p700-046 CHAPTER IV. THE GORDON FAMILY.

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A week or two had passed over the head of Nina Gordon
since she was first introduced to our readers, and during
this time she had become familiar with the details of her
home life. Nominally, she stood at the head of her plantation,
as mistress and queen in her own right of all, both in
doors and out; but, really, she found herself, by her own
youth and inexperience, her ignorance of practical details,
very much in the hands of those she professed to govern.

The duties of a southern housekeeper, on a plantation,
are onerous beyond any amount of northern conception.
Every article wanted for daily consumption must be kept
under lock and key, and doled out as need arises. For the
most part, the servants are only grown-up children, without
consideration, forethought, or self-control, quarrelling
with each other, and divided into parties and factions, hopeless
of any reasonable control. Every article of wear, for
some hundreds of people, must be thought of, purchased,
cut and made, under the direction of the mistress; and add
to this the care of young children, whose childish mothers
are totally unfit to govern or care for them, and we have some
slight idea of what devolves on southern housekeepers.

Our reader has seen what Nina was on her return from
New York, and can easily imagine that she had no idea of
embracing, in good earnest, the hard duties of such a life.

In fact, since the death of Nina's mother, the situation of
the mistress of the family had been only nominally filled by
her aunt, Mrs. Nesbit. The real housekeeper, in fact, was

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an old mulatto woman, named Katy, who had been trained
by Nina's mother. Notwithstanding the general inefficiency
and childishness of negro servants, there often are to be
found among them those of great practical ability. Whenever
owners, through necessity or from tact, select such
servants, and subject them to the kind of training and responsibility
which belongs to a state of freedom, the same
qualities are developed which exist in free society. Nina's
mother, being always in delicate health, had, from necessity,
been obliged to commit much responsibility to “Aunt
Katy,” as she was called; and she had grown up under the
discipline into a very efficient housekeeper. With her tall
red turban, her jingling bunch of keys, and an abundant
sense of the importance of her office, she was a dignitary
not lightly to be disregarded.

It is true that she professed the utmost deference for her
young mistress, and very generally passed the compliment
of inquiring what she would have done; but it was pretty
generally understood that her assent to Aunt Katy's propositions
was considered as much a matter of course as the
queen's to a ministerial recommendation. Indeed, had Nina
chosen to demur, her prime minister had the power, without
departing in the slightest degree from a respectful bearing,
to involve her in labyrinths of perplexity without end.
And, as Nina hated trouble, and wanted, above all things, to
have her time to herself for her own amusement, she wisely
concluded not to interfere with Aunt Katy's reign, and to
get by persuasion and coaxing, what the old body would
have been far too consequential and opinionated to give to
authority.

In like manner, at the head of all out-door affairs was the
young quadroon, Harry, whom we introduced in the first
chapter. In order to come fully at the relation in which he
stood to the estate, we must, after the fashion of historians
generally, go back a hundred years or so, in order to give
our readers a fair start. Behold us, therefore, assuming
historic dignity, as follows.

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Among the first emigrants to Virginia, in its colonial
days, was one Thomas Gordon, Knight, a distant offshoot
of the noble Gordon family, renowned in Scottish history.
Being a gentleman of some considerable energy, and impatient
of the narrow limits of the Old World, where he found
little opportunity to obtain that wealth which was necessary
to meet the demands of his family pride, he struck off for
himself into Virginia. Naturally of an adventurous turn,
he was one of the first to propose the enterprise which
afterwards resulted in a settlement on the banks of the
Chowan River, in North Carolina. Here he took up for
himself a large tract of the finest alluvial land, and set
himself to the business of planting, with the energy and
skill characteristic of his nation; and, as the soil was new
and fertile, he soon received a very munificent return for his
enterprise. Inspired with remembrances of old ancestral
renown, the Gordon family transmitted in their descent all
the traditions, feelings, and habits, which were the growth
of the aristocratic caste from which they sprung. The
name of Canema, given to the estate, came from an Indian
guide and interpreter, who accompanied the first Col. Gordon
as confidential servant.

The estate, being entailed, passed down through the colonial
times unbroken in the family, whose wealth, for some
years, seemed to increase with every generation.

The family mansion was one of those fond reproductions
of the architectural style of the landed gentry in England,
in which, as far as their means could compass it, the planters
were fond of indulging.

Carpenters and carvers had been brought over, at great
expense, from the old country, to give the fruits of their
skill in its erection; and it was a fancy of the ancestor who
built it, to display, in its wood-work, that exuberance of
new and rare woods with which the American continent was
supposed to abound. He had made an adventurous voyage
into South America, and brought from thence specimens of
those materials more brilliant than rose-wood, and hard as

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ebony, which grow so profusely on the banks of the Amazon
that the natives use them for timber. The floor of the
central hall of the house was a curiously-inlaid parquet of
these brilliant materials, arranged in fine block-work, highly
polished.

The outside of the house was built in the old Virginian
fashion, with two tiers of balconies running completely
round, as being much better suited to the American climate
than any of European mode. The inside, however, was
decorated with sculpture and carvings, copied, many of
them, from ancestral residences in Scotland, giving to the
mansion an air of premature antiquity.

Here, for two or three generations, the Gordon family
had lived in opulence. During the time, however, of Nina's
father, and still more after his death, there appeared evidently
on the place signs of that gradual decay which has
conducted many an old Virginian family to poverty and ruin.
Slave labor, of all others the most worthless and profitless,
had exhausted the first vigor of the soil, and the proprietors
gradually degenerated from those habits of energy which
were called forth by the necessities of the first settlers, and
everything proceeded with that free-and-easy abandon, in
which both master and slave appeared to have one common
object, — that of proving who should waste with most freedom.

At Colonel Gordon's death, he had bequeathed, as we
have already shown, the whole family estate to his daughter,
under the care of a servant, of whose uncommon intelligence
and thorough devotion of heart he had the most
ample proof. When it is reflected that the overseers are
generally taken from a class of whites who are often lower
in ignorance and barbarism than even the slaves, and that
their wastefulness and rapacity are a by-word among the
planters, it is no wonder that Colonel Gordon thought that,
in leaving his plantation under the care of one so energetic,
competent, and faithful, as Harry, he had made the best
possible provision for his daughter.

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Harry was the son of his master, and inherited much of
the temper and constitution of his father, tempered by the
soft and genial temperament of the beautiful Eboe mulattress
who was his mother. From this circumstance Harry
had received advantages of education very superior to what
commonly fell to the lot of his class. He had also accompanied
his master as valet during the tour of Europe,
and thus his opportunities of general observation had been
still further enlarged, and that tact by which those of the
mixed blood seem so peculiarly fitted to appreciate all the
finer aspects of conventional life, had been called out and
exercised; so that it would be difficult in any circle to meet
with a more agreeable and gentlemanly person. In leaving
a man of this character, and his own son, still in the bonds
of slavery, Colonel Gordon was influenced by that passionate
devotion to his daughter which with him overpowered
every consideration. A man so cultivated, he argued to
himself, might find many avenues opened to him in freedom;
might be tempted to leave the estate to other hands,
and seek his own fortune. He therefore resolved to leave
him bound by an indissoluble tie for a term of years,
trusting to his attachment to Nina to make this service
tolerable.

Possessed of very uncommon judgment, firmness, and
knowledge of human nature, Harry had found means to acquire
great ascendency over the hands of the plantation;
and, either through fear or through friendship, there was
a universal subordination to him. The executors of the
estate scarcely made even a feint of overseeing him; and he
proceeded, to all intents and purposes, with the perfect ease
of a free man. Everybody, for miles around, knew and respected
him; and, had he not been possessed of a good
share of the thoughtful, forecasting temperament derived
from his Scottish parentage, he might have been completely
happy, and forgotten even the existence of the chains
whose weight he never felt.

It was only in the presence of Tom Gordon — Colonel

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Gordon's lawful son — that he ever realized that he was a
slave. From childhood, there had been a rooted enmity
between the brothers, which deepened as years passed on;
and, as he found himself, on every return of the young man
to the place, subjected to taunts and ill-usage, to which
his defenceless position left him no power to reply, he had
resolved never to marry, and lay the foundation for a family,
until such time as he should be able to have the command
of his own destiny, and that of his household. But the
charms of a pretty French quadroon overcame the dictates
of prudence.

The history of Tom Gordon is the history of many a
young man grown up under the institutions and in the state
of society which formed him. Nature had endowed him
with no mean share of talent, and with that perilous quickness
of nervous organization, which, like fire, is a good
servant, but a bad master. Out of those elements, with
due training, might have been formed an efficient and eloquent
public man; but, brought up from childhood among
servants to whom his infant will was law, indulged during
the period of infantile beauty and grace in the full expression
of every whim, growing into boyhood among slaves
with but the average amount of plantation morality, his
passions developed at a fearfully early time of life; and,
before his father thought of seizing the reins of authority,
they had gone out of his hands forever. Tutor after tutor
was employed on the plantation to instruct him, and left,
terrified by his temper. The secluded nature of the plantation
left him without that healthful stimulus of society
which is often a help in enabling a boy to come to the
knowledge and control of himself. His associates were
either the slaves, or the overseers, who are generally unprincipled
and artful, or the surrounding whites, who lay
in a yet lower deep of degradation. For one reason or
another, it was for the interest of all these to flatter his
vices, and covertly to assist him in opposing and deceiving
his parents. Thus an early age saw him an adept in

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every low form of vice. In despair, he was at length sent
to an academy at the North, where he commenced his
career on the first day by striking the teacher in the
face, and was consequently expelled. Thence he went to
another, where, learning caution from experience, he was
enabled to maintain his foot-hold. There he was a successful
colporteur and missionary in the way of introducing a
knowledge of bowie-knives, revolvers, and vicious literature.
Artful, bold, and daring, his residence for a year at a
school was sufficient to initiate in the way of ruin perhaps
one fourth of the boys. He was handsome, and, when not
provoked, good-natured, and had that off-hand way of spending
money which passes among boys for generosity. The
simple sons of hard-working farmers, bred in habits of industry
and frugality, were dazzled and astonished by the
freedom with which he talked, and drank, and spit, and
swore. He was a hero in their eye, and they began to
wonder at the number of things, to them unknown before,
which went to make up the necessaries of life. From school
he was transferred to college, and there placed under the
care of a professor, who was paid an exorbitant sum for
overlooking his affairs. The consequence was, that while
many a northern boy, whose father could not afford to pay
for similar patronage, was disciplined, rusticated, or expelled,
as the case might be, Tom Gordon exploited gloriously
through college, getting drunk every week or
two, breaking windows, smoking freshmen, heading various
sprees in different parts of the country, and at last graduating
nobody knew how, except the patron professor, who
received an extra sum for the extra difficulties of the case.
Returned home, he went into a lawyer's office in Raleigh,
where, by a pleasant fiction, he was said to be reading law,
because he was occasionally seen at the office during the
intervals of his more serious avocations of gambling, and
horse-racing, and drinking. His father, an affectionate but
passionate man, was wholly unable to control him, and the
conflicts between them often shook the whole domestic

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fabric. Nevertheless, to the last Colonel Gordon indulged
the old hope for such cases made and provided, that Tom
would get through sowing his wild oats, some time, and settle
down and be a respectable man; in which hope he left
him the half of his property. Since that time, Tom seemed
to have studied on no subject except how to accelerate the
growth of those wings which riches are said to be inclined
to take, under the most favorable circumstances.

