it an old man, it will seem to
+yield him a sort of welcoming recognition. The brick he gave is
+somewhere doing its part in sustaining the whole, and the uncertainty of
+its whereabouts seems to bestow it everywhere.
+
+I was not long in finding my way to Jordan's church. It was in summer
+time, and a large part of his congregation was composed of young girls
+and their escorts on the afternoon when I slipped into the pew near the
+door.
+
+The church was crowded within, while the usual contingent of idlers hung
+about the front door and open windows.
+
+I searched Jordan's face for a few moments, in the hope of discovering
+whether he recognized me or not, but for the life of me I could not
+decide. If his "secret glance" ever discerned me in my shadowed corner,
+neither of the other two betrayed it.
+
+I soon discovered that there was to be no sermon on this occasion, for
+which I was sorry, as I supposed that his most ambitious effort would
+naturally take shape in this form. Of this, however, I now have my
+doubts.
+
+After the conventional opening of service with prayer, Scripture
+reading, and song, he passed with apparent naturalness to the
+collection, the ceremony to which everything seemed to tend.
+
+The opening of this subject was again conventional, the only deviation
+from the ordinary manner of procedure being that, instead of the hat's
+passing round it was inverted upon the table beside the pulpit, while
+contributors, passing up the aisles, deposited their contributions and
+returned to their seats.
+
+This in itself, it will be seen, elevated the collection somewhat in the
+scale of ceremonial importance.
+
+For some time the house was quite astir with the procession which moved
+up one side and down the other, many singing fervently as they went, and
+dramatically holding their coins aloft as they swayed in step with the
+music, while above all rose the exhortations of the preacher which waxed
+in fervor as the first generous impulse began to wane.
+
+"Drap in yo' dollar!" he was shouting. "Drap in yo' half dollar! Drap in
+yo' dime! Drap in yo' nickel. Drap in yo' nickel, I say, an' ef yer
+ain't got a nickel, come up an' let's pray fur yer!
+
+"Ef yer ain't got a nickel," he repeated, encouraged by the titter that
+greeted this; "ef yer ain't got a nickel, come up an' let de whole
+congergation pray fur yer! We'll teck up a collection fur any man dat 'l
+stan' up an' confess he ain't wuth a nickel."
+
+A half dozen grinning young fellows stepped up now with coins concealed
+in the palms of their hands.
+
+"Come on! Come on, all you nickel boys! Come on.
+
+"Ev'y nickel is a wheel ter keep salvation's train a-movin'! Come on, I
+say; bring yo' wheels!
+
+"Ef you ain't got a big wheel fur de ingine fetch a little wheel fur de
+freight train! We needs a-plenty o' freight kyars on dis salvation
+train. 'Caze hit's loaded up heavy wid Bibles fur de heathen, an' brick
+an' lumber to buil' churches, an' medicine fur de sick, an' ole clo'es
+fur de po'--heap ob 'em wid de buttons cut off'n 'em, but dat ain't our
+fault, we bleeged ter sen' 'em on! Fetch on yo' little wheels, I say,
+fur de freight train."
+
+There had been quite a respectable response to this appeal thus far, but
+again it spent itself and there was a lull when Jordan, folding his
+arms, and looking intently before him, in several directions apparently,
+exclaimed in a most tragic tone:
+
+"My Gord! Is de salvation train done stallded right in front o' Claybank
+chu'ch, an' we can't raise wheels ter sen' it on?
+
+"Lord have mussy, I say! I tell yer, my brers an' sisters, you's
+a-treatin' de kyar o' glory wuss'n you'd treat a ole cotton mule wagon!
+You is, fur a fac'!
+
+"Ef air ole mule wagon ur a donkey-kyart was stallded out in de road in
+front o' dis chu'ch--don' keer ef it was loaded up wid pippy chickens,
+much less'n de Lord's own freight--dey ain't one o' yer but 'd raise a
+wheel ter sen' it on! You know yer would! An' heah de salvation train
+is stuck deep in de mud, an' yer know Arkansas mud _hit's mud_; hit
+ain't b'iled custard; no, it ain't, an' hit sticks like glue! Heah de
+glory kyar is stallded in dis tar-colored Arkansas glue-mud, I say, an'
+I can't raise wheels enough out'n dis congergation ter sen' it on! An'
+dis is de Holy Sabbath day, too, de day de Lord done special set apart
+_fur_ h'istin' a oxes out'n a ditch, es much less'n salvation's train.
+
+"Now, who gwine fetch in de nex' wheel, my brothers, my sisters, my
+sinner-frien's? Who gwine fetch a wheel? Dat's it! Heah come a
+wheel--two wheels--three wheels; fetch one mo'; heah, a odd wheel; de
+train's a-saggin' down lop-sided fur _one mo' wheel_! Heah it
+come--f'om a ole 'oman, too! Shame on you, boys, ter let po' ole Aunt
+Charity Pettigrew, wha' nussed yo' mammies, an' is half-blin' an' deef
+at dat--shame on yer ter let 'er lif' dis train out'n de mud! An' yer
+know she kyant heah me nuther. She des brung a wheel 'caze she felt de
+yearth trimble, an' knowed de train was stallded!
+
+"Oh, my brers, de yearth gwine trimble wuss'n dat one o' deze days, an'
+look out de rocks don't kiver you over! Don't hol' back dis train ef you
+c'n he'p it on! I ain't axin' yer fur no paper greenbacks to-day _to
+light de ingine fire_!
+
+"I ain't a-beggin' yer fur no gol' an' silver wheels fur de passenger
+trains for de saints, 'caze yer know de passenger kyars wha' ride inter
+de city o' de King, dey 'bleege ter have gol' and silver wheels ter
+match de golden streets; but, I say, I ain't axin' yer fur no gol' an'
+silver wheels to-day, nur no kindlin'! De train is all made up an' de
+ingine is a steamin', an' de b'ilers is full. I say _de b'ilers is
+full_, my dear frien's.
+
+"Full o' what? Whar do dey git water ter run dis gorspil train? Dis
+heah's been a mighty dry season, an' de cotton-fiel's is a-beggin' now
+fur water, an' I say _whar do de salvation train git water fur de
+ingine_?
+
+"Oh, my po' sinner-frien's, does you want me ter tell yer?
+
+"De cisterns long de track is bustin' full o' water, an' _so long as a
+sinner got o' tear ter shed_ de water ain't gwine run out!"
+
+"Yas, Lord!" "Glory!" "Amen!" and "Amen!" with loud groans came from
+various parts of the house now, and many wheels were added to Glory's
+train by the men about the door, while Jordan continued:
+
+"Don't be afeerd ter weep! De ingine o' Glory's kyar would o' gi'en out
+o' water long 'fo' now in deze heah summer dry-drouths if 'twarn't fur
+de tears o' sinners, an' de grief-stricken an' de heavy-hearted! I tell
+yer Glory's train stops ter teck in water at de mo'ner's bench eve'y
+day! So don't be afeerd to weep. But bring on de wheels!"
+
+He paused here and looked searchingly about him.
+
+There was no response. Stepping backward now and running both hands deep
+into his pockets, he dropped his oratorical tone, and, falling easily
+into the conversational, continued:
+
+"Well, maybe you right! Maybe you right, my frien's settin' down by de
+do', an' my frien's leanin' 'gins' de choir banisters, an' I ain' gwine
+say no mo'. I was lookin' fur you ter come up wid some sort o' wheel,
+an' maybe a silver wheel ter match dat watch-chain hangin' out'n yo'
+waistcoat-pocket; but maybe you right!
+
+"When a man set still an' say nothin' while de voice is a callin' I
+reck'n he knows what he's a-doin'.
+
+"He knows whether de wheels in his pocket is _fitt'n_ fur de gorspil
+kyar ur not! An' I say ter you to-day dat ef dat money in yo' pocket
+ain't _clean money_, don't you _dare_ ter fetch it up heah!
+
+"Ef you made dat money sneakin' roun' henrooses in de dark o' de
+moon--I don't say you is, but _ef_ you is--you set right still in yo'
+seat an' don't _dare_ ter offer it ter de Lord, I say!
+
+"Ef you backed yo' wagon inter somebody else's watermillion patch by de
+roadside an' loaded up on yo' way ter town 'fo' sunup--I don't say you
+is, mind yer, but _ef you is_--set right whar you is, an' do des like
+you been doin', 'caze de money you made on dat early mornin' wagon load
+ain't fitt'n fur wheels fur de gorspil train!
+
+"An' deze yo'ng men at de winders, I say, ef de wheels in _yo_' pockets
+come f'om _matchin' nickels on de roadside, or kyard-playin', or maybe
+drivin' home de wrong pig_. (You nee'n't ter laugh. De feller dat
+spo'ts de shinies' stovepipe hat of a Sunday sometimes cuts de ears
+off'n de shoat he kills of a Sa'day, 'caze de ears got a tell-tale mark
+on 'em.) _An', I say, ef you got yo' money dat a-way_, won't you des
+move back from de winders, please, an' meck room fur some o' dem
+standin' behin' yer dat got good hones' wheels ter pass in!"
+
+This secured the window crowds intact, and now Jordan turned to the
+congregation within.
+
+"An' now, dear beloved." He lowered his voice. "For sech as I done
+specified, _let us pray_!"
+
+He had raised his hands and was closing his eyes in prayer, when a man
+rose in the centre of the church.
+
+"Brer Jordan," he began, laughing with embarrassment. "Ef some o' de
+brers ur sisters'll change a dime fur me--"
+
+Jordan opened his eyes and his hands fell.
+
+"Bless de Lord!" he exclaimed, with feeling.
