Mr. Randall, that interesting personage, having inquired
who I was, with an expletive that I will here omit, remarked
to his relative, that half the town was on his shoulders, and
he must be off: he supposed also she had enough to do in her
little sphere, and would probably have gone home before he
should return to dinner; and having wrung her hand and
told her she must come and stay six months at his house
some time, he departed, or rather adjourned to the adjoining
room, for after the rattling of glasses, and a deep-drawn
breath or two, he returned, wiping his lips, and said to the
old lady in a quick, trembling, querulous tone, and as though
his heart were really stirred with anxiety—“Satan help us,
woman! I almost forgot to ask about my son—how is Helph?
how is my son?”

His paternal feelings were soon quieted, and turning to his
wife, who had resumed her seat at the table, her hair in papers,

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and dressed in a petticoat and short-gown, he said: “Emeline,
don't hurry up the cakes too fast; I don't want dinner a
minute before three o'clock,” and this time he really left the
house. Besides Mrs. Randall, there were at the table two little
boys of ten and eight, perhaps; two big boys of about fourteen
and sixteen, and a little girl of fourteen, or thereabouts. “Oh,”
said one of the larger boys, as if first aware of the presence of
his aunt, and speaking with his mouthful of beefsteak and
coffee, “Oh, Miss Malinda Hoe-the-corn, how do you do? I
didn't see you before.”

Of course the old lady was disconcerted, and blushed as she
had perhaps not done since her worthy husband asked her if
she had any liking for his name over and above her own.

Observing this, the young man continued, “Beg pardon for
my beefsteak, I thought it was Malinda Hoe-the-corn, but its
my sweetheart, Dolly Anne Matilda Steerhorn, and she's
blushing head and ears to see me.”

And approaching the astonished and bewildered woman, he
began to unpin her shawl, which was of an old fashion, saying,
as he attempted to pass his arm around her waste, “Get up, my
love, and let's have a waltz; come, take off your hoss-blanket.”

But the old lady held her shawl tightly with one hand,
thrusting the impudent fellow away with the other, as she exclaimed:
“Get along with you, you sassy scrub.”

“That is right, Aunty Wetherbe,” said the mother, “he
is a great lubbersides, and that is just what he is;” but she
aughed heartily, and all the group, with the exception of the
little girl, seemed to think the young man was behaving very
funnily. And in his own estimation he was evidently making
himself brilliant, and had quite confounded, as he supposed, a
simple-minded old woman with his abundant humor and unembarrassed
manners. “Well,” he continued, no whit

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discomfited by the evident displeasure of his aunt, “I am a business
man, and must leave you, my dear, but I'll bring my
wedding-coat and the parson to-night, and an orange-flower
for you.”

There was now an opportunity for the older brother to exhibit
some of his accomplishments, and the occasion was not
to be slighted; so, after having inquired what news was in the
country, how the crops were, &c., he said, “I am sorry, aunt,
that I have such a complication of affairs on hand that I can't
stay and entertain you, but so it is: you must come round to
my house and see my wife before you return home.”

“Mercy sakes!” exclaimed the old lady, adjusting her spectacles
to survey the youth, “you can't be married!”

“Why, yes,” he replied, “haven't you heard of it? and I
have a boy six munts old!”

“Well, I'd never have thought it,” the aunt said; “but you
have grown all out of my knowledge, and I can hardly tell
which one you be; in fact, I would not have known you if I
had met you any place else,” she continued, “and yet I can see Emeline's looks in you.”

“That is what everybody says,” replied the youth; “I look
just like my mammy;” for, fancying it made him seem boyish
to say mother, he addressed her in a half mock, half serious
way, as mammy.

“And so you have to go away to your work, do you?” resumed
the credulous woman: “what kind of business are you
doing here?”

“I am a chicken fancier,” he replied: “got any Polands or
Shanghais out your way?”

“I don't know,” replied Aunt Wetherbe, unobservant of
the smiles and tittering about the table.

“I'd like to get some white bantams for my wife and baby;”

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and the facetious nephew closed one eye and fixed the other
upon me.

“What do you call the baby?” inquired the aunt.

“My wife wants to call him for me,” he said; “but I don't
like my own name, and think of calling him Jim Crow!”

“Now just get along with you,” the mother said, “and no
more of your nonsense.”