As often happens in such cases of utter ruin, Tom Gordon
was a much worse character for all the elements of
good which he possessed. He had sufficient perception of
right, and sufficient conscience remaining, to make him bitter
and uncomfortable. In proportion as he knew himself
unworthy of his father's affection and trust, he became jealous
and angry at any indications of the want of it. He had
contracted a settled ill-will to his sister, for no other apparent
reason except that the father took a comfort in her
which he did not in him. From childhood, it was his habit
to vex and annoy her in every possible way; and it was for
this reason, among many others, that Harry had persuaded
Mr. John Gordon, Nina's uncle and guardian, to place her
at the New York boarding-school, where she acquired what
is termed an education. After finishing her school career,
she had been spending a few months in a family of a cousin
of her mother's, and running with loose rein the career of
fashionable gayety.

Luckily, she brought home with her unspoiled a genuine
love of nature, which made the rural habits of plantation
life agreeable to her. Neighbors there were few. Her uncle's
plantation, five miles distant, was the nearest. Other families
with whom the Gordons were in the habit of exchanging
occasional visits were some ten or fifteen miles distant.
It was Nina's delight, however, in her muslin wrapper, and
straw hat, to patter about over the plantation, to chat with
the negroes among their cabins, amusing herself with the
various drolleries and peculiarities to which long absence
had given the zest of novelty. Then she would call for her

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pony, and, attended by Harry, or some of her servants,
would career through the woods, gathering the wild-flowers
with which they abound; perhaps stop for a day at her
uncle's, have a chat and a romp with him, and return the
next morning.

In the comparative solitude of her present life her mind
began to clear itself of some former follies, as water when
at rest deposits the sediment which clouded it. Apart from
the crowd, and the world of gayeties which had dizzied her,
she could not help admitting to herself the folly of much
she had been doing. Something, doubtless, was added to
this by the letters of Clayton. The tone of them, so manly
and sincere, so respectful and kind, so removed either from
adulation or sentimentalism, had an effect upon her greater
than she was herself aware of. So Nina, in her positive
and off-hand way, sat down, one day, and wrote farewell letters
to both her other lovers, and felt herself quite relieved
by the process.

A young person could scarce stand more entirely alone,
as to sympathetic intercourse with relations, than Nina. It
is true that the presence of her mother's sister in the
family caused it to be said that she was residing under the
care of an aunt.

Mrs. Nesbit, however, was simply one of those well-bred,
well-dressed lay-figures, whose only office in life seems to be
to occupy a certain room in a house, to sit in certain chairs
at proper hours, to make certain remarks at suitable intervals
of conversation. In her youth this lady had run quite
a career as a belle and beauty. Nature had endowed her
with a handsome face and figure, and youth and the pleasure
of admiration for some years supplied a sufficient flow
of animal spirits to make the beauty effective. Early married,
she became the mother of several children, who were
one by one swept into the grave. The death of her husband,
last of all, left her with a very small fortune alone in
the world; and, like many in similar circumstances, she was
content to sink into an appendage to another's family.

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Mrs. Nesbit considered herself very religious; and, as
there is a great deal that passes for religion, ordinarily, of
which she may be fairly considered a representative, we will
present our readers with a philosophical analysis of the
article. When young, she had thought only of self in the
form of admiration, and the indulgence of her animal spirits.
When married, she had thought of self only in her husband
and children, whom she loved because they were hers, and
for no other reason.

When death swept away her domestic circle, and time
stole the beauty and freshness of animal spirits, her self-love
took another form; and, perceiving that this world was
becoming to her somewhat passé, she determined to make
the best of her chance for another.

Religion she looked upon in the light of a ticket, which,
being once purchased, and snugly laid away in a pocket-book,
is to be produced at the celestial gate, and thus
secure admission to heaven.

At a certain period of her life, while she deemed this
ticket unpurchased, she was extremely low-spirited and
gloomy, and went through a quantity of theological reading
enough to have astonished herself, had she foreseen it
in the days of her belle-ship. As the result of all, she at
last presented herself as a candidate for admission to a
Presbyterian church in the vicinity, there professing her
determination to run the Christian race. By the Christian
race, she understood going at certain stated times to religious
meetings, reading the Bible and hymn-book at certain
hours in the day, giving at regular intervals stipulated
sums to religious charities, and preserving a general state
of leaden indifference to everybody and everything in the
world.

She thus fondly imagined that she had renounced the
world, because she looked back with disgust on gayeties
for which she had no longer strength or spirits. Nor did
she dream that the intensity with which her mind travelled
the narrow world of self, dwelling on the plaits of her caps,

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the cut of her stone-colored satin gowns, the making of her
tea and her bed, and the saving of her narrow income, was
exactly the same in kind, though far less agreeable in development,
as that which once expended itself in dressing
and dancing. Like many other apparently negative characters,
she had a pertinacious intensity of an extremely
narrow and aimless self-will. Her plans of life, small as
they were, had a thousand crimps and plaits, to every one
of which she adhered with invincible pertinacity. The poor
lady little imagined, when she sat, with such punctilious
satisfaction, while the Rev. Mr. Orthodoxy demonstrated
that selfishness is the essence of all moral evil, that the
sentiment had the slightest application to her; nor dreamed
that the little, quiet, muddy current of self-will, which ran
without noise or indecorum under the whole structure of
her being, might be found, in a future day, to have undermined
all her hopes of heaven. Of course, Mrs. Nesbit regarded
Nina, and all other lively young people, with a kind
of melancholy endurance — as shocking spectacles of worldliness.
There was but little sympathy, to be sure, between
the dashing, and out-spoken, and almost defiant little Nina,
and the sombre silver-gray apparition which glided quietly
about the wide halls of her paternal mansion. In fact, it
seemed to afford the latter a mischievous pleasure to shock
her respectable relative on all convenient occasions. Mrs.
Nesbit felt it occasionally her duty, as she remarked, to call
her lively niece into her apartment, and endeavor to persuade
her to read some such volume as Law's Serious Call, or
Owen on the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm; and to
give her a general and solemn warning against all the vanities
of the world, in which were generally included dressing
in any color but black and drab, dancing, flirting, writing
love-letters, and all other enormities, down to the eating of
pea-nut candy. One of these scenes is just now enacting in
this good lady's apartment, upon which we will raise the
curtain.

Mrs. Nesbit, a diminutive, blue-eyed, fair-complexioned

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little woman, of some five feet high, sat gently swaying in
that respectable asylum for American old age, commonly
called a rocking-chair. Every rustle of her silvery silk
gown, every fold of the snowy kerchief on her neck, every
plait of her immaculate cap, spoke a soul long retired from
this world and its cares. The bed, arranged with extremest
precision, however, was covered with a melange of French
finery, flounces, laces, among which Nina kept up a continual
agitation like that produced by a breeze in a flower-bed,
as she unfolded, turned, and fluttered them, before the
eyes of her relative.

“I have been through all this, Nina,” said the latter, with
a melancholy shake of her head, “and I know the vanity of
it.”

“Well, aunty, I have n't been through it, so I don't
know.”

“Yes, my dear, when I was of your age, I used to go to
balls and parties, and could think of nothing but of dress
and admiration. I have been through it all, and seen the
vanity of it.”

“Well, aunt, I want to go through it, and see the vanity
of it, too. That 's just what I 'm after. I 'm on the way to
be as sombre and solemn as you are, but I 'm bound to
have a good time first. Now, look at this pink brocade!”

Had the brocade been a pall, it could scarcely have been
regarded with a more lugubrious aspect.

“Ah, child! such a dying world as this! To spend so
much time and thought on dress!”

“Why, Aunt Nesbit, yesterday you spent just two whole
hours in thinking whether you should turn the breadths of
your black silk dress upside down, or down side up; and
this was a dying world all the time. Now, I don't see that
it is any better to think of black silk than it is of pink.”

This was a view of the subject which seemed never to
have occurred to the good lady.

“But, now, aunt, do cheer up, and look at this box of
artificial flowers. You know I thought I 'd bring a stock

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on from New York. Now, are n't these perfectly lovely? I
like flowers that mean something. Now, these are all imitations
of natural flowers, so perfect that you 'd scarcely
know them from the real. See — there, that 's a moss-rose;
and now look at these sweet peas, you 'd think they had
just been picked; and, there — that heliotrope, and these
jessamines, and those orange-blossoms, and that wax
camelia —”

“Turn off my eyes from beholding vanity!” said Mrs.
Nesbit, shutting her eyes, and shaking her head:

“Aunt, I do think you have the most horrid, disgusting
set of hymns, all about worms, and dust, and such things!”

“It 's my duty, child, when I see you so much taken up
with such sinful finery.”

“Why, aunt, do you think artificial flowers are sinful?”

“Yes, dear; they are a sinful waste of time and money,
and take off our mind from more important things.”

“Well, aunt, then what did the Lord make sweet peas,
and roses, and orange-blossoms for? I 'm sure it 's only
doing as he does, to make flowers. He don't make everything
gray, or stone-color. Now, if you only would come
out in the garden, this morning, and see the oleanders, and
the crape myrtle, and the pinks, the roses, and the tulips,
and the hyacinths, I 'm sure it would do you good.”

“O, I should certainly catch cold, child, if I went out
doors. Milly left a crack opened in the window, last night,
and I 've sneezed three or four times since. It will never
do for me to go out in the garden; the feeling of the ground
striking up through my shoes is very unhealthy.”

“Well, at any rate, aunt, I should think, if the Lord
did n't wish us to wear roses and jessamines, he would not

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have made them. And it is the most natural thing in the
world to want to wear flowers.”

“It only feeds vanity and a love of display, my dear.”

“I don't think it 's vanity, or a love of display. I should
want to dress prettily, if I were the only person in the world.
I love pretty things because they are pretty. I like to wear
them because they make me look pretty.”

“There it is, child; you want to dress up your poor perishing
body to look pretty — that 's the thing!”

“To be sure I do. Why should n't I? I mean to look as
pretty as I can, as long as I live.”

“You seem to have quite a conceit of your beauty!” said
Aunt Nesbit.

“Well, I know I am pretty. I 'm not going to pretend I
don't. I like my own looks, now, that 's a fact. I 'm not
like one of your Greek statues, I know. I 'm not wonderfully
handsome, nor likely to set the world on fire with my
beauty. I 'm just a pretty little thing; and I like flowers
and laces, and all of those things; and I mean to like them,
and I don't think there 'll be a bit of religion in my not liking
them; and as for all that disagreeable stuff about the
worms, that you are always telling me, I don't think it does
me a particle of good. And, if religion is going to make
me so poky, I shall put it off as long as I can.”

“I used to feel just as you do, dear, but I 've seen the
folly of it!”

“If I 've got to lose my love for everything that is bright,
everything that is lively, and everything that is pretty, and
like to read such horrid stupid books, why, I 'd rather be
buried, and done with it!”

“That 's the opposition of the natural heart, my dear.”

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of
a bright, curly-headed mulatto boy, bearing Mrs. Nesbit's
daily luncheon.

“O, here comes Tomtit,” said Nina; “now for a scene!
Let 's see what he has forgotten, now.”

Tomtit was, in his way, a great character in the mansion.