+
+"Bless de Lord, one man done claired 'isse'f! Glory, I say! Come on up,
+Brer Smiff, 'n' I'll gi'e you yo' change!"
+
+"Ef--Brer Smiff'll loan _me_ dat nickel?" said a timid voice near the
+window.
+
+Smith hesitated, grinning broadly.
+
+"Ef--ef I could o' spared de dime, Mr. Small, I'd a put it in myse'f,
+but--but--"
+
+"_But nothin'_! Put de dime in de hat!"
+
+The voice came from near the front now. "Put it all in de hat, Brer
+Smiff. You owes me a nickel an' I'll loan'd it to Mr. Small."
+
+And so, amid much laughter, Smith reluctantly deposited his dime.
+
+Others followed so fast that when Jordan exclaimed, "Who gwine be de
+nex'?" his words were almost lost in the commotion. Still his voice had
+its effect.
+
+"Heah one mo'--two mo'--fo' mo'--eight mo'! Glory, I say! An' heah dey
+come in de winder! Oh, I'm proud ter see it, yo'ng men! I'm proud ter
+see it!"
+
+Borrowing or making change was now the order of the moment, as every
+individual present who had not already contributed felt called upon thus
+to exonerate himself from so grave a charge.
+
+Amid the fresh stir a tremulous female voice raised a hymn, another
+caught it up, and another--voices strong and beautiful; alto voices soft
+as flute notes blended with the rich bass notes and triumphant tenors
+that welled from the choir, and floated in from the windows, until the
+body of the church itself seemed almost to sway with the rhythmic
+movement of the stirring hymn
+
+    "Salvation's kyar is movin'."
+
+  [Illustration: "SALVATION'S KYAR IS MOVIN'!"]
+
+Still, above all, Jordan's voice could be distinguished--as a fine
+musical instrument, and whether breaking through the tune in a volley
+of exhortations, or rising superior to it all in a rich tenor--his
+words thrown in snatches, or drawn out to suit his purpose--never once
+did it mar the wonderful harmony of the whole.
+
+It was a scene one could not easily forget.
+
+The shaft of low sunlight that now filled the church, revealing a
+bouquet of brilliant color in gay feathers and furbelows, with a
+generous sprinkling of white heads, lit up a set of faces at once so
+serious and so happy, so utterly forgetful of life's frettings and
+cares, that I felt as I looked upon them, that their perfect vocal
+agreement was surely but a faint reflection of a sweet spiritual
+harmony, which even if it did not survive the moment, was worth a long
+journey thither, for in so hearty a confession of fellowship, in so
+complete a laying down of life's burdens, there is certainly rest and
+a renewal of strength.
+
+Feeling this to be a good time to slip out unobserved, I noiselessly
+secured my hat from beneath the pew before me, but I had hardly risen
+when I perceived a messenger hurrying towards me from the pulpit, with
+a request that I should remain a moment longer, and before I could
+take in the situation the singing was over and Jordan was speaking.
+
+What he said, as nearly as I can recall it, was as follows:
+
+"Befo' I pernounces de benediction, I wants ter 'spress de thanks o'
+dis chu'ch ter de 'oner'ble visitor wha' set 'isse'f so modes' in de
+las' pew dis evenin', _an' den sen' up de bigges' conterbutiom_,
+fulfillin' de words o' de Scripture, which say _de las' shill be fus'
+an' de fus' shill be las_'.
+
+"Brer Chesterfiel' Jones, please ter rise an' receive de thanks o' de
+congergation fur dat gen'rous five-dollar bill wha' you sont up by Brer
+Phil Dolittle."
+
+He paused here, and feeling all eyes turned upon me, I was constrained
+to rise to my feet, and I think I can truly say that I have never been
+surprised by greater embarrassment than I felt as I hurriedly subsided
+to the depths of my corner. Addressing himself now to Dolittle, Jordan
+continued:
+
+"I 'ain't see you walk so biggoty in a _long_ time, Brer Dolittle, as
+you walked when you fetched up dat five dollars. Ef dis heah 'd been a
+cake walk yo'd o' tooken de prize, sho'.
+
+"De nex' time dy' all gets up a cake walk on dis plantation, lemme
+advise you ter borry a five-dollar note _f'om somebody dat don't know
+yer_, ter tote when yer walk. Hit'll he'p yer ter keep yo' chin up.
+
+"_An' dat ain't all_. Hit'll he'p _me_ ter keep _my chin up_ when I
+ca'ys dis greenback bill to de grocery to-morrer an' I'll turn it into
+a wheel, too--two wheels, wid a bulge between 'em. Now guess wha' dat
+is?"
+
+The congregation were by this time convulsed with laughter, and some one
+answered aloud:
+
+"A flour-bar'l!"
+
+"Dat's it, Joe, a flour-bar'l! You's a good guesser.
+
+"An' so now, in de name o' Col' Spring Chu'ch, Brer Jones, I thanks you
+ag'in fur a bar'l o' flour, an' I tecks it mighty kin' o' you too,
+'caze I knows deys a heap o' 'Piscopalpalian preachers _wha' wouldn't
+o' done it!_ Dey'd be 'feerd dat ef dey gi'e any o' de high-risin'
+'Piscopalpalian flour ter de Baptists dat dey'd ruin it wid _col'
+water!_"
+
+There was so much laughter here that Jordan had to desist for a moment,
+but he had not finished.
+
+"_But_," he resumed, with renewed seriousness--"_But ef Christians on'y
+knowed it_, dey kin put a _little leaven o' solid Christianity_ in all
+de charity flour dey gi'es away, an' hit'll _leaven de whole lot_ so
+strong dat _too much water can't spile it_, nur _too much fire can't
+scorch it_, nur _too much fore-sight_ (ur whatever dis heah is de
+P'esberteriums mixes in dey bread) _can't set it so stiff it can't
+rise_, 'caze hit's got de strong leaven o' de spirit in it, an' hit's
+_boun' ter come up_!
+
+"I see de sun's gitt'n low, an' hit's time ter let down de bars an'
+turn de sheeps loose, an' de goats too--not sayin' deys any goats in
+dis flock, an' not sayin' dey ain't--but 'fo' we goes out, I wants
+ter say one mo' word ter Brer Dolittle."
+
+His whole face was atwinkle with merriment now.
+
+"Dey does say, Brer Dolittle, dat riches is mighty 'ceitful an'
+mighty ap' ter turn a man's head, an' I tookin' notice dat arter you
+fetched up Brer Chesterfiel' Jones's five dollars to-day you nuver
+corndescended ter meck no secon' trip to de hat on Brer Dolittle's
+'count.
+
+"I did think I'd turn a searchin' glance on yer fur a minute an'
+shame yer up heah, but you looked so happy an' so full o' biggoty I
+spared yer, but yer done had time ter cool off now, an' I 'bleeged
+ter bring yer ter de scratch.
+
+"Now, ef you done teched de five-dollar notch an' can't git down,
+we'll git somebody ter loan'd yer a greenback bill ter fetch up, an'
+whils' de congergation is meditatin' on dey sins I'll gi'e you back
+fo' dollars an' ninety-five cents."
+
+Amid screams of laughter poor little Dolittle, a comical, wizen-faced
+old man, nervously secured a nickel from the corner of his handkerchief,
+and, grinning broadly, walked up with it.
+
+"De ve'y leastest a man _kin_ do," Jordan continued, as leaning forward
+he presented the hat--"de ve'y _leastest_ he kin do is ter _live up ter
+'is name_, an' ef my name was _Dolittle_ I sho' would try ter _live up
+ter dat, ef I didn't pass beyond it_!"
+
+And as he restored the hat to the table beside him, he added, with a
+quizzical lift of his brow:
+
+"I does try ter live up ter _my_ name even, an' yer know, my
+feller-sinners, hit does look like a hard case fur a man o' my color
+ter live up ter de name o' White."
+
+He waited again for laughter to subside.
+
+"At leas'," he resumed, seriously, "hit did look like a hard case _at
+fust_, but by de grace o' Gord I done 'skivered de way ter do it!
+
+"Ef we all had ter live up ter our skins, hit'd be purty hard on a heap
+of us; but, bless de Lord! he don't look at de skins; he looks at de
+_heart_!
+
+"I tries ter keep my _heart_ white, an' my _soul_ white, an' my
+_sperit_ white! Dat's how I tries ter live up ter _my_ name wid a
+_white cornscience, bless de Lord_! An' I looks fur my people ter he'p
+me all dey kin."
+
+And now, amid a hearty chorus of "Amens!" and "Glorys!" he raised his
+hands for a benediction, which in its all-embracing scope did not fail
+to invoke Divine favor upon "our good 'Piscopalpalian brother, Riviren'
+Chesterfiel' Jones--Gord bless him."
+
+
+
+
+LADY
+
+A MONOLOGUE OF THE COW-PEN
+
+
+Umh! Fur Gord sake, des look at dem cows! All squez up together 'g'ins'
+dem bars in dat sof' mud--des like I knowed dey gwine be--an' me late at
+my milkin'! You Lady! Teck yo' proud neck down f'om off dat heifer's
+head! Back, I tell yer! Don't tell me, Spot! Yas, I know she impose on
+you--yas she do. Reachin' her monst'ous mouf clair over yo' po' little
+muley head. Move back, I say, Lady! Ef you so biggoty, why don't you
+fool wid some o' dem horn cows? You is a lady, eve'y inch of yer! You
+knows who to fool wid. You is de uppishes' cow I ever see in all my
+life--puttin' on so much style--an' yo' milk so po' an' blue, I could
+purty nigh blue my starch clo'es wid it. Look out dar, Peggy, how you
+squeeze 'g'ins' Lady! She ain' gwine teck none o' yo' foolishness. Peggy
+ain't got a speck o' manners! Lady b'longs ter de cream o' s'ciety, I
+have yer know,--an' bless Gord, I b'lieve dat's all de cream dey is
+about her. Hyah! fur Gord's sake lis'n at me, passin' a joke on Lady!
+
+I does love to pleg dem cows--dey teck it so good-natured. Heap o' us
+'omans mought teck lessons in Christianity f'om a cow--de way she stan'
+so still an' des look mild-eyed an' chaw 'er cud when anybody sass 'er.
+Dey'd be a heap less fam'ly quar'lin on dis plantation ef de 'omans had
+cuds ter chaw--dat is ef dey'd be satisfied ter chaw dey own. But ef dey
+was ter have 'em 'twouldn't be no time befo' dey'd be cud fights eve'y
+day in de week, eve'y one thinkin' de nex' one had a sweeter moufful 'n
+what she had. Reckon we got 'nough ter go to law 'bout, widout
+cuds--ain't we Lady? Don't start pawin' de groun' now, des caze yer heah
+me speculatin' at yo' feed-trough. I kin talk an' work too. I ain't like
+you--nuver do n'air one.
+
+I ain't gwine pay no 'tention ter none o' y' all no mo' now tell I git
+yo' supper ready. Po' little Brindle! Stan' so still, an' ain't say a
+word. I'm a-fixin' yo' feed now, honey--yas, I is! I allus mixes yo's
+fust, caze I know you nuver gits in till de las' one an' some o' de rest
+o' de greedies mos' gin'ally eats it up fo' you gits it.
+
+She's a Scriptu'al cow, Brindle is--she so meek.
+
+Yas, I sho' does love Brindle. Any cow dat kin walk in so 'umble, after
+all de res' git done, an' pick up a little scrap o' leavin's out'n
+de trough de way she do--an' turn it eve'y bit into good yaller
+butter--_dat what I calls a cow!_ Co'se I know Lady'll git in here
+ahead o' yer, honey, an' eat all dis mash I'm a-mixin' so good fur you.
+It do do me good to see 'er do it, too. I sho' does love Lady--de way
+'er manners sets on 'er. She don't count much at de churn--an' she
+ain't got no conscience--an' no cha'acter--_but she's a lady!_ Dat's
+huccome I puts up wid 'er. Yas, I'm a-talkin' 'bout you, Lady, an' I'm
+a-lookin' at yer, too, rahin' yo' head up so circumstantial. But you
+meets my eye like a lady! You ain't shame-faced, is yer! You too well
+riz--you is. _You_ know dat _I_ know dat yo' po' measly sky-colored
+milk sours up into mighty fine clabber ter feed yo'ng tukkeys wid--you
+an' me, we knows dat, don't we?
+
+Hyah! Dar, now, we done turned de joke on all you yaller-creamers--ain't
+we, Lady?
+
+Lordy! I wonder fo' gracious ef Lady nod her head to me accidental!
+
+Is you 'spondin' ter me, Lady? Tell de trufe, I spec's Lady ter twis' up
+'er tongue an' talk some day--she work 'er mouf so knowin'!
+
+Dis heah cotton-seed ought ter be tooken out'n her trough, by rights. Ef
+I could feed her on bran an' good warm slops a while, de churn would
+purty soon 'spute her rights wid de tukkeys!
+
+A high-toned cow, proud as Lady is, ought ter reach white-folk's table
+somehow-ma-ruther. But you gits dar all the same, don't yer Lady? You
+gits dar in tukkey-meat _ef dey don't reco'nize yer_!
+
+Well! I'm done mixin' now an' I turns my back on de trough--an' advance
+ter de bars. Lordy, how purty dem cows does look--wid dat low sun
+'g'ins' dey backs! So patient an' yit so onpatient.
+
+Back, now, till I teck out dese rails!
+
+Soh, now! Easy, Spot! Easy, Lady! I does love ter let down dese bars wid
+de sun in my eyes. I loves it mos' as good as I loves ter milk.
+
+Down she goes!
+
+Step up quick, now, Brindle, an' git yo' place.
+
+Lord have mussy! Des look how Brindle meck way fur Lady! I know'd Lady'd
+git dar fust! I know'd it!
+
+An' dat's huccome I mixed dat feed so purtic'lar.
+
+I does love Lady!
+
+
+
+
+A PULPIT ORATOR
+
+
+Old Reub' Tyler, pastor of Mount Zion Chapel, Sugar Hollow Plantation,
+was a pulpit orator of no mean parts. Though his education, acquired
+during his fifty-ninth, sixtieth, and sixty-first summers, had not
+carried him beyond the First Reader class in the local district school,
+it had given him a pretty thorough knowledge of the sounds of simple
+letter combinations. This, supplemented by a quick intuition and a
+correct musical ear, had aided him to really remarkable powers of
+interpretation, and there was now, ten years later, no chapter in the
+entire Bible which he hesitated to read aloud, such as contained long
+strings of impossible names hung upon a chain of "begats" being his
+favorite achievements.
+
+A common tribute paid Reub's pulpit eloquence by reverential listeners
+among his flock was, "Brer Tyler is got a black face, but his speech
+sho' is white." The truth was that in his humble way Reub' was something
+of a philologist. A new word was to him a treasure, so much stock in
+trade, and the longer and more formidable the acquisition, the dearer
+its possession.
+
+Reub's unusual vocabulary was largely the result of his intimate
+relations with his master, Judge Marshall, whose body-servant he had
+been for a number of years. The judge had long been dead now, and the
+plantation had descended to his son, the present incumbent.
+
+Reub' was entirely devoted to the family of his former owners, and
+almost any summer evening now he might be seen sitting on the lowest of
+the five steps which led to the broad front veranda of the great house
+where Mr. John Marshall sat smoking his meerschaum. If Marshall felt
+amiably disposed he would often hand the old man a light, or even his
+own tobacco-bag, from which Reub' would fill his corn-cob pipe, and the
+two would sit and smoke by the hour, talking of the crops, the weather,
+politics, religion, anything--as the old man led the way; for these
+evening communings were his affairs rather than his "Marse John's." On a
+recent occasion, while they sat talking in this way, Marshall was
+congratulating him upon his unprecedented success in conducting a
+certain revival then in progress, when the old man said:
+
+"Yassir, de Lord sho' is gimme a rich harves'. But you know some'h'n',
+Marse John? All de power o' language th'ough an' by which I am enable
+ter seize on de sperit is come to me th'ough ole marster. I done tooken
+my pattern f'om him f'om de beginnin,' an' des de way I done heerd him
+argify de cases in de co't-house, dat's de way I lay out ter state my
+case befo' de Lord.
+
+"I nuver is preached wid power yit on'y but 'cep' when I sees de sinner
+standin' 'fo' de bar o' de Lord, an' de witnesses on de stan', an' de
+speckletators pressin' for'ard to heah, an' de jury listenin', an
+_me--I'm de prosecutin' 'torney_!
+
+"An' when I gits dat whole co't-room 'ranged 'fo' my eyes in my min',
+an' de pris'ner standin' in de box, I des reg'lar _lay 'im out_! You
+see, I knows all de law words ter do it _wid_! I des open fire on 'im,
+an' prove 'im a crim'nal, a law-breaker, a vagabone, a murderer in ev'y
+degree dey is--fus', secon', _an_' third--a reperbate, an' a blot on de
+face o' de yearth, tell dey ain't a chance lef' fur 'im but ter fall on
+'is knees an' plead guilty!
+
+"An' when I got 'im down, _I got 'im whar I want 'im_, an' de work's
+half did. Den I shif's roun' an' ac' _pris'ner's 'torney_, an' preach
+grace tell I gits 'im shoutin'--des de same as ole marster use ter
+do--clair a man whe'r or no, guilty or no guilty, step by step, nuver
+stop tell he'd have de last juryman blowin' 'is nose an' snifflin'--an'
+he'd do it wid swellin' dic'sh'nary words, too!
+
+"Dat's de way I works it--fus' argify fur de State, den plead fur de
+pris'ner.
+
+"I tell yer, Marse John," he resumed, after a thoughtful pause, "dey's
+one word o' ole marster's--I don'no' huccome it slipped my min', but hit
+was a long glorified word, an' I often wishes hit'd come back ter me. Ef
+I could ricollec' dat word, hit'd holp me powerful in my preachin'.
+
+"Wonder ef you wouldn't call out a few dic'sh'nary words fur me, please,
+sir? Maybe you mought strike it."
+
+Without a moment's reflection, Marshall, seizing at random upon the
+first word that presented itself, said, "How about _ratiocination_?"
+
+The old man started as if he were shot. "Dat's hit!" he exclaimed.
+"Yassir, dat's hit! How in de kingdom come is you struck it de fust pop?
+Rasheoshinatiom! I 'clare! Dat's de ve'y word, sho's you born! Dat's
+what I calls a high-tone word; ain't it, now, Marse John?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle Reub'; ratiocination is a good word in its place." Marshall
+was much amused. "I suppose you know what it means?"
+
+"Nemmine 'bout dat," Reub' protested, grinning all over--"nemmine
+'bout dat. I des gwine fetch it in when I needs a thunder-bolt!
+Rasheoshinatiom! Dat's a bomb-shell fur de prosecutiom! But I can't git
+it off now; I'm too cool. Wait tell I'm standin' in de pulpit on
+tip-toes, wid de sweat a-po'in' down de spine o' my back, an' fin'
+myse'f _des one argimint short_! Den look out fur de locomotive!
+
+"Won't yer," he added, after a pause--"won't yer, please, sir, spell dat
+word out fur me slow tell I writes it down 'fo' I forgits it?"