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He and his grandmother were the property of Mrs. Nesbit.
His true name was no less respectable and methodical than
that of Thomas; but, as he was one of those restless and
effervescent sprites, who seem to be born for the confusion
of quiet people, Nina had rechristened him Tomtit, which
sobriquet was immediately recognized by the whole household
as being eminently descriptive and appropriate. A
constant ripple and eddy of drollery seemed to pervade his
whole being; his large, saucy black eyes had always a
laughing fire in them, that it was impossible to meet without
a smile in return. Slave and property though he was,
yet the first sentiment of reverence for any created thing
seemed yet wholly unawakened in his curly pate. Breezy,
idle, careless, flighty, as his woodland namesake, life to
him seemed only a repressed and pent-up ebullition of animal
enjoyment; and almost the only excitement of Mrs. Nesbit's
quiet life was her chronic controversy with Tomtit. Forty
or fifty times a day did the old body assure him “that she
was astonished at his conduct;” and as many times would
he reply by showing the whole set of his handsome teeth,
on the broad grin, wholly inconsiderate of the state of despair
into which he thus reduced her.

On the present occasion, as he entered the room, his eye
was caught by the great display of finery on the bed; and,
hastily dumping the waiter on the first chair that occurred,
with a flirt and a spring as lithe as that of a squirrel, he
was seated in a moment astride the foot-board, indulging in
a burst of merriment.

“Good law, Miss Nina, whar on earth dese yer come
from? Good law, some on 'em for me, is n't 'er?”

“You see that child!” now said Mrs. Nesbit, rocking
back in her chair with the air of a martyr. “After all my
talkings to him! Nina, you ought not to allow that; it just
encourages him!”

“Tom, get down, you naughty creature you, and get the
stand and put the waiter on it. Mind yourself, now!” said
Nina, laughing.

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Tomtit cut a somerset from the foot-board to the floor,
and, striking up, on a very high key, “I 'll bet my money
on a bob-tail nag,” he danced out a small table, as if it
had been a partner, and deposited it, with a jerk, at the side
of Mrs. Nesbit, who aimed a cuff at his ears; but, as he
adroitly ducked his head, the intended blow came down
upon the table with more force than was comfortable to the
inflictor.

“I believe that child is made of air! — I never can hit
him!” said the good lady, waxing red in the face. “He is
enough to provoke a saint!”

“So he is, aunt; enough to provoke two saints like you
and me. Tomtit, you rogue,” said she, giving a gentle pull
to a handful of his curly hair, “be good, now, and I 'll show
you the pretty things, by and by. Come, put the waiter on
the table, now; see if you can't walk, for once!”

Casting down his eyes with an irresistible look of mock
solemnity, Tomtit marched with the waiter, and placed it
by his mistress.

The good lady, after drawing off her gloves and making
sundry little decorous preparations, said a short grace over
her meal, during which time Tomtit seemed to be holding
his sides with repressed merriment; then, gravely laying hold
of the handle of the teapot she stopped short, gave an
exclamation, and flirted her fingers, as she felt it almost
scalding hot.

“Tomtit, I do believe you intend to burn me to death,
some day!”

“Laws, missus, dat are hot? O, sure I was tickler to set
the nose round to the fire.”

“No, you did n't! you stuck the handle right into the
fire, as you 're always doing!”

“Laws, now, wonder if I did,” said Tomtit, assuming an
abstracted appearance. “'Pears as if never can 'member
which dem dare is nose, and which handle. Now, I 's a
studdin on dat dare most all de morning — was so,” said

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

he, gathering confidence, as he saw, by Nina's dancing
eyes, how greatly she was amused.

“You need a sound whipping, sir — that 's what you
need!” said Mrs. Nesbit, kindling up in sudden wrath.

“O, I knows it,” said Tomtit. “We 's unprofitable servants,
all on us. Lord's marcy that we an't 'sumed, all on
us!”

Nina was so completely overcome by this novel application
of the text which she had heard her aunt laboriously
drumming into Tomtit, the Sabbath before, that she laughed
aloud, with rather uproarious merriment.

“O, aunt, there 's no use! He don't know anything!
He 's nothing but an incarnate joke, a walking hoax!”

“No, I does n't know nothing, Miss Nina,” said Tomtit,
at the same time looking out from under his long eyelashes.
“Don't know nothing at all — never can.”

“Well, now, Tomtit,” said Mrs. Nesbit, drawing out a
little blue cowhide from under her chair, and looking at
him resolutely, “you see, if this teapot handle is hot again,
I 'll give it to you! Do you hear?”

“Yes, missis,” said Tomtit, with that indescribable sing-song
of indifference, which is so common and so provoking
in his class.

“And, now, Tomtit, you go down stairs and clean the
knives for dinner.”

“Yes, missis,” said he, pirouetting towards the door.
And once in the passage, he struck up a vigorous “O, I 'm
going to glory, won't you go along with me;” accompanying
himself, by slapping his own sides, as he went down two
stairs at a time.

“Going to glory!” said Mrs. Nesbit, rather shortly; “he
looks like it, I think! It 's the third or fourth time that that
child has blistered my fingers with this teapot, and I know
he does it on purpose! So ungrateful, when I spend my
time, teaching him, hour after hour, laboring with him so!
I declare, I don't believe these children have got any
souls!”

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

“Well, aunt, I declare, I should think you 'd get out of
all patience with him; yet he 's so funny, I cannot, for the
life of me, help laughing.”

Here a distant whoop on the staircase, and a tempestuous
chorus to a methodist hymn, with the words, “O come, my
loving brethren,” announced that Tomtit was on the return;
and very soon, throwing open the door, he marched in, with
an air of the greatest importance.

“Tomtit, did n't I tell you to go and clean the knives?”

“Law, missis, come up here to bring Miss Nina's love-letters,”
said he, producing two or three letters. “Good
law, though,” said he, checking himself, “forgot to put
them on a waity!” and, before a word could be said, he
was out of the room and down stairs, and at the height of
furious contest with the girl who was cleaning the silver,
for a waiter to put Miss Nina's letters on.

“Dar, Miss Nina,” appealing to her when she appeared,
“Rosa won't let me have no waity!”

“I could pull your hair for you, you little image!” said
Nina, seizing the letters from his hands, and laughing while
she cuffed his ears.

“Well,” said Tomtit, looking after her with great solemnity,
“missis in de right on 't. An't no kind of order
in this here house, 'pite of all I can do. One says put letters
on waity. Another one won't let you have waity to
put letters on. And, finally, Miss Nina, she pull them all
away. Just the way things going on in dis yer house, all
the time! I can't help it; done all I can. Just the way
missus says!”

There was one member of Nina's establishment of a
character so marked that we cannot refrain from giving her
a separate place in our picture of her surroundings, — and
this was Milly, the waiting-woman of Aunt Nesbit.

Aunt Milly, as she was commonly called, was a tall, broad-shouldered,
deep-chested African woman, with a fulness
of figure approaching to corpulence. Her habit of standing
and of motion was peculiar and majestic, reminding one of

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

the Scripture expression “upright as the palm-tree.” Her
skin was of a peculiar blackness and softness, not unlike
black velvet. Her eyes were large, full, and dark, and had
about them that expression of wishfulness and longing
which one may sometimes have remarked in dark eyes.
Her mouth was large, and the lips, though partaking of the
African fulness, had, nevertheless, something decided and
energetic in their outline, which was still further seconded
by the heavy moulding of the chin. A frank smile, which
was common with her, disclosed a row of most splendid
and perfect teeth. Her hair, without approaching to the
character of the Anglo-Saxon, was still different from the
ordinary woolly coat of the negro, and seemed more like
an infinite number of close-knotted curls, of brilliant,
glossy blackness.

The parents of Milly were prisoners taken in African
wars; and she was a fine specimen of one of those warlike
and splendid races, of whom, as they have seldom been reduced
to slavery, there are but few and rare specimens
among the slaves of the south.

Her usual head-dress was a high turban, of those brilliant
colored Madras handkerchiefs in which the instinctive taste
of the dark races leads them to delight. Milly's was
always put on and worn with a regal air, as if it were the
coronet of the queen. For the rest, her dress consisted of
a well-fitted gown of dark stuff, of a quality somewhat finer
than the usual household apparel. A neatly-starched white
muslin handkerchief folded across her bosom, and a clean
white apron, completed her usual costume.

No one could regard her, as a whole, and not feel their
prejudice in favor of the exclusive comeliness of white races
somewhat shaken. Placed among the gorgeous surroundings
of African landscape and scenery, it might be doubted
whether any one's taste could have desired, as a completion
to her appearance, to have blanched the glossy skin whose
depth of coloring harmonizes so well with the intense and
fiery glories of a tropical landscape.

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

In character, Milly was worthy of her remarkable external
appearance. Heaven had endowed her with a soul as
broad and generous as her ample frame. Her passions
rolled and burned in her bosom with a tropical fervor; a
shrewd and abundant mother wit, united with a vein of
occasional drollery, gave to her habits of speech a quaint
vivacity.

A native adroitness gave an unwonted command over
all the functions of her fine body; so that she was endowed
with that much-coveted property which the New Englander
denominates “faculty,” which means the intuitive ability
to seize at once on the right and best way of doing everything
which is to be done. At the same time, she was possessed
of that high degree of self-respect which led her to
be incorruptibly faithful and thorough in all she undertook;
less, as it often seemed, from any fealty or deference to
those whom she served, than from a kind of native pride in
well-doing, which led her to deem it beneath herself to
slight or pass over the least thing which she had undertaken.
Her promises were inviolable. Her owners always knew
that what she once said would be done, if it were within
the bounds of possibility.

The value of an individual thus endowed in person and
character may be easily conceived by those who understand
how rare, either among slaves or freemen, is such a combination.
Milly was, therefore, always considered in the
family as a most valuable piece of property, and treated
with more than common consideration.

As a mind, even when uncultivated, will ever find its level,
it often happened that Milly's amount of being and force
of character gave her ascendency even over those who were
nominally her superiors. As her ways were commonly
found to be the best ways, she was left, in most cases, to
pursue them without opposition or control. But, favorite
as she was, her life had been one of deep sorrows. She
had been suffered, it is true, to contract a marriage with a
very finely-endowed mulatto man, on a plantation adjoining

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

her owner's, by whom she had a numerous family of children,
who inherited all her fine physical and mental endowments.
With more than usual sensibility and power of
reflection, the idea that the children so dear to her were
from their birth not her own, — that they were, from the first
hour of their existence, merchantable articles, having a fixed
market value in proportion to every excellence, and liable
to all the reverses of merchantable goods, — sank with deep
weight into her mind. Unfortunately, the family to which
she belonged being reduced to poverty, there remained,
often, no other means of making up the deficiency of income
than the annual sale of one or two negroes. Milly's
children, from their fine developments, were much-coveted
articles. Their owner was often tempted by extravagant
offers for them; and therefore, to meet one crisis or another
of family difficulties, they had been successively sold from
her. At first, she had met this doom with almost the
ferocity of a lioness; but the blow, oftentimes repeated,
had brought with it a dull endurance, and Christianity had
entered, as it often does with the slave, through the rents
and fissures of a broken heart. Those instances of piety
which are sometimes, though rarely, found among slaves,
and which transcend the ordinary development of the best-instructed,
are generally the results of calamities and afflictions
so utterly desolating as to force the soul to depend on
God alone. But, where one soul is thus raised to higher
piety, thousands are crushed in hopeless imbecility.

p700-067 CHAPTER V. HARRY AND HIS WIFE.