+
+  [Illustration: "'WON'T YER, PLEASE, SIR, SPELL DAT WORD OUT FUR ME
+  SLOW?'"]
+
+Reaching deep into his trousers pocket, he brought forth a folded scrap
+of tobacco-stained paper and a bit of lead-pencil.
+
+Notwithstanding his fondness for the old man, there was a twinkle in
+Marshall's eye as he began to spell for him, letter by letter, the
+coveted word of power.
+
+"R," he began, glancing over the writer's shoulder.
+
+"R," repeated Reub', laboriously writing.
+
+"A," continued Marshall.
+
+"R-a," repeated Reub'.
+
+"T," said the tutor.
+
+"R-a-t," drawled the old man, when, suddenly catching the sound of the
+combination, he glanced first at the letters and then with quick
+suspicion up into Marshall's face. The suppressed smile he detected
+there did its work. He felt himself betrayed.
+
+Springing tremulously from his seat, the very embodiment of abused
+confidence and wrath, he exclaimed:
+
+"Well! Hit's come ter dis, is it? One o' ole marster's chillen settin'
+up makin' spote o' me ter my face! I didn't spect it of yer, Marse
+John--I did not. It's bad enough when some o' deze heah low-down
+po'-white-trash town-boys hollers 'rats' at me--let alone my own white
+chillen what I done toted in my arms! Lemme go home an' try ter forgit
+dis insult ole marster's chile insulted me wid!"
+
+It was a moment before Marshall saw where the offence lay, and then,
+overcome with the ludicrousness of the situation, he roared with
+laughter in spite of himself.
+
+This removed him beyond the pale of forgiveness, and as Reub' hobbled
+off, talking to himself, Marshall felt that present protest was useless.
+It was perhaps an hour later when, having deposited a bag of his best
+tobacco in his coat pocket, and tucked a dictionary under his arm,
+Marshall made his way to the old man's cabin, where, after many
+affectionate protestations and much insistence, he finally induced him
+to put on his glasses and spell the word from the printed page.
+
+He was not easily convinced. However, under the force of Marshall's
+kindly assurances and the testimony of his own eyes, he finally melted,
+and as he set back the candle and removed his glasses, he remarked, in a
+tone of the utmost humility,
+
+"Well--dat's what comes o' nigger educatiom! Des let a nigger git fur
+enough along ter spell out c-a-t, cat, an' r-a-t, rat, an' a few Fus'
+Reader varmints, an' he's ready ter conterdic' de whole dic'sh'nary.
+
+"Des gimme dat word a few times _in my ear_ good, please, sir. I
+wouldn't dare ter teck it in thoo my eye, 'caze don' keer what you say,
+when a word sets out wid r-a-t, I gwine see a open-eyed rat settin'
+right at de head of it blinkin' at me ev'y time I looks at it."
+
+
+
+
+AN EASTER SYMBOL
+
+A MONOLOGUE OF THE PLANTATION
+
+_Speaker_: A Black Girl.
+_Time_:    Easter Morning.
+
+
+"'Scuse me knockin' at yo' do' so early, Miss Bettie, but I'se in
+trouble. Don't set up in bed. Jes' lay still an' lemme talk to yer.
+
+"I come to ax yer to please ma'am loand me a pair o' wings, mistus.
+No'm, I ain't crazy. I mean what I say.
+
+"You see, to-day's Easter Sunday, Miss Bettie, an' we havin' a high time
+in our chu'ch. An' I'se gwine sing de special Easter carol, wid Freckled
+Frances an' Lame Jane jinin' in de chorus in our choir. Hit's one o'
+deze heah visible choirs sot up nex' to de pulpit in front o' de
+congergation.
+
+"Of co'se, me singin' de high solo makes me de principlest figgur, so we
+'ranged fur me to stan' in de middle, wid Frances an' Jake on my right
+an' lef' sides, an' I got a bran new white tarlton frock wid spangles on
+it, an' a Easter lily wreath all ready. Of co'se, me bein' de fust
+singer, dat entitles me to wear de highest plumage, an' Frances, she
+knows dat, an' she 'lowed to me she was gwine wear dat white nainsook
+lawn you gi'n 'er, an' des a plain secondary hat, an' at de p'inted time
+we all three got to rise an' courtesy to de congergation, an' den bu'st
+into song. Lame Jake gwine wear dat white duck suit o' Marse John's an'
+a Easter lily in his button-hole.
+
+"Well, hit was all fixed dat-a-way, peaceable an' proper, but you know
+de trouble is Freckled Frances is jealous-hearted, an' she ain't got no
+principle. I tell you, Miss Bettie, when niggers gits white enough to
+freckle, you look out for 'em! Dey jes advanced fur enough along to show
+white ambition an' nigger principle! An' dat's a dange'ous mixture!
+
+"An' Frances--? She ain't got no mo' principle 'n a suck-aig dorg! Ever
+sence we 'ranged dat Easter programme, she been studyin' up some
+owdacious way to outdo me to-day in de face of eve'ybody.
+
+"But I'm jes one too many fur any yaller freckled-faced nigger. I'm
+black--but dey's a heap o' trouble come out o' ink bottles befo' to-day!
+
+"I done had my eye on Frances! An' fur de las' endurin' week I taken
+notice ev'ry time we had a choir practisin', Frances, she'd fetch in
+some talk about butterflies bein' a Easter sign o' de resurrection o' de
+dead, an' all sech as dat. Well, I know Frances don't keer no mo' 'bout
+de resurrection o' de dead 'n nothin'. Frances is too tuck up wid dis
+life fur dat! So I watched her. An' las' night I ketched up wid 'er.
+
+"You know dat grea' big silk paper butterfly dat you had on yo'
+_pi_anner lamp, Miss Bettie? She's got it pyerched up on a wire on
+top o' dat secondary hat, an' she's a-fixin' it to wear it to church
+to-day. But she don't know I know it. You see, she knows I kin sing all
+over her, an' dat's huccome she's a-projectin' to ketch de eyes o' de
+congergation!
+
+"But ef you'll he'p me out, Miss Bettie, we'll fix 'er. You know dem
+yaller gauzy wings you wo'e in de tableaux? Ef you'll loand 'em to me
+an' help me on wid 'em terreckly when I'm dressed, I'll _be_ a _whole
+live butterfly_, an' I bet yer when I flutters into dat choir, Freckled
+Frances'll feel like snatchin' dat lamp shade off her hat, sho's you
+born! An' fur once-t I'm proud I'm so black complected, caze black an'
+yaller, dey goes together fur butterflies!
+
+"Frances 'lowed to kill me out to-day, but I lay when she sets eyes on
+de yaller-winged butterfly she'll 'preciate de resurrection o' de dead
+ef she never done it befo' in her life."
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTMAS AT THE TRIMBLES'
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+Part I
+
+_Time_:  Daylight, the day before Christmas.
+_Place_: Rowton's store, Simpkinsville.
+
+
+_First Monologue, by Mr. Trimble_:
+
+"Whoa-a-a, there, ck, ck, ck! Back, now, Jinny! Hello, Rowton! Here we
+come, Jinny an' me--six miles in the slush up to the hub, an' Jinny with
+a unweaned colt at home. Whoa-a-a, there!
+
+"It's good Christmas don't come but once-t a year--ain't it, Jinny?
+
+"Well, Rowton, you're what I call a pro-gressive business man, that's
+what you are. Blest ef he ain't hired a whole row o' little niggers to
+stand out in front of 'is sto'e an' hold horses--while he takes his
+customers inside to fleece 'em.
+
+"Come here, Pop-Eyes, you third feller, an' ketch aholt o' Jinny's
+bridle. I always did like pop-eyed niggers. They look so God-forsaken
+an' ugly. A feller thet's afflicted with yo' style o' beauty ought to
+have favors showed him, an' that's why I intend for you to make the
+first extry to-day. The boy thet holds my horse of a Christmus Eve
+always earns a dollar. Don't try to open yo' eyes no wider--I mean what
+I say. How did Rowton manage to git you fellers up so early, I wonder.
+Give out thet he'd hire the first ten that come, did he? An' gives each
+feller his dinner an' a hat.
+
+"I was half afeered you wouldn't be open yet, Rowton--but I was
+determined to git ahead o' the Christmus crowd, an' I started by
+starlight. I ca'culate to meet 'em all a-goin' back.
+
+"Well, I vow, ef yo' sto'e don't look purty. Wish _she_ could see it.
+She'd have some idee of New York. But, of co'se, I couldn't fetch her
+to-day, an' me a-comin' specially to pick out her Christmus gif'. She's
+jest like a child. Ef she s'picions befo' hand what she's a-goin' to
+git, why, she don't want it.
+
+"I notice when I set on these soap-boxes, my pockets is jest about even
+with yo' cash-drawer, Rowton. Well, that's what we're here for. Fetch
+out all yo' purties, now, an' lay 'em along on the counter. You know
+_her_, an' she ain't to be fooled in quality. Reckon I _will_ walk
+around a little an' see what you've got. I 'ain't got a idee on earth
+what to buy, from a broach to a barouche. Let's look over some o' yo'
+silver things, Rowton. Josh Porter showed me a butter-dish you sold him
+with a silver cow on the led of it, an' I was a-wonderin' ef, maybe,
+you didn't have another.
+
+"That's it. That's a mighty fine idee, a statue like that is. It sort o'
+designates a thing. D'rec'ly a person saw the cow, now, he'd s'picion
+the butter inside the dish. Of co'se, he'd know they wouldn't hardly be
+hay in it--no, ez you say, 'nor a calf.' No doubt wife'll be a-wantin'
+one o' these cow-topped ones quick ez she sees Josh's wife's. She'll see
+the p'int in a minute--of the cow, I mean. But, of co'se, I wouldn't
+think o' gittin' her the same thing Josh's got for Helen, noways. We're
+too near neighbors for that. Th' ain't no fun in borryin' duplicates
+over a stile when company drops in sudden, without a minute's warnin'.
+
+"No, you needn't call my attention to that tiltin' ice-pitcher. I seen
+it soon ez I approached the case. Didn't you take notice to me a-liftin'
+my hat? That was what I was a-bowin' to, that pitcher was. No, that's
+the thing wife hankers after, an' I know it, an' it's the one thing I'll
+never buy her. Not thet I'd begrudge it to her--but to tell the truth
+it'd pleg me to have to live with the thing. I wouldn't mind it on
+Sundays or when they was company in the house, but I like to take off my
+coat, hot days, an' set around in my shirt-sleeves, an' I doubt ef I'd
+have the cheek to do it in the face of sech a thing as that.
+
+"Fact is, when I come into a room where one of 'em is, I sort o' look
+for it to tilt over of its own accord an' bow to me an' ask me to 'be
+seated.'
+
+"You needn't to laugh. Of co'se, they's a reason for it--but it's so.
+I'm jest that big of a ninny. Ricollec' Jedge Robinson, he used to have
+one of 'em--jest about the size o' this one--two goblets an' a
+bowl--an' when I'd go up to the house on a errand for pa, time pa was
+distric' coroner, the jedge's mother-in-law, ol' Mis' Meredy, she'd be
+settin' in the back room a-sewin,' an' when the black gal would let me
+in the front door she'd sort o' whisper: 'Invite him to walk into the
+parlor and be seated.' I'd overhear her say it, an' I'd turn into the
+parlor, an' first thing I'd see'd be that ice-pitcher. I don't think
+anybody can _set down_ good, noways, when they're ast to 'be seated,'
+an' when, in addition to that, I'd meet the swingin' ice-pitcher half
+way to the patent rocker, I didn't have no mo' consciousness where I
+was a-settin' than nothin'. An' like ez not the rocker'd squawk first
+strain I put on it. She wasn't no mo'n a sort o' swingin' ice-pitcher
+herself, ol' Mis' Meredy wasn't--walkin' round the house weekdays
+dressed in black silk, with a lace cap on her head, an' half insultin'
+his company thet he'd knowed all his life. I did threaten once-t to
+tell her, 'No, thank you, ma'am, I don't keer to be seated--but I'll
+_set down_ ef it's agreeable,' but when the time would come I'd turn
+round an' there'd be the ice-pitcher. An' after that I couldn't be
+expected to do nothin' but back into the parlor over the Brussels
+carpet an' chaw my hat-brim. But, of co'se, I was young then.
+
+"Reckon you've heerd the tale they tell on Aleck Turnbull the day he
+went there in the old lady's time. She had him ast into the cushioned
+sanctuary--an' Aleck hadn't seen much them days--an' what did he do but
+gawk around an' plump hisself down into that gilt-backed rocker with a
+tune-playin' seat in it, an', of co'se, quick ez his weight struck it,
+it started up a jig tune, an' they say Aleck shot out o' that door like
+ez ef he'd been fired out of a cannon. An' he never did go back to say
+what he come after. I doubt ef he ever knew.
+
+"How much did you say for the ice-pitcher, Rowton? Thirty dollars--an'
+you'll let me have it for--hush, now, don't say that. I don't see how
+you could stand so close to it an' offer to split dollars. Of co'se
+I ain't a-buyin' it, but ef I was I wouldn't want no reduction on it,
+I'd feel like ez ef it would always know it an' have a sort of contemp'
+for me. They's suitableness in all things. Besides, I never want no
+reduction on anything I buy for _her_, someways. You can charge me
+reg'lar prices an' make it up on the Christmas gif' she buys for
+me--that is, ef she buys it from you. Of co'se it'll be charged.
+That's a mighty purty coral broach, that grape-bunch one, but she's
+so pink-complected, I don't know ez she'd become it. I like this
+fish-scale set, myself, but she might be prejerdyced ag'in' the idee
+of it. You say she admired that hand-merror, an' this pair o'
+side-combs--an' she 'lowed she'd git 'em fur my Christmus gif' ef she
+dared? But, of co'se, she was jokin' about that. Poor little thing, she
+ain't never got over the way folks run her about that side-saddle she
+give me last Christmus, though I never did see anything out o' the way
+in it. She knew thet the greatest pleasure o' my life was in makin' her
+happy, and she was jest simple-hearted enough to do it--that's all--an'
+I can truly say thet I ain't never had mo' pleasure out of a Christmus
+gif' in my life than I've had out o' that side-saddle. She's been so
+consistent about it--never used it in her life without a-borryin' it of
+me, an' she does it so cunnin'. Of co'se I don't never loand it to her
+without a kiss. They ain't a cunnin'er play-actor on earth 'n she is,
+though she ain't never been to a theatre--an' wouldn't go, bein' too
+well raised.
+
+"You say this pitcher wasn't there when she was here--no, for ef it had
+'a' been, I know she'd 'a' took on over it. Th' ain't never been one
+for sale in Simpkinsville before. They've been several of 'em brought
+here by families besides the one old Mis' Meredy presided over--though
+that was one o' the first. But wife is forever a-pickin' out purty
+patterns of 'em in the catalogues. Ef that one hadn't 'a' give me such
+a setback in my early youth I'd git her this, jest to please her. Ef I
+was to buy this one, it an' the plush album would set each other off
+lovely. She's a-buyin' _it_ on instalments from the same man thet
+enlarged her photograph to a' ile-painted po'trait, an' it's a dandy!
+She's got me a-settin' up on the front page, took with my first wife,
+which it looks to me thet if she'd do that much to please me, why, I
+might buy almost anything to please her, don't it? Of co'se I don't
+take no partic'lar pleasure in that photograph--but she seems to think
+I might, an' no doubt she's put it there to show thet she ain't
+small-minded. You ricollec' Mary Jane was plain-featured, but Kitty
+don't seem to mind that ez much ez I do, now thet she's gone an' her
+good deeds ain't in sight. I never did see no use in throwin' a
+plain-featured woman's looks up to her _post mortem_.
+
+"This is a mighty purty pitcher, in my judgment, but to tell the truth
+I've made so much fun o' the few swingin' pitchers thet's been in this
+town that I'd be ashamed to buy it, even ef I could git over my own
+obnoxion to it. But of co'se, ez you say, everybody'd know thet I done
+it jest to please her--an' I don't know thet they's a more worthy object
+in a married man's life than that.
+
+"I s'pose I'll haf to git it for her. An' I want a bold, outspoke
+dedication on it, Rowton. I ain't a-goin' about it shamefaced. Here,
+gimme that pencil. Now, I want this inscription on it, word for word.
+I've got to stop over at Paul's to git him to regulate my watch, an'
+I'll tell him to hurry an' mark it for me, soon ez you send it over.
+
+"Well, so long. Happy Christmus to you an' yo' folks.
+
+"Say, Rowton, wrap up that little merror an' them side-combs an' send
+'em along, too, please. So long!"
+
+
+Part II
+
+_Time_:  Same morning.
+_Plate_: Store in Washington.
+
+_Second Monologue, by Mrs. Trimble_:
+
+
+"Why, howdy, Mis' Blakes--howdy, Mis' Phemie--howdy, all. Good-mornin',
+Mr. Lawson. I see yo' sto'e is fillin' up early. Great minds run in the
+same channel, partic'larly on Christmus Eve.
+
+"My old man started off this mornin' befo' day, an' soon ez he got out
+o' sight down the Simpkinsville road, I struck out for Washin'ton, an'
+here I am. He thinks I'm home seedin' raisins. He was out by starlight
+this mornin' with the big wagon, an', of co'se, I know what that means.
+He's gone for my Christmus gif', an' I'm put to it to know what
+tremenjus thing he's a-layin' out to fetch me--thet takes a cotton-wagon
+to haul it. Of co'se I imagine everything, from a guyaskutus down. I
+always did like to git things too big to go in my stockin'. What you
+say, Mis' Blakes? Do I hang up my stockin'? Well, I reckon. I hadn't
+quit when I got married, an' I think that's a poor time to stop, don't
+you? Partic'larly when you marry a man twice-t yo' age, an' can't
+convince him thet you're grown, noways. Yas, indeedy, that stockin' goes
+up to-night--not mine, neither, but one I borry from Aunt Jane Peters. I
+don't wonder y' all laugh. Aunt Jane's foot is a yard long ef it's a'
+inch, but I'll find it stuffed to-morrer mornin', even ef the guyaskutus
+has to be chained to the mantel. An' it'll take me a good hour to empty
+it, for he always puts a lot o' devilment in it, an' I give him a
+beatin' over the head every nonsensical thing I find in it. We have a
+heap o' fun over it, though.
+
+"He don't seem to know I'm grown, an' I know I don't know he's old.
+
+"Listen to me runnin' on, an' you all nearly done yo' shoppin'. Which do
+you think would be the nicest to give him, Mr. Lawson--this silver
+card-basket, or that Cupid vase, or--?
+
+"Y' all needn't to wink. I seen you, Mis' Blakes. Ef I was to pick out a
+half dozen socks for him like them you're a-buyin' for Mr. Blakes, how
+much fun do you suppose we'd have out of it? Not much. I'd jest ez lief
+'twasn't Christmus--an' so would he--though they do say his first wife
+give him a bolt o' domestic once-t for Christmus, an' made it up into
+night-shirts an' things for him du'in' the year. Think of it. No, I'm
+a-goin' to git him somethin' thet's got some git-up to it, an'--an'
+it'll be either--that--Cupid vase--or--lordy, Mr. Lawson, don't fetch
+out that swingin' ice-pitcher. I glimpsed it quick ez I come in the
+door, an', says I, 'Get thee behind me, Satan,' an' turned my back on it
+immejiate.