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

Several miles from the Gordon estate, on an old and
somewhat decayed plantation, stood a neat log cabin, whose
external aspect showed both taste and care. It was almost
enveloped in luxuriant wreaths of yellow jessamine, and
garlanded with a magnificent lamarque rose, whose creamcolored
buds and flowers contrasted beautifully with the
dark, polished green of the finely-cut leaves.

The house stood in an enclosure formed by a high hedge
of the American holly, whose evergreen foliage and scarlet
berries made it, at all times of the year, a beautiful object.
Within the enclosure was a garden, carefully tended, and
devoted to the finest fruits and flowers.

This little dwelling, so different in its air of fanciful neatness
from ordinary southern cabins, was the abode of
Harry's little wife. Lisette, which was her name, was the
slave of a French creole woman, to whom a plantation had
recently fallen by inheritance.

She was a delicate, airy little creature, formed by a mixture
of the African and French blood, producing one of
those fanciful, exotic combinations, that give one the same
impression of brilliancy and richness that one receives from
tropical insects and flowers. From both parent races she
was endowed with a sensuous being exquisitely quick and
fine, — a nature of everlasting childhood, with all its freshness
of present life, all its thoughtless, unreasoning fearlessness
of the future.

She stands there at her ironing-table, just outside her

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

cottage door, singing gayly at her work. Her round, plump,
childish form is shown to advantage by the trim blue
basque, laced in front, over a chemisette of white linen.
Her head is wreathed with a gay turban, from which escapes,
now and then, a wandering curl of her silky black hair.
Her eyes, as she raises them, have the hazy, dreamy languor,
which is so characteristic of the mixed races. Her
little, childish hands are busy, with nimble fingers adroitly
plaiting and arranging various articles of feminine toilet,
too delicate and expensive to have belonged to those in
humble circumstances. She ironed, plaited, and sung, with
busy care. Occasionally, however, she would suspend her
work, and, running between the flower-borders to the hedge,
look wistfully along the road, shading her eyes with her
hand. At last, as she saw a man on horseback approaching,
she flew lightly out, and ran to meet him.

“Harry, Harry! You 've come, at last. I 'm so glad!
And what have you got in that paper? Is it anything for
me?”

He held it up, and shook it at her, while she leaped after it.

“No, no, little curiosity!” he said, gayly.

“I know it 's something for me,” said she, with a pretty,
half-pouting air.

“And why do you know it 's for you? Is everything to
be for you in the world, you little good-for-nothing?”

“Good-for-nothing!” with a toss of the gayly-turbaned
little head. “You may well say that, sir! Just look at
the two dozen shirts I 've ironed, since morning! Come,
now, take me up; I want to ride.”

Harry put out the toe of his boot and his hand, and, with
an adroit spring, she was in a moment before him, on his
horse's neck, and, with a quick turn, snatched the paper
parcel from his hand.

“Woman's curiosity!” said he.

“Well, I want to see what it is. Dear me, what a tight
string! O, I can't break it! Well, here it goes; I 'll tear

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

a hole in it, anyhow. O, silk, as I live! Aha! tell me
now this is n't for me, you bad thing, you!”

“Why, how do you know it is n't to make me a summer
coat?”

“Summer coat! — likely story! Aha! I 've found you
out, mister! But, come, do make the horse canter! I want
to go fast. Make him canter, do!”

Harry gave a sudden jerk to the reins, and in a minute
the two were flying off as if on the wings of the wind.
On and on they went, through a small coppice of pines,
while the light-hearted laugh rang on the breeze behind
them. Now they are lost to view. In a few minutes,
emerging from the pine woods in another direction, they
come sweeping, gay and laughing, up to the gate. To
fasten the horse, to snatch the little wife on his shoulder,
and run into the cottage with her, seemed the work only of
a moment; and, as he set her down, still laughing, he exclaimed,

“There, go, now, for a pretty little picture, as you are!
I have helped them get up les tableaux vivans, at their great
houses; but you are my tableau. You are n't good for much.
You are nothing but a humming-bird, made to live on
honey!”

“That 's what I am!” said the little one. “It takes a
great deal of honey to keep me. I want to be praised, flattered,
and loved, all the time. It is n't enough to have you
love me. I want to hear you tell me so every day, and
hour, and minute. And I want you always to admire me,
and praise everything that I do. Now —”

“Particularly when you tear holes in packages!” said
Harry.

“O, my silk — my new silk dress!” said Lisette, thus
reminded of the package which she held in her hand.
“This hateful string! How it cuts my fingers! I will
break it! I 'll bite it in two. Harry, Harry, don't you see
how it hurts my fingers? Why don't you cut it?”

And the little sprite danced about the cottage floor,

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

tearing the paper, and tugging at the string, like an enraged
humming-bird. Harry came laughing behind her, and, taking
hold of her two hands, held them quite still, while he
cut the string of the parcel, and unfolded a gorgeous plaid
silk, crimson, green, and orange.

“There, now, what do you think of that? Miss Nina
brought it, when she came home, last week.”

“O, how lovely! Is n't she a beauty? Is n't she good?
How beautiful it is! Dear me, dear me! how happy I am!
How happy we are! — an't we, Harry?”

A shadow came over Harry's forehead as he answered,
with a half-sigh,

“Yes.”

“I was up at three o'clock, this morning, on purpose to
get all my ironing done to-day, because I thought you were
to come home to-night. Ah! ah! you don't know what a
supper I 've got ready! You 'll see, by and by. I 'm going
to do something uncommon. You must n't look in that
other room, Harry — you must n't!”

“Must n't I?” said Harry, getting up, and going to the
door.

“There, now! who 's curiosity now, I wonder!” said
she, springing nimbly between him and the door. “No,
you shan't go in, though. There, now; don't, don't! Be
good now, Harry!”

“Well, I may as well give up first as last. This is your
house, not mine, I suppose,” said Harry.

“Mr. Submission, how meek we are, all of a sudden!
Well, while the fit lasts, you go to the spring and get me
some water to fill this tea-kettle. Off with you, now, this
minute! Mind you don't stop to play by the way!”

And, while Harry is gone to the spring, we will follow the
wife into the forbidden room. Very cool and pleasant it
is, with its white window-curtains, its matted floor, and
displaying in the corner that draped feather-bed, with its
ruffled pillows and fringed curtains, which it is the great
ambition of the southern cabin to attain and maintain.

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

The door, which opened on to a show of most brilliant
flowers, was overlaid completely by the lamarque rose we
have before referred to; and large clusters of its creamy
blossoms, and wreaths of its dark-green leaves, had been
enticed in and tied to sundry nails and pegs by the small
hands of the little mistress, to form an arch of flowers and
roses. A little table stood in the door, draped with a spotless
damasked table-cloth, fine enough for the use of a princess,
and only produced by the little mistress on festive
occasions. On it were arranged dishes curiously trimmed
with moss and vine-leaves, which displayed strawberries
and peaches, with a pitcher of cream and one of whey,
small dishes of curd, delicate cakes and biscuit, and fresh
golden butter.

After patting and arranging the table-cloth, Lisette tripped
gayly around, and altered here and there the arrangement of
a dish, occasionally stepping back, and cocking her little
head on one side, much like a bird, singing gayly as she did
so; then she would pick a bit of moss from this, and a
flower from that, and retreat again, and watch the effect.

“How surprised he will be!” she said to herself. Still
humming a tune in a low, gurgling undertone, she danced
hither and thither, round the apartment. First she gave the
curtains a little shake, and, unlooping one of them, looped
it up again, so as to throw the beams of the evening sun on
the table.

“There, there, there! how pretty the light falls through
those nasturtions! I wonder if the room smells of the
mignonette. I gathered it when the dew was on it, and
they say that will make it smell all day. Now, here 's
Harry's book-case. Dear me! these flies! How they do
get on to everything! Shoo, shoo! now, now!” and,
catching a gay bandana handkerchief from the drawer, she
perfectly exhausted herself in flying about the room in pursuit
of the buzzing intruders, who soared, and dived, and
careered, after the manner of flies in general, seeming determined
to go anywhere but out of the door, and finally were

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

seen brushing their wings and licking their feet, with great
alertness, on the very topmost height of the sacred bed-curtains;
and as just this moment a glimpse was caught of
Harry returning from the spring, Lisette was obliged to
abandon the chase, and rush into the other room, to prevent
a premature development of her little tea-tableau. Then a
small, pug-nosed, black teakettle came on to the stage of
action, from some unknown cupboard; and Harry had to fill
it with water, and of course spilt the water on to the ironing-table,
which made another little breezy, chattering commotion;
and then the flat-irons were cleared away, and the pug-nosed
kettle reigned in their stead on the charcoal brazier.

“Now, Harry, was ever such a smart wife as I am?
Only think, besides all the rest that I 've done, I 've ironed
your white linen suit, complete! Now, go put it on. Not
in there! not in there!” she said, pushing him away from
the door. “You can't go there, yet. You 'll do well
enough out here.”

And away she went, singing through the garden walks;
and the song, floating back behind her, seemed like an odor
brushed from the flowers. The refrain came rippling in at
the door —

“Poor little thing!” said Harry to himself; “why should
I try to teach her anything?”

In a few minutes she was back again, her white apron
thrown over her arm, and blossoms of yellow jessamine,
spikes of blue lavender, and buds of moss-roses, peeping out
from it. She skipped gayly along, and deposited her treasure
on the ironing-table; then, with a zealous, bustling earnestness,
which characterized everything she did, she began
sorting them into two bouquets, alternately talking and
singing, as she did so,

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

“You see, Harry, you 're going to have a bouquet to put
into the button-hole of that coat. It will make you look so
handsome! There, now — there, now,

Suddenly stopping, she looked at him archly, and said,
“You can't tell, now, what I 'm doing all this for!”

“There 's never any telling what you women do anything
for.”

“Do hear him talk — so pompous! Well, sir, it 's for
your birthday, now. Aha! you thought, because I can't
keep the day of the month, that I did n't know anything
about it; but I did. And I have put down now a chalk-mark
every day, for four weeks, right under where I keep
my ironing-account, so as to be sure of it. And I 've been
busy about it ever since two o'clock this morning. And
now — there, the tea-kettle is boiling!” — and away she
flew to the door.

“O, dear me! — dear me, now! — I 've killed myself, now,
I have!” she cried, holding up one of her hands, and flirting
it up in the air. “Dear me! who knew it was so hot?”

“I should think a little woman that is so used to the
holder might have known it,” said Harry, as he caressed
the little burnt hand.

“Come, now, let me carry it for you,” said Harry, “and
I 'll make the tea, if you 'll let me go into that mysterious
room.”

“Indeed, no, Harry — I 'm going to do everything myself;”
and, forgetting the burnt finger, Lisette was off in a
moment, and back in a moment with a shining teapot in
her hand, and the tea was made. And at last the mysterious
door opened, and Lisette stood with her eyes fixed
upon Harry, to watch the effect.

“Superb! — magnificent! — splendid! Why, this is good
enough for a king! And where did you get all these
things?” said Harry.

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

“O, out of our garden — all but the peaches. Those old
Mist gave me — they come from Florida. There, now, you
laughed at me, last summer, when I set those strawberryvines,
and made all sorts of fun of me. And what do you
think now?”

“Think! I think you 're a wonderful little thing — a
perfect witch.”

“Come, now, let 's sit down, then — you there, and I
here.” And, opening the door of the bird-cage, which
hung in the lamarque rose-bush, “Little Button shall come,
too.”

Button, a bright yellow canary, with a smart black tuft
upon his head, seemed to understand his part in the little
domestic scene perfectly; for he stepped obediently upon
the finger which was extended to him, and was soon sitting
quite at his ease on the mossy edge of one of the dishes,
pecking at the strawberries.

“And, now, do tell me,” said Lisette, “all about Miss
Nina. How does she look?”

“Pretty and smart as ever,” said Harry. “Just the
same witchy, wilful ways with her.”

“And did she show you her dresses?”

“O, yes; the whole.”

“O, do tell me about them, Harry — do!”

“Well, there 's a lovely pink gauze, covered with spangles,
to be worn over white satin.”

“With flounces?” said Lisette, earnestly.

“With flounces.”

“How many?”

“Really, I don't remember.”

“Don't remember how many flounces? Why, Harry,
how stupid! Say, Harry, don't you suppose she will let
me come and look at her things?”

“O, yes, dear, I don't doubt she will; and that will save
my making a gazette of myself.”

“O, when will you take me there, Harry?”

“Perhaps to-morrow, dear. And now,” said Harry,

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

“that you have accomplished your surprise upon me, I
have a surprise, in return, for you. You can't guess, now,
what Miss Nina brought for me.”

“No, indeed! What?” said Lisette, springing up; “do
tell me — quick.”

“Patience — patience!” said Harry, deliberately fumbling
in his pocket, amusing himself with her excited air. But
who should speak the astonishment and rapture which
widened Lisette's dark eyes, when the watch was produced?
She clapped her hands, and danced for joy, to the
imminent risk of upsetting the table, and all the things
on it.

“I do think we are the most fortunate people — you and
I, Harry! Everything goes just as we want it to — does n't
it, now?”

Harry's assent to this comprehensive proposition was
much less fervent than suited his little wife.

“Now, what 's the matter with you? What goes wrong?
Why don't you rejoice as I do?” said she, coming and seating
herself down upon his knee. “Come, now, you 've
been working too hard, I know. I 'm going to sing to you,
now; you want something to cheer you up.” And Lisette
took down her banjo, and sat down in the doorway under
the arch of lamarque roses, and began thrumming gayly.

“This is the nicest little thing, this banjo!” she said;
“I would n't change it for all the guitars in the world.
Now, Harry, I 'm going to sing something specially for
you.” And Lisette sung:

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

Lisette rattled the strings of the banjo, and sang with
such a hearty abandon of enjoyment that it was a comfort
to look at her. One would have thought that a bird's soul
put into a woman's body would have sung just so.

“There,” she said, throwing down her banjo, and seating
herself on her husband's knee, “do you know I think you
are like white man in the song? I should like to know what
is the matter with you. I can see plain enough when you
are not happy; but I don't see why.”

“O, Lisette, I have very perplexing business to manage,”
said Harry. “Miss Nina is a dear, good little mistress, but
she does n't know anything about accounts, or money; and
here she has brought me home a set of bills to settle, and
I 'm sure I don't know where the money is to be got from.
It 's hard work to make the old place profitable in our days.
The ground is pretty much worked up; it does n't bear the
crops it used to. And, then, our people are so childish, they
don't, a soul of them, care how much they spend, or how
carelessly they work. It 's very expensive keeping up such
an establishment. You know the Gordons must be Gordons.
Things can't be done now as some other families
would do them; and, then, those bills which Miss Nina
brings from New York are perfectly frightful.”

“Well, Harry, what are you going to do?” said Lisette,
nestling down close on his shoulder. “You always know
how to do something.”

“Why, Lisette, I shall have to do what I 've done two
or three times before — take the money that I have saved,
to pay these bills — our freedom-money, Lisette.”

“O, well, then, don't worry! We can get it again, you
know. Why, you know, Harry, you can make a good deal

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

with your trade, and one thing and another that you do;
and, then, as for me, why, you know, my ironing, and my
muslins, how celebrated they are. Come, don't worry one
bit; we shall get on nicely.”

“Ah! But, Lisette, all this pretty house of ours, garden,
and everything, is only built on air, after all, till we
are free. Any accident can take it from us. Now, there 's
Miss Nina; she is engaged, she tells me, to two or three
lovers, as usual.”

“Engaged, is she?” said Lisette, eagerly, female curiosity
getting the better of every other consideration;
“she always did have lovers, just, you know, as I used to.”

“Yes; but, Lisette, she will marry, some time, and what
a thing that would be for you and me! On her husband
will depend all my happiness for all my life. He may set
her against me; he may not like me. O, Lisette! I 've seen
trouble enough coming of marriages; and I was hoping,
you see, that before that time came the money for my freedom
would all be paid in, and I should be my own man.
But, now, here it is. Just as the sum is almost made up, I
must pay out five hundred dollars of it, and that throws us
back two or three years longer. And what makes me feel
the most anxious is, that I 'm pretty sure Miss Nina will
marry one of these lovers before long.”

“Why, what makes you think so, Harry?”

“O, I 've seen girls before now, Lisette, and I know the
signs.”

“What does she do? What does she say? Tell me,
now, Harry.”

“O, well, she runs on abusing the man, after her sort;
and she 's so very earnest and positive in telling me she
don't like him.”

“Just the way I used to do about you, Harry, is n't it?”

“Besides,” said Harry, “I know, by the kind of character
she gives of him, that she thinks of him very differently
from what she ever did of any man before. Miss Nina
little knows, when she is rattling about her beaux, what I 'm

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

thinking of. I 'm saying, all the while, to myself, `Is that
man going to be my master?' and this Clayton, I 'm very
sure, is going to be my master.”

“Well, is n't he a good man?”

“She says he is; but there 's never any saying what good
men will do, never. Good men think it right sometimes to
do the strangest things. This man may alter the whole
agreement between us, — he will have a right to do it, if he
is her husband; he may refuse to let me buy myself; and,
then, all the money that I 've paid will go for nothing.”

“But, certainly, Harry, Miss Nina will never consent to
such a thing.”

“Lisette, Miss Nina is one thing, but Mrs. Clayton may
be quite another thing. I 've seen all that, over and over
again. I tell you, Lisette, that we who live on other people's
looks and words, we watch and think a great deal!
Ah! we come to be very sharp, I can tell you. The more
Miss Nina has liked me, the less her husband may like me;
don't you know that?”

“No; Harry, you don't dislike people I like.”

“Child, child, that 's quite another thing.”

“Well, then, Harry, if you feel so bad about it, what
makes you pay this money for Miss Nina? She don't
know anything about it; she don't ask you to. I don't
believe she would want you to, if she did know it. Just go
and pay it in, and have your freedom-papers made out.
Why don't you tell her all about it?”

“No, I can't, Lisette. I 've had the care of her all her
life, and I 've made it as smooth as I could for her, and I
won't begin to trouble her now. Do you know, too, that
I 'm afraid that, perhaps, if she knew all about it, she
would n't do the right thing. There 's never any knowing,
Lisette. Now, you see, I say to myself, `Poor little thing!
she does n't know anything about accounts, and she don't
know how I feel.' But, if I should tell her, and she should n't
care, and act as I 've seen women act, why, then, you know,

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

I could n't think so any more. I don't believe she would,
mind you; but, then, I don't like to try.”

“Harry, what does make you love her so much?”

“Don't you know, Lisette, that Master Tom was a dreadful
bad boy, always wilful and wayward, almost broke his
father's heart; and he was always ugly and contrary to her?
I 'm sure I don't know why; for she was a sweet little thing,
and she loves him now, ugly as he is, and he is the most
selfish creature I ever saw. And, as for Miss Nina, she
is n't selfish — she is only inconsiderate. But I 've known
her do for him, over and over, just what I do for her, giving
him her money and her jewels to help him out of a scrape.
But, then, to be sure, it all comes upon me, at last, which
makes it all the more aggravating. Now, Lisette, I 'm
going to tell you something, but you must n't tell anybody.
Nina Gordon is my sister!”

“Harry!”

“Yes, Lisette, you may well open your eyes,” said
Harry, rising involuntarily; “I 'm Colonel Gordon's oldest
son! Let me have the comfort of saying it once, if I never
do again.”

“Harry, who told you?”

“He told me, Lisette — he, himself, told me, when he was
dying, and charged me always to watch over her; and I have
done it! I never told Miss Nina; I would n't have her
told for the world. It would n't make her love me; more
likely it would turn her against me. I 've seen many a man
sold for nothing else but looking too much like his father, or
his brothers and sisters. I was given to her, and my
sister and my mother went out to Mississippi with Miss
Nina's aunt.”

“I never heard you speak of this sister, Harry. Was she
pretty?”

“Lisette, she was beautiful, she was graceful, and she
had real genius. I 've heard many singers on the stage
that could not sing, with all their learning, as she did by
nature.”

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

“Well, what became of her?”

“O, what becomes of such women always, among us!
Nursed, and petted, and caressed; taught everything elegant,
nothing solid. Why, the woman meant well enough
that had the care of her, — Mrs. Stewart, Colonel Gordon's
sister, — but she could n't prevent her son's wanting her,
and taking her, for his mistress; and when she died there
she was.”

“Well.”

“When George Stewart had lived with her two or three
years, he was taken with small-pox. You know what perfect
horror that always creates. None of his white acquaintances
and friends would come near his plantation; the
negroes were all frightened to death, as usual; overseer ran
off. Well, then Cora Gordon's blood came up; she nursed
him all through that sickness. What 's more, she had influence
to keep order on the place; got the people to getting
the cotton crops themselves, so that when the overseer
came sneaking back, things had n't all gone to ruin, as they
might have done. Well, the young fellow had more in him
than some of them do; for when he got well he left his
plantation, took her up to Ohio, and married her, and lived
with her there.”

“Why did n't he live with her on his plantation?” said
Lisette.

“He could n't have freed her there; it 's against the laws.
But, lately, I 've got a letter from her, saying that he had
died and left to her and her son all his property on the
Mississippi.”

“Why, she will be rich, won't she?”