+
+"But of co'se I ca'culated to git you to fetch it out jest for me to
+look at, after I'd selected his present. Ain't it a beauty? Seems to me
+they couldn't be a more suitable present for a man--ef he didn't hate
+'em so. No, Mis' Blakes, it ain't only thet he don't never drink
+ice-water. I wouldn't mind a little thing like that.
+
+"You ricollec' ol' Mis' Meredy, she used to preside over one thet they
+had, an' somehow he taken a distaste to her an' to ice-pitchers along
+with her, an' he don't never lose a chance to express his disgust. When
+them new folks was in town last year projec'in' about the railroad, he
+says to me, 'I hope they won't stay, they'd never suit Simpkinsville on
+earth. They're the regular swingin' ice-pitcher sort. Git folks like
+that in town an' it wouldn't be no time befo' they'd start a-chargin'
+pew rent in our churches.' We was both glad when they give out thet they
+wasn't a-goin' to build the road. They say railroads is mighty
+corrupting an' me, with my sick headaches, an' a' ingine whistle in
+town, no indeed! Besides, ef it was to come I know I'd be the first one
+run over. It's bad enough to have bulls in our fields without turnin'
+steam-ingines loose on us. Jest one look at them cow-ketchers is enough
+to frustrate a person till he'd stand stock still an' wait to be run
+over--jest like poor crazy Mary done down here to Cedar Springs.
+
+"They say crazy Mary looked that headlight full in the face, jes' the
+same ez a bird looks at a snake, till the thing caught her, an' when the
+long freight train had passed over her she didn't have a single remain,
+not a one, though I always thought they might've gethered up enough to
+give her a funeral. When I die I intend to have a funeral, even if I'm
+drownded at sea. They can stand on the sho'e, an' I'll be jest ez likely
+to know it ez them thet lay in view lookin' so ca'm. I've done give him
+my orders, though they ain't much danger o' me dyin' at sea, not ef we
+stay in Simpkinsville.
+
+"How much are them willer rockers, Mr. Lawson? I declare that one favors
+my old man ez it sets there, even without him in it. Nine dollars?
+That's a good deal for a pants'-tearin' chair, seems to me, which them
+willers are, the last one of 'em, an' I'm a mighty poor hand to darn.
+Jest let me lay my stitches in colors, in the shape of a flower, an' I
+can darn ez well ez the next one, but I do despise to fill up holes jest
+to be a-fillin'. Yes, ez you say, them silver-mounted brier-wood pipes
+is mighty purty, but he smokes so much ez it is, I don't know ez I want
+to encourage him. Besides, it seems a waste o' money to buy a Christmus
+gif' thet a person has to lay aside when company comes in, an' a
+silver-mounted pipe ain't no politer to smoke in the presence o' ladies
+than a corncob is. An' ez for when we're by ourselves--shucks.
+
+"Ef you don't mind, Mr. Lawson, I'll stroll around through the sto'e
+an' see what you've got while you wait on some o' them thet know their
+own minds. I know mine well enough. _What I want_ is _that swingin'
+ice-pitcher_, an' my judgment tells me thet they ain't a more suitable
+present in yo' sto'e for a settled man thet has built hisself a
+residence an' furnished it complete the way _he_ has, but of co'se
+'twouldn't never do. I always think how I'd enjoy it when the minister
+called. I wonder what Mr. Lawson thinks o' me back here a-talkin' to
+myself. I always like to talk about the things I'm buyin'. That's a
+mighty fine saddle-blanket, indeed it is. He was talkin' about a new
+saddle-blanket the other day. But that's a thing a person could pick up
+almost any day, a saddle-blanket is. A' ice-pitcher now--
+
+"Say, Mr. Lawson, lemme look at that tiltin'-pitcher again, please,
+sir. I jest want to see ef the spout is gold-lined. Yes, so it is--an'
+little holes down in the throat of it, too. It cert'n'y is well made,
+it cert'n'y is. I s'pose them holes is to strain out grasshoppers or
+anything thet might fall into it. That musician thet choked to death at
+the barbecue down at Pump Springs last summer might 'a' been livin' yet
+ef they'd had sech ez this to pass water in, instid o' that open pail.
+_He's_ got a mighty keerless way o' drinkin' out o' open dippers, too.
+No tellin' what he'll scoop up some day. They'd be great safety for him
+in a pitcher like this--ef I could only make him see it. It would seem
+a sort o' awkward thing to pack out to the well every single time, an'
+he won't drink no water but what he draws fresh. An' I s'pose it would
+look sort o' silly to put it in here jest to drink it out again.
+
+"Sir? Oh yes, I saw them saddle-bags hang-in' up back there, an' they
+are fine, mighty fine, ez you say, an' his are purty near wo'e out, but
+lordy, I don't want to buy a Christmus gif' thet's hung up in the
+harness-room half the time. What's that you say? Won't you all never
+git done a-runnin' me about that side-saddle? You can't pleg me about
+that. I got it for his pleasure, ef it was for my use, an', come to
+think about it, I'd be jest reversin' the thing on the pitcher. It
+would be for his use an' my pleasure. I wish I could see my way to buy
+it for him. Both goblets go with it, you say--an' the slop bowl? It
+cert'n'y is handsome--it cert'n'y is. An' it's expensive--nobody could
+accuse me o' stintin' 'im. Wonder why they didn't put some polar bears
+on the goblets, too. They'd 'a' had to be purty small bears, but they
+could 'a' been cubs, easy.
+
+"I don't reely believe, Mr. Lawson, indeed I don't, thet I could find a
+mo' suitable present for him ef I took a month, an' I don't keer what
+he's a-pickin' out for me this minute, it can't be no handsomer 'n
+this. Th' ain't no use--I'll haf to have it--for 'im. Jest charge it,
+please, an' now I want it marked. I'll pay cash for the markin', out of
+my egg money. An' I want his full name. Have it stamped on the iceberg
+right beside the bear. 'Ephraim N. Trimble.' No, you needn't to spell
+out the middle name. I should say not. Ef you knew what it was you
+wouldn't ask me. Why, it's Nebuchadnezzar. It'd use up the whole
+iceberg. Besides, I couldn't never think o' Nebuchadnezzar there an'
+not a spear o' grass on the whole lan'scape. You needn't to laugh. I
+know it's silly, but I always think o' sech ez that. No, jest write it,
+'Ephraim N. Trimble, from his wife, Kitty.' Be sure to put in the
+Kitty, so in after years it'll show which wife give it to him. Of
+co'se, them thet knew us both would know which one. Mis' Mary Jane
+wouldn't never have approved of it in the world. Why, she used to rip
+up her old crocheted tidies an' things an' use 'em over in bastin'
+thread, so they tell me. She little dremp' who she was a-savin' for,
+poor thing. She was buyin' this pitcher then, but she didn't know it.
+But I keep a-runnin' on. Go on with the inscription, Mr. Lawson. What
+have you got? 'From his wife, Kitty'--what's the matter with
+'affectionate wife'? You say affectionate is a purty expensive word?
+But 'lovin'' 'll do jest ez well, an' it comes cheaper, you say? An'
+plain 'wife' comes cheapest of all? An' I don't know but what it's mo'
+suitable, anyhow--at his age. Of co'se, you must put in the date, an'
+make the 'Kitty' nice an' fancy, please. Lordy, well, the deed's
+done--an' I reckon he'll threaten to divo'ce me when he sees it--till
+he reads the inscription. Better put in the 'lovin',' I reckon, an' put
+it in capitals--they don't cost no more, do they? Well, goodbye, Mr.
+Lawson, I reckon you'll be glad to see me go. I've outstayed every last
+one thet was here when I come. Well, good-bye! Have it marked
+immediate, please, an' I'll call back in an hour. Good-bye, again!"
+
+
+Part III
+
+When old man Trimble stood before the fireplace at midnight that night,
+stuffing little parcels into the deep, borrowed stocking, he chuckled
+noiselessly, and glanced with affection towards the corner of the room
+where his young wife lay sleeping. He was a fat old man, and as he stood
+with shaking sides in his loose, home-made pajamas, he would have done
+credit to a more conscious impersonation of old Santa himself.
+
+His task finally done, he glanced down at a tall bundle that stood on
+the floor almost immediately in front of him, moved back with his hands
+resting on his hips, and thoughtfully surveyed it.
+
+"Well, ef anybody had 'a' told it on me I never would 'a' believed it,"
+he said, under his breath. "The idee o' me, Ephe Trimble, settin' up
+sech a thing ez that in his house--at my time o' life." Then, glancing
+towards the sleeper, he added, with a chuckle, "an' ef they'd 'a'
+prophesied it I wouldn't 'a' believed sech ez _thet_, neither--at
+my time o' life--bless her little curly head."
+
+He sat down on the floor beside the bundle, clipped the twine, and
+cautiously pushed back the wrappings. Then, rising, he carefully set
+each piece of the water-set up above the stocking on the mantel. He did
+not stop to examine it. He was anxious to get it in place without noise.
+
+It made a fine show, even in the dim, unsteady light of the single taper
+that burned in its tumbler of oil close beside the bed. Indeed, when it
+arose in all its splendor, he was very much impressed.
+
+"A thing like that ought to have a chandelier to set it off right," he
+thought--"yas, and she'll have one, too--she'll have anything she
+wants--thet I can give her."