“Yes, if she gets it. But there 's no knowing how that
will be; there are fifty ways of cheating her out of it, I
suppose. But, now, as to Miss Nina's estate, you don't
know how I feel about it. I was trusted with it, and trusted
with her. She never has known, more than a child, where
the money came from, or went to; and it shan't be said that
I 've brought the estate in debt, for the sake of getting my

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

own liberty. If I have one pride in life, it is to give it up
to Miss Nina's husband in good order. But, then, the
trouble of it, Lisette! The trouble of getting anything like
decent work from these creatures; the ways that I have to
turn and twist to get round them, and manage them, to get
anything done. They hate me; they are jealous of me.
Lisette, I 'm just like the bat in the fable; I 'm neither bird
nor beast. How often I 've wished that I was a good, honest,
black nigger, like Uncle Pomp! Then I should know
what I was; but, now, I 'm neither one thing nor another.
I come just near enough to the condition of the white to look
into it, to enjoy it, and want everything that I see. Then,
the way I 've been educated makes it worse. The fact is,
that when the fathers of such as we feel any love for us, it
is n't like the love they have for their white children. They
are half-ashamed of us; they are ashamed to show their love,
if they have it; and, then, there 's a kind of remorse and pity
about it, which they make up to themselves by petting us.
They load us with presents and indulgences. They amuse
themselves with us while we are children, and play off all our
passions as if we were instruments to be played on. If we
show talent and smartness, we hear some one say, aside, `It 's
rather a pity, is n't it?' or, `He is too smart for his place.'
Then, we have all the family blood and the family pride; and
what to do with it? I feel that I am a Gordon. I feel in
my very heart that I 'm like Colonel Gordon — I know I am;
and, sometimes, I know I look like him, and that 's one
reason why Tom Gordon always hated me; and, then,
there 's another thing, the hardest of all, to have a sister like
Miss Nina, to feel she is my sister, and never dare to say a
word of it! She little thinks, when she plays and jokes
with me, sometimes, hew I feel. I have eyes and senses;
I can compare myself with Tom Gordon. I know he never
would learn anything at any of the schools he was put to;
and I know that when his tutors used to teach me, how
much faster I got along than he did. And yet he must
have all the position, and all the respect; and, then, Miss

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

Nina so often says to me, by way of apology, when she puts
up with his ugliness, `Ah! well, you know, Harry, he is the
only brother I have got in the world!' Is n't it too bad?
Col. Gordon gave me every advantage of education, because
I think he meant me for just this place which I fill. Miss Nina
was his pet. He was wholly absorbed in her, and he was
frightened at Tom's wickedness; and so he left me bound to
the estate in this way, only stipulating that I should buy
myself on favorable terms before Miss Nina's marriage.
She has always been willing enough. I might have taken
any and every advantage of her inconsiderateness. And
Mr. John Gordon has been willing, too, and has been very
kind about it, and has signed an agreement as guardian,
and Miss Nina has signed it too, that, in case of her death,
or whatever happened, I 'm to have my freedom on paying
a certain sum, and I have got his receipts for what I have
paid. So that 's tolerably safe. Lisette, I had meant never
to have been married till I was a free man; but, somehow,
you bewitched me into it. I did very wrong.”

“O, pshaw! pshaw!” interrupted Lisette. “I an't going
to hear another word of this talk! What 's the use? We
shall do well enough. Everything will come out right, —
you see if it don't, now. I was always lucky, and I always
shall be.”

The conversation was here interrupted by a loud whooping,
and a clatter of horse's heels.

“What 's that?” said Harry, starting to the window.
“As I live, now, if there is n't that wretch of a Tomtit,
going off with that horse! How came he here? He will
ruin him! Stop there! hallo!” he exclaimed, running out
of doors after Tomtit.

Tomtit, however, only gave a triumphant whoop, and disappeared
among the pine-trees.

“Well, I should like to know what sent him here!” said
Harry, walking up and down, much disturbed.

“O, he is only going round through the grove; he will

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

be back again,” said Lisette; “never fear. Is n't he a handsome
little rogue?”

“Lisette, you never can see trouble anywhere!” said
Harry, almost angrily.

“Ah! yes, I do,” said Lisette, “when you speak in that
tone! Please don't, Harry! What should you want me to
see trouble for?”

“I don't know, you little thing,” said Harry, stroking
her head fondly.

“Ah, there comes the little rascal, just as I knew he
would!” said Lisette. “He only wanted to take a little
race; he has n't hurt the horse;” and, tripping lightly out,
she caught the reins, just as Tomtit drove up to the gate;
and it seemed but a moment before he was over in the garden,
with his hands full of flowers.

“Stop, there, you young rascal, and tell me what sent
you here!” said Harry, seizing him, and shaking him by the
shoulder.

“Laws, Massa Harry, I wants to get peaches, like other
folks,” said the boy, peeping roguishly in at the window,
at the tea-table.

“And he shall have a peach, too,” said Lisette, “and
some flowers, if he 'll be a good boy, and not tread on my
borders.”

Tomtit seized greedily at the peach she gave him, and,
sitting flat down where he stood, and throwing the flowers
on the ground beside him, began eating it with an earnestness
of devotion as if his whole being were concentrated in
the act. The color was heightened in his brown cheek by
the exercise, and, with his long, drooping curls and eyelashes,
he looked a very pretty centre to the flower-piece
which he had so promptly improvised.

“Ah, how pretty he is!” said Lisette, touching Harry's
elbow. “I wish he was mine!”

“You 'd have your hands full, if he was,” said Harry,
eying the intruder discontentedly, while Lisette stood

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

picking the hulls from a fine bunch of strawberries which she
was ready to give him when he had finished the peach.

“Beauty makes fools of all you girls,” said Harry, cynically.

“Is that the reason I married you?” said Lisette, archly.
“Well, I know I could make him good, if I had the care of
him. Nothing like coaxing; is there, Tom?”

“I 'll boun' there an't!” said Tom, opening his mouth for
the strawberries with much the air of a handsome, saucy
robin.

“Well,” said Harry, “I should like to know what brought
him over here. Speak, now, Tom! Were n't you sent
with some message?”

“O laws, yes!” said Tom, getting up, and scratching
his curly head. “Miss Nina sent me. She wants you to
get on dat ar horse, and make tracks for home like split
foot. She done got letters from two or three of her beaux,
and she is dancing and tearing round there real awful. She
done got scared, spects; feard they 'd all come together.”

“And she sent you on a message, and you have n't told
me, all this time!” said Harry, making a motion as though
he was going to box the child's ears; but the boy glided out
of his hands as if he had been water, and was gone, vanishing
among the shrubbery of the garden; and while Harry
was mounting his horse, he reäppeared on the roof of the
little cabin, caricoling and dancing, shouting at the topmost
of his voice —

“I 'll give it to you, some time!” said Harry, shaking his
fist at him.

“No, he won't, either,” cried Lisette, laughing. “Come
down here, Tomtit, and I 'll make a good boy of you.”

p700-085 CHAPTER VI. THE DILEMMA.

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

In order to understand the occasion which hurried Harry
home, we must go back to Canema. Nina, after taking her
letters from the hands of Tomtit, as we have related, ran
back with them into Mrs. Nesbit's room, and sat herself
down to read them. As she read, she evidently became
quite excited and discomposed, crumpling a paper with her
little hand, and tapping her foot impatiently on the carpet.

“There, now, I 'm sure I don't know what I shall do, Aunt
Nesbit!” addressing her aunt, because it was her out-spoken
habit to talk to any body or thing which happened
to be sitting next to her. “I 've got myself into a pretty
scrape now!”

“I told you you 'd get into trouble, one of these days!”

“O, you told me so! If there 's anything I hate, it is to
have anybody tell me `I told you so!' But, now, aunt,
really, I know I 've been foolish, but I don't know what
to do. Here are two gentlemen coming together, that I
would n't have meet each other here for the world; and I
don't know really what I had better do.”

“You 'd better do just as you please, as you always do,
and always would, ever since I knew you,” said Aunt Nesbit,
in a calm, indifferent tone.

“But, really, aunt, I don't know what 's proper to do in
such a case.”

“Your and my notions of propriety, Nina, are so different,
that I don't know how to advise you. You see the
consequences, now, of not attending to the advice of your

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

friends. I always knew these flirtations of yours would
bring you into trouble.” And Aunt Nesbit said this with
that quiet, satisfied air with which precise elderly people
so often edify their thoughtless young friends under difficulties.

“Well, I did n't want a sermon, now, Aunt Nesbit; but,
as you 've seen a great deal more of the world than I have,
I thought you might help me a little, just to tell me whether
it would n't be proper for me to write and put one of these
gentlemen off; or make some excuse for me, or something.
I 'm sure I never kept house before. I don't want to do
anything that don't seem hospitable; and yet I don't want
them to come together. Now, there, that 's flat!”

There was a long pause, in which Nina sat vexed and
coloring, biting her lips, and nestling uneasily in her seat.

Mrs. Nesbit looked calm and considerate, and Nina began
to hope that she was taking the case a little to heart.

At last the good old lady looked up, and said, very quietly,
“I wonder what time it is.”

Nina thought she was debating the expediency of sending
some message; and therefore she crossed the room with
great alacrity, to look at the old clock in the entry.

“It 's half-past two, aunt!” and she stood, with her lips
apart, looking at Mrs. Nesbit for some suggestion.

“I was going to tell Rosa,” said she, abstractedly, “that
that onion in the stuffing does not agree with me. It rose
on my stomach all yesterday morning; but it 's too late
now.”

Nina actually stamped with anger.

“Aunt Nesbit, you are the most selfish person I ever saw
in my life!”

“Nina, child, you astonish me!” said Aunt Nesbit, with
her wonted placidity. “What 's the matter?”

“I don't care!” said Nina, “I don't care a bit! I don't
see how people can be so! If a dog should come to me
and tell me he was in trouble, I think I should listen to him,
and show some kind of interest to help him! I don't care

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

how foolish anybody has been; if they are in trouble, I 'd
help them, if I could; and I think you might think enough
of it to give me some little advice!”

“O, you are talking about that affair, yet?” said her
aunt. “Why, I believe I told you I did n't know what to
advise, did n't I? Should n't give way to this temper,
Nina; it 's very unladylike, besides being sinful. But,
then, I don't suppose it 's any use for me to talk!” And
Aunt Nesbit, with an abused air, got up, walked quietly to
the looking-glass, took off her morning cap, unlocked her
drawer, and laid it in; took out another, which Nina could
not see differed a particle from the last, held it up thoughtfully
on her hand, and appeared absorbed in the contemplation
of it, — while Nina, swelling with a mixture of anger
and mortification, stood regarding her as she leisurely picked
out each bow, and finally, with a decorous air of solemnity,
arranged it upon her head, patting it tenderly down.

“Aunt Nesbit,” she said, suddenly, as if the words hurt
her, “I think I spoke improperly, and I 'm very sorry for it.
I beg your pardon.”

“O, it 's no matter, child; I did n't care about it. I 'm
pretty well used to your temper.”

Bang went the door, and in a moment Nina stood in the
entry, shaking her fist at it with impotent wrath.

“You stony, stiff, disagreeable old creature! how came
you ever to be my mother's sister?” And, with the word
mother, she burst into a tempest of tears, and rushed violently
to her own chamber. The first object that she saw
was Milly, arranging some clothes in her drawer; and, to her
astonishment, Nina rushed up to her, and, throwing her
arms round her neck, sobbed and wept, in such tumultuous
excitement, that the good creature was alarmed.

“Laws bless my soul, my dear little lamb! what 's the
matter? Why, don't! Don't, honey! Why, bless the
dear little soul! bless the dear precious lamb! who 's been
a hurting of it?” And, at each word of endearment, Nina's

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

distress broke out afresh, and she sobbed so bitterly that
the faithful creature really began to be frightened.

“Laws, Miss Nina, I hope there an't nothing happened
to you now!”

“No, no, nothing, Milly, only I am lonesome, and I want
my mother! I have n't got any mother! Dear me!” she
said, with a fresh burst.

“Ah, the poor thing!” said Milly, compassionately, sitting
down, and fondling Nina in her arms, as if she had been
a babe. “Poor chile! Laws, yes; I 'member your ma
was a beautiful woman!”

“Yes,” said Nina, speaking between her sobs, “the girls
at school had mothers. And there was Mary Brooks, she
used to read to me her mother's letters, and I used to feel
so, all the while, to think nobody wrote such letters to me!
And there 's Aunt Nesbit — I don't care what they say about
her being religious, she is the most selfish, hateful creature
I ever did see! I do believe, if I was lying dead and laid
out in the next room to her, she would be thinking what
she 'd get next for dinner!”