+
+Sleep came slowly to the old man that night, and even long after his
+eyes were closed, the silver things seemed arrayed in line upon his
+mental retina. And when, after a long while, he fell into a troubled
+slumber, it was only to dream. And in his dream old Judge Robinson's
+mother-in-law seemed to come and stand before him--black dress, side
+curls, and all--and when he looked at her for the first time in his life
+unabashed--she began to bow, over and over again, and to say with each
+salutation, "Be seated"--"be seated"--"be seated," getting farther and
+farther away with each bow until she was a mere speck in the
+distance--and then the speck became a spot of white, and he saw that the
+old lady had taken on a spout and a handle, and that she was only an
+ice-pitcher, tilting, and tilting, and tilting--while from the yellow
+spout came a fine metallic voice saying, "Be seated"--"be seated"--again
+and again. Then there would be a change. Two ladies would appear
+approaching each other and retreating--turning into two ice-pitchers,
+tilting to each other, then passing from tilting pitchers to bowing
+ladies, until sometimes there seemed almost to be a pitcher and a lady
+in view at the same time. When he began to look for them both at once
+the dream became tantalizing. Twin ladies and twin pitchers--but never
+quite clearly a lady and a pitcher. Even while the vision tormented him
+it held him fast--perhaps because he was tired, having lost his first
+hours of sleep.
+
+He was still sleeping soundly, spite of the dissolving views of the
+novel panorama, when above the two voices that kept inviting him to "be
+seated," there arose, in muffled tones at first, and then with
+distressing distinctness, a sound of sobbing. It made the old man turn
+on his pillow even while he slept, for it was the voice of a woman, and
+he was tender of heart. It seemed in the dream and yet not of it--this
+awful, suppressed sobbing that disturbed his slumber, but was not quite
+strong enough to break it. But presently, instead of the muffled sob,
+there came a cumulative outburst, like that of a too hard-pressed
+turkey-gobbler forced to the wall. He thought it was the old black
+gobbler at first, and he even said, "Shoo," as he sprang from his bed.
+But a repetition of the sound sent him bounding through the open door
+into the dining-room, dazed and trembling.
+
+Seated beside the dining-table there, with her head buried in her arms,
+sat his little wife. Before her, ranged in line upon the table, stood
+the silver water-set--her present to him. He was beside her in a
+moment--leaning over her, his arms about her shoulders.
+
+"Why, honey," he exclaimed, "what on earth--"
+
+At this she only cried the louder. There was no further need for
+restraint. The old man scratched his head. He was very much distressed.
+
+"Why, honey," he repeated, "tell its old man all about it. Didn't it
+like the purty pitcher thet its old husband bought for it? Was it too
+big--or too little--or too heavy for it to tote all the way out here
+from that high mantel? Why didn't it wake up its lazy ol' man and make
+him pack it out here for it?"
+
+It was no use. She was crying louder than ever. He did not know what to
+do. He began to be cold and he saw that she was shivering. There was no
+fire in the dining-room. He must do something. "Tell its old man what it
+would 'a' ruther had," he whispered in her ear, "jest tell him, ef it
+don't like its pitcher--"
+
+At this she made several efforts to speak, her voice breaking in real
+turkey-gobbler sobs each time, but finally she managed to wail:
+
+"It ain't m-m-m-mi-i-i-ne!"
+
+"Not yours! Why, honey. What can she mean? Did it think I bought it for
+anybody else? Ain't yours! Well, I like that. Lemme fetch that lamp over
+here till you read the writin' on the side of it, an' I'll show you
+whose it is." He brought the lamp.
+
+"Read that, now. Why, honey! Wh--wh--wh--what in thunder an' lightnin'!
+They've done gone an' reversed it. The fool's put my name first--'
+Ephraim N. Trimble. From--his--'
+
+"Why, Jerusalem jinger!
+
+"No wonder she thought I was a low-down dog--to buy sech a thing an'
+mark it in my own name--no wonder--here on Christmus, too. The idee o'
+Rowton not seein' to it thet it was done right--"
+
+By this time the little woman had somewhat recovered herself. Still, she
+stammered fearfully.
+
+"R-r-r-owton ain't never s-s-s-saw that pitcher. It come from
+L-l-l-awson's, d-d-down at Washin'ton, an' I b-bought it for y-y-y-you!"
+
+"Why, honey--darlin'--" A sudden light came into the old man's eyes. He
+seized the lamp and hurried to the door of the bed-chamber, and looked
+in. This was enough. Perhaps it was mean--but he could not help it--he
+set the lamp down on the table, dropped into a chair, and fairly howled
+with laughter.
+
+"No wonder I dremp' ol' Mis' Meredy was twins!" he screamed. "Why,
+h-h-honey," he was nearly splitting his old sides--"why, honey, I ain't
+seen a thing but these two swingin' pitchers all night. They've been
+dancin' before me--them an' what seemed like a pair o' ol' Mis' Meredys,
+an' between 'em all I ain't slep' a wink."
+
+"N-n-either have I. An' I dremp' about ol' Mis' M-m-m-eredy, too. I
+dremp' she had come to live with us--an' thet y-y-you an' me had moved
+into the back o' the house. That's why I got up. I couldn't sleep easy,
+an' I thought I might ez well git up an' see wh-wh-what you'd brought
+me. But I didn't no mor'n glance at it. But you can't say you didn't
+sleep, for you was a-s-s-snorin' when I come out here--"
+
+"An' so was you, honey, when I 'ranged them things on the mantel. Lemme
+go an' git the other set an' compare 'em. That one I picked out is
+mighty purty."
+
+"I'll tell you befo' you fetch 'em thet they're exactly alike"--she
+began to cry again--"even to the p-p-polar bear. I saw that at a glance,
+an' it makes it s-s-so much more ridic'--"
+
+"Hush, honey. I'm reely ashamed of you--I reely am. Seems to me ef
+they're jest alike, so much the better. What's the matter with havin' a
+pair of 'em? We might use one for buttermilk."
+
+"Th-that would be perfectly ridiculous. A polar bear'd look like a fool
+on a buttermilk pitcher. N-n-no, the place for pitchers like them is in
+halls, on tables, where anybody comin' in can see 'em an' stop an' git a
+drink. They couldn't be nothin' tackier'n pourin' buttermilk out of a'
+ice-pitcher."
+
+"Of co'se, if you say so, we won't--I jest thought maybe--or, I tell you
+what we might do. I could easy take out a panel o' banisters out of the
+side po'ch, an' put in a pair o' stairsteps, so ez to make a sort o'
+side entrance to the house, an' we could set one of 'em in _it_. It
+would make the pitcher come a little high, of co'se, but it would set
+off that side o' the house lovely, an' ef you say so--
+
+"Lemme go git 'em all out here together."
+
+As he trudged in presently loaded up with the duplicate set he said, "I
+wonder ef you know what time it is, wife?"
+
+She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the wall.
+
+"Don't look at that. It's six o'clock last night by that. I forgot to
+wind her up. No. It's half-past three o'clock--that's all it is." By
+this time he had placed his water-set beside hers upon the table. "Why,
+honey," he exclaimed, "where on earth? I don't see a sign of a'
+inscription on this--an' what is this paper in the spout? Here, you read
+it, wife, I ain't got my specs."
+
+    "'Too busy to mark to-day--send back after Christmas--sorry.
+
+    ROWTON.'"
+
+"Why, it--an' here's another paper. What can this be, I wonder?"
+
+    "'To my darling wife, from her affectionate husband.'"
+
+The little wife colored as she read it.
+
+"Oh, that ain't nothin' but the motter he was to print on it. But ain't
+it lucky thet he didn't do it? I'll change it--that's what I'll do--for
+anything you say. There, now. Don't that fix it?"
+
+She was very still for a moment--very thoughtful. "An' affectionate is a
+mighty expensive word, too," she said, slowly, glancing over the
+intended inscription, in her husband's handwriting. "Yes. Your pitcher
+don't stand for a thing but generosity--an' mine don't mean a thing but
+selfishness. Yes, take it back, cert'nly, that is ef you'll get me
+anything I want for it. Will you?"
+
+"Shore. They's a cow-topped butter-dish an' no end o' purty little
+things out there you might like. An' ef it's goin' back, it better be
+a-goin'. I can ride out to town an' back befo' breakfast. Come, kiss me,
+wife."
+
+She threw both arms around her old husband's neck, and kissed him on one
+cheek and then on the other. Then she kissed his lips. And then, as she
+went for pen and paper, she said: "Hurry, now, an' hitch up, an' I'll be
+writin' down what I want in exchange--an' you can put it in yo' pocket."
+
+In a surprisingly short time the old man was on his way--a heaped basket
+beside him, a tiny bit of writing in his pocket. When he had turned into
+the road he drew rein for a moment, lit a match, and this is what he
+read:
+
+    "MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I want one silver-mounted brier-wood pipe and
+    a smoking set--a nice lava one--and I want a set of them fine
+    overhauls like them that Mis Pope give Mr. Pope that time I said
+    she was too extravagant, and if they's any money left over I want
+    some nice tobacco, the best. I want all the price of the ice-set
+    took up even to them affectionate words they never put on.
+
+    "Your affectionate and loving wife,
+
+    "KITTY."
+
+When Ephraim put the little note back in his pocket, he took out his
+handkerchief and wiped his eyes.
+
+Her good neighbors and friends, even as far as Simpkinsville and
+Washington, had their little jokes over Mis' Trimble's giving her
+splendor-despising husband a swinging ice-pitcher, but they never knew
+of the two early trips of the twin pitcher, nor of the midnight comedy
+in the Trimble home.
+
+But the old man often recalls it, and as he sits in his front hall
+smoking his silver-mounted pipe, and shaking its ashes into the lava
+bowl that stands beside the ice-pitcher at his elbow, he sometimes
+chuckles to himself.
+
+Noticing his shaking shoulders as he sat thus one day his wife turned
+from the window, where she stood watering her geraniums, and said:
+
+"What on earth are you a-laughin' at, honey?" (She often calls him
+"honey" now.)
+
+"How did you know I was a-laughin'?" He looked over his shoulder at her
+as he spoke.
+
+"Why, I seen yo' shoulders a-shakin'--that's how." And then she added,
+with a laugh, "An' now I see yo' reflection in the side o' the
+ice-pitcher, with a zig-zag grin on you a mile long--yo' smile just
+happened to strike a iceberg."
+
+He chuckled again.
+
+"Is that so? Well, the truth is, I'm just sort o' tickled over things in
+general, an' I'm a-settin' here gigglin', jest from pure contentment."
+
+
+
+
+A MINOR CHORD
+
+
+I am an old bachelor, and I live alone in my corner upper room of an
+ancient house of _Chambres garnies_, down on the lower edge of the
+French quarter of New Orleans.
+
+When I made my nest here, forty years ago, I felt myself an old man, and
+the building was even then a dilapidated old rookery, and since then
+we--the house and I--have lapsed physically with the decline of the
+neighborhood about us, until now our only claims to gentility are
+perhaps our memories and our reserves.
+
+The habit of introspection formed by so isolated an existence tends to
+develop morbid views of life, and throws one out of sympathetic
+relations with the world of progress, we are told; but is there not some
+compensation for this in the acquisition of finer and more subtle
+perception of things hidden from the social, laughing, hurrying world?
+So it seems to me, and even though the nicer discernment bring pain, as
+it often does--as all refinement must--who would yield it for a grosser
+content resulting from a duller vision?
+
+To contemplate the procession that passes daily beneath my window, with
+its ever-shifting pictures of sorrow, of decrepitude ill-matched with
+want, new motherhood, and mendicancy, with uplifted eye and palm--to
+look down upon all this with only a passing sigh, as my worthy but
+material fat landlady does, would imply a spiritual blindness infinitely
+worse than the pang which the keener perception induces.
+
+There are in this neighborhood of moribund pretensions a few special
+objects which strike a note of such sadness in my heart that the most
+exquisite pain ensues--a pain which seems almost bodily, such as those
+for which we take physic; yet I could never confuse it with the
+neuralgic dart which it so nearly resembles, so closely does it follow
+the sight or sound which I know induces it.
+
+There is a young lawyer who passes twice a day beneath my window.... I
+say he is young, for all the moving world is young to me, at eighty--and
+yet he seems old at five-and-forty, for his temples are white.
+
+I know this man's history. The only son of a proud house, handsome,
+gifted--even somewhat of a poet in his youth--he married a soulless
+woman, who began the ruin which the wine-cup finished. It is an old
+story. In a mad hour he forged another man's name--then, a wanderer on
+the face of the earth, he drifted about with never a local habitation or
+a name, until his aged father had made good the price of his honor, when
+he came home--"tramped home," the world says--and, now, after years of
+variable steadiness, he has built upon the wreck of his early life a
+sort of questionable confidence which brings him half-averted
+recognition; and every day, with the gray always glistening on his
+temples and the clear profile of the past outlining itself--though the
+high-bred face is low between the shoulders now--he passes beneath my
+window with halting step to and from the old courthouse, where, by
+virtue of his father's position, he holds a minor office.
+
+Almost within a stone's throw of my chamber this man and his aged
+father--the latter now a hopeless paralytic--live together in the ruins
+of their old home.
+
+Year by year the river, by constant cavings, has swallowed nearly all
+its extensive grounds, yet beyond the low-browed Spanish cottage that
+clings close within the new levee, "the ghost of a garden" fronts the
+river. Here, amid broken marbles--lyreless Apollos, Pegasus bereft of
+wings, and prostrate Muses--the hardier roses, golden-rod, and
+honeysuckle run riot within the old levee, between the comings of the
+waters that at intervals steal in and threaten to swallow all at a gulp.
+
+The naked old house, grotesquely guarded by the stately skeleton of a
+moss-grown oak, is thus bereft, by the river in front and the public
+road at its back, of all but the bare fact of survival.
+
+No visitor ever enters here; but in the summer evenings two old men may
+be seen creeping with difficult steps from its low portal up to the brow
+of the bank, where they sit in silence and watch the boats go by.
+
+The picture is not devoid of pathos, and even the common people whisper
+together as they look upon the figures of father and son sitting in the
+moonlight; and no one likes to pass the door at night, for there are
+grewsome tales of ghosts afloat, in which decapitated statues are said
+to stalk about the old garden at nightfall.
+
+A sigh always escapes me as I look upon this desolate scene; but it is
+not now, but when the old-young man, the son, passes my door each day,
+carrying in his pale hands a bunch of flowers which he keeps upon his
+desk in the little back office, that my mysterious pain possesses me.
+
+Why does this hope-forsaken man carry a bunch of flowers? Is it the
+surviving poet within him that finds companionship in them, or does he
+seem to see in their pure hearts, as in a mirror, a reflection of his
+own sinless youth?
+
+These questions I cannot answer; but every day, as he passes with the
+flowers, I follow him with fascinated eye until he is quite lost in the
+distance, my heart rent the while with this incisive pain.
+
+Finally, he is lost to view. The dart passes through and out my breast,
+and, as I turn, my eye falls upon a pretty rose-garden across the way,
+where live a mother and her two daughters.
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+Seventeen years ago this woman's husband--the father--went away and
+never returned. The daughters are grown, and they are poor. The elder
+performs some clerical work up in Canal Street, and I love to watch her
+trig little figure come and go--early and late.
+
+The younger, who is fairer, has a lover, and the two sit together on a
+little wrought-iron bench, or gather roses from the box-bordered beds in
+the small inland garden, which lies behind the moss-grown wall and
+battened gate; and sometimes the mother comes out and smiles upon the
+pair.
+
+The mother is a gentlewoman, and though she wears a steel thimble with
+an open top, like a tailor's, and her finger is pricked with the needle,
+she walks and smiles, even waters her roses, with a lady's grace; but it
+seems to me that the pretty pink daughter's lover is less a gentleman
+than this girl's lover should be--less than her grandfather must have
+been when he courted her grandmother in this same rose-garden--less than
+this maid's lover would be if her father had not gone to India, and her
+mother did not sew seams for a living.
+
+As I sit and watch this peaceful fragment of a family, my heart seems to
+find repose in its apparent content; but late at night, when the lover
+has gone and the mother and daughters are asleep, when I rise to close
+my shutters I perceive, between the parted curtains in the mother's
+window, a light dimly burning. When I see this beacon in the deserted
+wife's chamber, and remember that I have seen it burning there, like the
+faint but steadfast hope that refuses to be extinguished, for seventeen
+years, the pain of pains comes into my heart.
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+There is a little old man with a hump upon his shoulder who passes often
+in the crowd, and a sight of him always awakens this pain within me.
+
+It is not the tragedy of senility which his extreme age pictures, nor
+yet the hump upon his back, which stirs my note of pain.
+
+Years ago this man left his wife, for a price, to another who had
+betrayed her, and disappeared from the scene of his ignominy. When the
+woman was dead and her betrayer gone, the husband came back, an old man;
+and now, as I see him bending beneath its weight, the hump upon his
+shoulder seems to be labelled with this price which, in my imagination,
+though originally the bag of gold, has by a slow and chemically
+unexplained process of ossification, become a part of himself, and will
+grotesquely deform his skeleton a hundred years to come. When, morning
+and evening, I see this old man trudge laboriously, staggering always
+towards the left, down the street, until he disappears in the clump of
+willows that overshadow the cemetery gate, and I know that he is going
+for a lonely vigil to the grave of the dishonored woman, his lost wife,
+pain, keen as a Damascus blade, enters my heart.
+
+                  *          *          *          *
+
+I close my window and come in, for the night dews are falling and I am
+rheumatic and stiff in the legs.
+
+So, every night, musing, I go early to my bed, but before I lie down,
+after my prayer is said, I rise to put fresh water in the vase of
+flowers, which are always fresh, beneath the picture upon my wall.
+
+For one moment I stand and gaze into a pure, girlish face, with a pallid
+brow and far-away blue eyes.
+
+She was only fifteen years old, and I twice as many, when we quarrelled
+like foolish children.
+
+The day she married my brother--my youngest, best-beloved brother
+Benjamin--I laid this miniature, face downward, in a secret drawer of my
+desk.
+
+In the first year she died, and in another Benjamin had taken to himself
+a new wife, with merrier eyes and ruddier lips.
+
+My heart leaped within me when I kissed my new sister, but she knew not
+that my joy was because she was giving me back my love.
+
+Trembling with ecstasy, I took this image from its hiding-place, and for
+nearly fifty years the flowers beneath it have not withered.
+
+As I stood alone here one night, ere I knew he had entered, my little
+brother's hand was upon my shoulder. For a moment only he was silent,
+awe-stricken.
+
+"She was always yours, my brother," he said, presently, in a tremulous
+whisper. "I did not know until it was too late. She had
+misunderstood--but God was very merciful," and turning he left her to
+me.
+
+And still each day I lay fresh flowers at her shrine, cherishing the
+dart that rends my heart the while, for its testimony to the immortality
+of my passion.
+
+Do you smile because a trembling old man feasts his failing eyes on a
+fair woman's face and prates of love and flowers and beauty? Smile if
+you will, but if you do it is because you, being of the earth, cannot
+understand.
+
+These things are of the spirit; and palsy and rheumatism and waning
+strength are of the flesh, which profiteth nothing.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour
+Sketches, by Ruth McEnery Stuart
+
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