“O, don't, my poor lamb, don't!” said Milly, compassionately.

“Yes, I will, too! She 's always taking it for granted
that I 'm the greatest sinner on the face of the earth! She
don't scold me — she don't care enough about me to scold!
She only takes it for granted, in her hateful, quiet way, that
I 'm going to destruction, and that she can't help it, and
don't care! Supposing I 'm not good! — what 's to make me
good? Is it going to make me good for people to sit up so
stiff, and tell me they always knew I was a fool, and a flirt,
and all that? Milly, I 've had dreadful turns of wanting to
be good, and I 've laid awake nights and cried because I
was n't good. And what makes it worse is, that I think, if
Ma was alive, she could help me. She was n't like Aunt
Nesbit, was she, Milly?”

“No, honey, she was n't. I 'll tell you about your ma,
some time, honey.”

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

“The worst of it is,” said Nina, “when Aunt Nesbit
speaks to me in her hateful way, I get angry; then I speak
in a way that is n't proper, I know. O, if she only would
get angry with me back again! or if she 'd do anything in
the world but stand still, in her still way, telling me she is
astonished at me! That 's a lie, too; for she never was
astonished at anything in her life! She has n't life enough
to be!”

“Ah, Miss Nina, we must n't spect more of folks than
there is in them.”

“Expect? I don't expect!”

“Well, bless you, honey, when you knows what folks
is, don't let 's worry. Ye can't fill a quart-cup out of a
thimble, honey, no way you can fix it. There 's just whar
't is. I knowed your ma, and I 's knowed Miss Loo, ever
since she was a girl. 'Pears like they wan't no more alike
than snow is like sugar. Miss Loo, when she was a girl,
she was that pretty, that everybody was wondering after
her; but to de love, dat ar went arter your ma. Could n't
tell why it was, honey. 'Peared like Miss Loo wan't
techy, nor she wan't one of your bursting-out sort, scolding
round. 'Peared like she 'd never hurt nobody; and yet
our people, they could n't none of dem bar her. 'Peared
like nobody did nothing for her with a will.”

“Well, good reason!” said Nina; “she never did anything
for anybody else with a will! She never cared for
anybody! Now, I 'm selfish; I always knew it. I do a
great many selfish things; but it 's a different kind from
hers. Do you know, Milly, she don't seem to know she is
selfish? There she sits, rocking in her old chair, so sure
she 's going straight to heaven, and don't care whether
anybody else gets there or not!”

“O laws, now, Miss Nina, you 's too hard on her. Why,
look how patient she sits with Tomtit, teaching him his
hymns and varses.”

“And you think that 's because she cares anything about
him? Do you know she thinks he is n't fit to go to heaven,

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

and that if he dies he' ll go to the bad place. And yet, if
he was to die to-morrow, she 'd talk to you about clear-starching
her caps! No wonder the child don't love her!
She talks to him just as she does to me; tells him she
don't expect anything of him — she knows he 'll never
come to any good; and the little wretch has got it by heart,
now. Do you know that, though I get in a passion with
Tom, sometimes, and though I 'm sure I should perish sitting
boring with him over those old books, yet I really
believe I care more for him than she does? And he knows
it, too. He sees through her as plain as I do. You 'll
never make me believe that Aunt Nesbit has got religion.
I know there is such a thing as religion; but she has n't got
it. It is n't all being sober, and crackling old stiff religious
newspapers, and boring with texts and hymns, that makes
people religious. She is just as worldly-minded as I am,
only it 's in another way. There, now, I wanted her to
advise me about something, to-day. Why, Milly, all girls
want somebody to talk with; and if she 'd only showed
the least interest in what I said, she might scold me and
lecture me as much as she 'd a mind to. But, to have her
not even hear me! And when she must have seen that I was
troubled and perplexed, and wanted somebody to advise
me, she turned round so cool, and began to talk about the
onions and the stuffing! Got me so angry! I suppose she
is in her room, now, rocking, and thinking what a sinner I
am!”

“Well, now, Miss Nina, 'pears though you 've talked
enough about dat ar; 'pears like it won't make you feel
no better.”

“Yes it does make me feel better! I had to speak to
somebody, Milly, or else I should have burst; and now I
wonder where Harry is. He always could find a way for
me out of anything.”

“He is gone over to see his wife, I think, Miss Nina.”

“O, too bad! Do send Tomtit after him, right away.
Tell him that I want him to come right home, this very

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

minute — something very particular. And, Milly, you just
go and tell Old Hundred to get out the carriage and horses,
and I 'll go over and drop a note in the post-office, myself.
I won't trust it to Tomtit; for I know he 'll lose it.”

“Miss Nina,” said Milly, looking hesitatingly, “I 'spect
you don't know how things go about round here; but the
fact is, Old Hundred has got so kind of cur'ous, lately,
there can't nobody do nothing with him, except Harry.
Don't 'tend to do nothing Miss Loo tells him to. I 's feared
he 'll make up some story or other about the horses; but
he won't get 'em out — now, mind, I tell you, chile!”

“He won't! I should like to know if he won't, when I
tell him to! A pretty story that would be! I 'll soon teach
him that he has a live mistress — somebody quite different
from Aunt Loo!”

“Well, well, chile, perhaps you 'd better go. He would n't
mind me, I know. Maybe he 'll do it for you.”

“O, yes; I 'll just run down to his house, and hurry him
up.” And Nina, quite restored to her usual good-humor,
tripped gayly across to the cabin of Old Hundred, that
stood the other side of the house.

Old Hundred's true name was, in fact, John. But he had
derived the appellation by which he was always known,
from the extreme moderation of all his movements. Old
Hundred had a double share of that profound sense of the
dignity of his office which is an attribute of the tribe of
coachmen in general. He seemed to consider the horses
and carriage as a sort of family ark, of which he was the
high priest, and which it was his business to save from
desecration. According to his own showing, all the people
on the plantation, and indeed the whole world in general,
were in a state of habitual conspiracy against the family
carriage and horses, and he was standing for them, single-handed,
at the risk of his life. It was as much part
of his duty, in virtue of his office, to show cause, on every
occasion, why the carriage should not be used, as it is for
state attorneys to undertake prosecutions. And it was also

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

a part of the accomplishment of his situation to conduct his
refusal in the most decorous manner; always showing that
it was only the utter impossibility of the case which prevented.
The available grounds of refusal Old Hundred had
made a life-study, and had always a store of them cut and
dried for use, all ready at a moment's notice. In the first
place, there were always a number of impossibilities with
regard to the carriage. Either “it was muddy, and he was
laying out to wash it;” or else “he had washed it, and
could n't have it splashed;” or “he had taken out the
back curtain, and had laid out to put a stitch in it, one of
dese yer days;” or there was something the matter with
the irons. “He reckoned they was a little bit sprung.”
He “'lowed he 'd ask the blacksmith about it, some of these
yer times.” And, then, as to the horses the possibilities
were rich and abundant. What with strains, and loose
shoes, and stones getting in at the hoofs, dangers of all
sorts of complaints, for which he had his own vocabulary
of names, it was next to an impossibility, according to
any ordinary rule of computing chances, that the two
should be in complete order together.

Utterly ignorant, however, of the magnitude of the undertaking
which she was attempting, and buoyant with the
consciousness of authority, Nina tripped singing along,
and found Old Hundred tranquilly reclining in his tent-door,
watching through his half-shut eyes, while the afternoon
sunbeam irradiated the smoke which rose from the old pipe
between his teeth. A large, black, one-eyed crow sat
perching, with a quizzical air, upon his knee; and when
he heard Nina's footsteps approaching, cocked his remaining
eye towards her, with a smart, observing attitude, as if
he had been deputed to look out for applications while his
master dozed. Between this crow, who had received the
sobriquet of Uncle Jeff, and his master, there existed a
most particular bond of friendship and amity. This was
further strengthened by the fact that they were both
equally disliked by all the inhabitants of the place. Like

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

many people who are called to stand in responsible positions,
Old Hundred had rather failed in the humble virtues,
and become dogmatical and dictatorial to that degree that
nobody but his own wife could do anything with him. And
as to Jeff, if the principle of thievery could be incarnate, he
might have won a temple among the Lacedemonians. In
various skirmishes and battles consequent on his misdeeds,
Jeff had lost an eye, and had a considerable portion of the
feathers scalded off on one side of his head; while the remaining
ones, discomposed by the incident, ever after stood
up in a protesting attitude, imparting something still more
sinister to his goblin appearance. In another rencounter
he had received a permanent twist in the neck, which gave
him always the appearance of looking over his shoulder,
and added not a little to the oddity of the general effect.
Uncle Jeff thieved with an assiduity and skill which were
worthy of a better cause; and, when not upon any serious
enterprise of this kind, employed his time in pulling up
corn, scratching up newly-planted flower-seeds, tangling
yarn, pulling out knitting-needles, pecking the eyes of
sleeping people, scratching and biting children, and any
other little miscellaneous mischief which occurred to him.
He was invaluable to Old Hundred, because he was a
standing apology for any and all discoveries made on his
premises of things which ought not to have been there.
No matter what was brought to light, — whether spoons from
the great house, or a pair of sleeve-buttons, or a handkerchief,
or a pipe from a neighboring cabin, — Jeff was always
called up to answer. Old Hundred regularly scolded, on
these occasions, and declared he was enough to “spile the
character of any man's house.” And Jeff would look at
him comically over the shoulder, and wink his remaining
eye, as much as to say that the scolding was a settled
thing between them, and that he was n't going to take it at
all in ill part.

“Uncle John,” said Nina, “I want you to get the

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

carriage out for me, right away. I want to take a ride over
the cross run.”

“Laws bless you sweet face, honey, chile, I 's dreadful
sorry; but you can't do it dis yer day.”

“Can't do it! why not?”

“Why, bless you, chile, it an't possible, no way. Can't
have the carriage and hosses dis yer arternoon.”

“But I must go over to cross run to the post-office. I
must go this minute!”

“Law, chile, you can't do it! fur you can't walk, and
it 's sartain you can't ride, because dese yer hosses, nor dis
yer carriage, can't stir out dis yer arternoon, no way you
can fix it. Mout go, perhaps, to-morrow, or next week.”

“O, Uncle John, I don't believe a word of it! I want
them this afternoon, and I say I must have them!”

“No, you can't, chile,” said Old Hundred, in a tender,
condescending tone, as if he was speaking to a baby. “I
tell you dat ar is impossible. Why, bless your soul, Miss
Nina, de curtains is all off de carriage!”

“Well, put them on again, then!”

“Ah, Miss Nina, dat ar an't all. Pete was desperate
sick, last night; took with de thumps, powerful bad. Why,
Miss Nina, he was dat sick I had to be up with him most all
night!” And, while Old Hundred thus adroitly issued this
little work of fiction, the raven nodded waggishly at Nina,
as much as to say, “You hear that fellow, now!”

Nina stood quite perplexed, biting her lips, and Old Hundred
seemed to go into a profound slumber.

“I don't believe but what the horses can go to-day! I
mean to go and look.”

“Laws, honey, chile, ye can't, now; de do's is all locked,
and I 've got de key in my pocket. Every one of dem
critturs would have been killed forty times over 'fore now.
I think everybody in dis yer world is arter dem dar critturs.
Miss Loo, she 's wanting 'em to go one way, and
Harry 's allers usin' de critturs. Got one out, dis yer arternoon,
riding over to see his wife. Don't see no use in his

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

riding round so grand, noway! Laws, Miss Nina, your
pa used to say to me, says he, `Uncle John, you knows
more about dem critturs dan I do; and, now I tell you what
it is, Uncle John — you take care of dem critturs; don't you
let nobody kill 'em for nothing.' Now, Miss Nina, I 's
always a walking in the steps of the colonel's 'rections.
Now, good, clar, bright weather, over good roads, I likes to
trot the critturs out. Dat ar is reasonable. But, den, what
roads is over the cross run, I want to know? Dem dere
roads is de most mis'ablest things you ever did see. Mud!
Hi! Ought for to see de mud down dar by de creek! Why,
de bridge all tared off! Man drowned in dat dar creek
once! Was so! It an't no sort of road for young ladies
to go over. Tell you, Miss Nina; why don' you let Harry
carry your letter over? If he must be ridin' round de
country, don't see why he could n't do some good wid his
ridin'. Why, de carriage would n't get over before ten
o'clock, dis yer night! Now, mine, I tell you. Besides,
it 's gwine fur to rain. I 's been feeling dat ar in my corns,
all dis yer morning; and Jeff, he 's been acting like the berry
debil hisself — de way he always does 'fore it rains. Never
knowed dat ar sign to fail.”

“The short of the matter is, Uncle John, you are determined
not to go,” said Nina. “But I tell you you shall
go! — there, now! Now, do you get up immediately, and
get out those horses!”

Old Hundred still sat quiet, smoking; and Nina, after reiterating
her orders till she got thoroughly angry, began, at
last, to ask herself the question, how she was going to carry
them into execution. Old Hundred appeared to have descended
into himself in a profound revery, and betrayed
not the smallest sign of hearing anything she said.

“I wish Harry would come back quick,” she said to herself,
as she pensively retraced her steps through the garden;
but Tomtit had taken the commission to go for him in his
usual leisurely way, spending the greater part of the afternoon
on the road.

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

“Now, an't you ashamed of yourself, you mean old nigger!”
said Aunt Rose, the wife of Old Hundred, who had
been listening to the conversation; “talking 'bout de creek,
and de mud, and de critturs, and lor knows what all, when
we all knows it 's nothing but your laziness!”

“Well,” said Old Hundred, “and what would come o'
the critturs if I was n't lazy, I want to know? Laziness!
it 's the berry best thing for the critturs can be. Where 'd
dem horses a been now, if I had been one of your highfelutin
sort, always driving round? Where 'd dey a been,
and what would dey a been, hey? Who wants to see hosses
all skin and bone? Lord! if I had been like some o' de
coachmen, de buzzards would have had the picking of dem
critturs, long ago!”

“I rally believe that you 've told dem dar lies till you
begin to believe them yourself!” said Rose. “Telling our
dear, sweet young lady about your being up with Pete all
night, when de Lord knows you laid here snoring fit to tar
de roof off!”

“Well, must say something! Folks must be 'spectful to
de ladies. Course I could n't tell her I would n't take de
critturs out; so I just trots out scuse. Ah! lots of dem
scuses I keeps! I tell you, now, scuses is excellent things.
Why, scuses is like dis yer grease that keeps de wheels
from screaking. Lord bless you, de whole world turns round
on scuses. Whar de world be if everybody was such fools
to tell the raal reason for everything they are gwine for to
do, or an't gwine fur to!”

p700-097 CHAPTER VII. CONSULTATION.

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

“O, Harry, I 'm so glad to see you back! In such
trouble as I 've been to-day! Don't you think, this very
morning, as I was sitting in Aunt Nesbit's room, Tomtit
brought up these two letters; and one of them is from Clayton,
and the other from Mr. Carson; and, now, see here what
Clayton says: `I shall have business that will take me in
your vicinity next week; and it is quite possible, unless I
hear from you to the contrary, that you may see me at Canema
next Friday or Saturday.' Well, then, see here;
there 's another from Mr. Carson, — that hateful Carson!
Now, you see, he has n't got my letter; says he is coming.
What impudence! I 'm tired to death of that creature, and
he 'll be here just as certain! Disagreeable people always
do keep their promises! He 'll certainly be here!”

“Well, Miss Nina, you recollect you said you thought it
would be good fun.”

“O, Harry, don't bring that up, I beg of you! The fact
is, Harry, I 've altered my mind about that. You know
I 've put a stop to all those foolish things at once, and am
done with them. You know I wrote to Carson and Emmons,
both, that my sentiments had changed, and all that
sort of thing, that the girls always say. I 'm going to dismiss
all of 'em at once, and have no more fooling.”

“What, all? Mr. Clayton and all?”

“Well, I don't know, exactly, — no. Do you know,
Harry, I think his letters are rather improving? — at least,
they are different letters from any I 've got before; and,

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

though I don't think I shall break my heart after him, yet
I like to get them. But the other two I 'm sick to death
of; and, as for having that creature boring round here, I
won't! At any rate, I don't want him and Clayton here
together. I would n't have them together for the world;
and I wrote a letter to keep Carson off, this morning, and
I 've been in trouble all day. Everybody has plagued me.
Aunt Nesbit only gave me one of her mopy lectures about
flirting, and would n't help me in the least. And, then, Old
Hundred: I wanted him to get out the carriage and horses
for me to go over and put this letter in the office, and I
never saw such a creature in my life! I can't make him do
anything! I should like to know what the use is of having
servants, if you can't get anything done!”

“O, as to Old Hundred, I understand him, and he understands
me,” said Harry. “I never find any trouble with
him; but he is a provoking old creature. He stands very
much on the dignity of his office. But, if you want your
letter carried to-night, I can contrive a safer way than that,
if you 'll trust it to me.”

“Ah! well, do take it!”

“Yes,” said Harry, “I 'll send a messenger across on
horseback, and I have means to make him faithful.”

“Well, Harry, Harry!” said Nina, catching at his sleeve
as he was going out, “come back again, won't you? I want
to talk to you.”

During Harry's absence, our heroine drew a letter from
her bosom, and read it over.

“How well he writes!” she said to herself. “So different
from the rest of them! I wish he 'd keep away from
here, — that 's what I do! It 's a pretty thing to get his
letters, but I don't think I want to see him. O, dear! I wish
I had somebody to talk to about it — Aunt Nesbit is so
cross! I can't — no, I won't care about him! Harry is a
kind soul.”

“Ah, Harry, have you sent the letter?” said she,
eagerly, as he entered.

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

“I have, Miss Nina; but I can't flatter you too much.
I 'm afraid it 's too late for the mail — though there 's never
any saying when the mail goes out, within two or three
hours.”

“Well, I hope it will stay for me, once. If that stupid
creature comes, why, I don't know what I shall do! He 's
so presuming! and he 'll squeak about with those horrid
shoes of his; and then, I suppose, it will all come out,
one way or another; and I don't know what Clayton will
think.”

“But I thought you did n't care what he thought.”

“Well, you know, he 's been writing to me all about his
family. There 's his father, is a very distinguished man, of
a very old family; and he 's been writing to me about his
sister, the most dreadfully sensible sister, he has got —
good, lovely, accomplished, and pious! O, dear me! I
don't know what in the world he ever thought of me for!
And, do you think, there 's a postscript from his sister,
written elegantly as can be!”

“As to family, Miss Nina,” said Harry, “I think the
Gordons can hold up their heads with anybody; and, then,
I rather think you 'll like Miss Clayton.”

“Ah! but, then, Harry, this talking about fathers and
sisters, it's bringing the thing awfully near! It looks so
much, you know, as if I really were caught. Do you know,
Harry, I think I 'm just like my pony? You know, she likes
to have you come and offer her corn, and stroke her neck;
and she likes to make you believe she 's going to let you
catch her; but when it comes to putting a bridle on her,
she 's off in a minute. Now, that 's the way with me. It 's
rather exciting, you know, these beaux, and love-letters,
and talking sentiment, going to the opera, and taking rides
on horseback, and all that. But, when men get to talking
about their fathers, and their sisters, and to act as if they
were sure of me, I 'm just like Sylfine — I want to be off.
You know, Harry, I think it 's a very serious thing, this
being married. It 's dreadful! I don't want to be a woman

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

grown. I wish I could always be a girl, and live just as
I have lived, and have plenty more girls come and see me,
and have fun. I have n't been a bit happy lately, not a
bit; and I never was unhappy before in my life.”

“Well, why don't you write to Mr. Clayton, and break it
all off, if you feel so about it?”

“Well, why don't I? I don't know. I 've had a great
mind to do it; but I 'm afraid I should feel worse than I do
now. He 's coming just like a great dark shadow over my
life, and everything is beginning to feel so real to me! I
don't want to take up life in earnest. I read a story, once,
about Undine; and, do you know, Harry, I think I feel just
as Undine did, when she felt her soul coming in her?”

“And is Clayton Knight Heldebound?” said Harry,
smiling.

“I don't know. What if he should be? Now, Harry,
you see the fact is that sensible men get their heads turned
by such kind of girls as I am; and they pet us, and humor
us. But, then, I 'm afraid they 're thinking, all the while,
that their turn to rule is coming, by and by. They marry us
because they think they are going to make us over; and
what I 'm afraid of is, I never can be made over. Don't
think I was cut out right in the first place; and there never
will be much more of me than there is now. And he 'll be
comparing me with his pattern sister; and I shan't be any
the more amiable for that. Now, his sister is what folks call
highly-educated, you know, Harry. She understands all
about literature, and everything. As for me, I 've just cultivation
enough to appreciate a fine horse — that 's the extent.
And yet I 'm proud. I would n't wish to stand second, in
his opinion, even to his sister. So, there it is. That 's the
way with us girls! We are always wanting what we know
we ought not to have, and are not willing to take the trouble
to get.”

“Miss Nina, if you 'll let me speak my mind out frankly,
now, I want to offer one piece of advice. Just be perfectly
true and open with Mr. Clayton; and, if he and Mr. Carson

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

should come together, just tell him frankly how the matter
stands. You are a Gordon, and they say truth always runs
in the Gordon blood; and now, Miss Nina, you are no longer
a school-girl, but a young lady at the head of the estate.”

He stopped, and hesitated.

“Well, Harry, you need n't stop. I understand you —
got a few grains of sense left, I hope, and have n't got so
many friends that I can afford to get angry with you for
nothing.”

“I suppose,” said Harry, thoughtfully, “that your aunt
will be well enough to be down to the table. Have you
told her how matters stand?”

“Who? Aunt Loo? Catch me telling her anything! No,
Harry, I 've got to stand all alone. I have n't any mother,
and I have n't any sister; and Aunt Loo is worse than nobody,
because it 's provoking to have somebody round that
you feel might take an interest, and ought to, and don't
care a red cent for you. Well, I declare, if I 'm not much,—
if I 'm not such a model as Miss Clayton, there, — how
could any one expect it, when I have just come up by myself,
first at the plantation, here, and then at that French
boarding-school? I tell you what, Harry, boarding-schools
are not what they 're cried up to be. It 's good fun, no
doubt, but we never learnt anything there. That is to say,
we never learnt it internally, but had it just rubbed on to
us outside. A girl can't help, of course, learning something;
and I 've learnt just what I happened to like and
could n't help, and a deal that is n't of the most edifying
nature besides.”

Well! we shall see what will come!