He then began teasing his mammy, as he called her, for
some money to buy white kid gloves, saying he wanted to
take his girl to a ball. “Then you have just been imposing
upon me,” said Mrs. Wetherbe, to which the ill-mannered
fellow replied, that he hadn't been doing nothing shorter;
when, turning to the little girl who was quietly eating her
breakfast, he continued, taking her ear between his thumb and
finger, and turning her head to one side, “I want you to iron
my ruffled shirt fust rate and particular, do you hear that,
nigger waiter?”

After these feats he visited the sideboard, after the example
of his father, and having asked his mammy if she knew where
in thunder the old man kept the dimes, adjusted a jaunty cap
of shining leather to one side and left the house.

“I am glad you are gone,” said the girl, looking after him
and speaking for the first time.

“Come, come, you just tend to your own affairs, Miss Jenny,
and finish your breakfast some time before noon,” said Mrs.
Randall, putting on a severe look.

“I had to wait on the children all the time you were eating,”
she replied, rising from the table with glowing cheeks.

“Oh you had to wait on great things!” replied the lady,
tartly: “big eaters always want some excuse.”

Not till the two little boys had demolished the last remnants
of what seemed to have been but a “spare feast” in the first

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place, was the bell rung for “Aunt Kitty,” the colored woman
who presided over the kitchen. She was one of those dear
old creatures whom you feel like petting and calling “mammy”
at once. She was quiet, and goodness of heart shone out all
over her yellow face, and a cheerful piety pervaded her conversation.

She retained still the softness of manner and cordial warmth
of feeling peculiar to the South; and added to this was the
patient submission that never thought of opposition.

Nearly fifty years she had lived, and most of them had been
passed in hard labor; but notwithstanding incessant toil she
was still, to my thinking, pretty. Perhaps, reader, you are
smiling at what you consider a preposterous idea of beauty.
True, she possessed few of the concomitants which, in the
popular estimation, go to make up beauty; neither matchless
symmetry, fairness of complexion, nor that crowning beauty
of womanhood, long and silken tresses.

Ah no; her face was a bright olive, and her hair was concealed
by a gorgeous turban, and I suspect better so concealed,
but her teeth were sound, and of sparkling whiteness,
and her eyes black as night, and large, but instead of an arrowy,
of a kind of tearful and reproachful expression; indeed
in all her face there was that which would have seemed reproachful,
but for the sweetly-subduing smile that played over
all. Short and thick-set in person was Aunt Kitty, and as for
her dress, I can only say it was cleanly, for in other respects
it was like that of the celebrated priest who figures in the
nursery rhyme, “all tattered and torn.” And as for her slippers,
they had evidently never been made for her, and in all
probability were worn out before they came into her possession;
but her feet were mostly concealed by the long skirt of
ner dress, a morning wrapper of thin white muslin, past the

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uses of her mistress, and she, be it known to you, gave nothing
away which, by any possibility, could serve herself.

To adapt it to her work, Aunt Kitty had shortened the
sleeves and tucked up the skirt with pins; but the thinness of
the fabric revealed the bright red and blue plaids of the worsted
petticoat, making her appearance something fantastic. Courtesying
to us gracefully as she entered the breakfast-room, she
proceeded to remove the dishes.

“Why don't you take a bite first yourself?” asked Mrs.
Randall.

“No matter about me,” she said; “I want to guv these
ladies a cup of coffee—they are come away from the country,
and must feel holler-like—thank de Lord, we can 'suscitate
em;” and with a monument of dishes in her hands she was
leaving the room, when Mrs. Randall asked, in no very mild
tones, if she considered herself mistress of the house; and
if not, directed her to wait till she had directions before she
went to wasting things by preparing a breakfast that nobody
wanted; and turning to us, she said, a little more mildly, but
in a way that precluded our acceptance, “You breakfasted at
home, I suppose?”

Poor Aunt Kitty was sadly disappointed, but consoled herself
in the hope that we would return to dinner—but Mrs.
Randall said nothing about it. But before I proceed with
our shopping expedition, I have somewhat to say of Jenny,
a pretty rosy-faced Irish girl, whom Mrs. Randall told us was
her adopted daughter; and certainly we should never have
guessed it otherwise.

“I do by her just as I would by my own child,” said the
lady; “and for her encouragement, I give her three shillings
in money every week to buy what she likes.”

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“You can well afford it; she must be a great deal of help
to you,” Mrs. Wetherbe said.

But Mrs. Randall affirmed that she was little assistance to
her, though she admitted that Jenny did all the sewing for the
family, the chamber-work, tending at the door, errands, &c.

From my own observation for a single hour, I felt assured
that the girl's situation was any thing but desirable: called
on constantly by all members of the family to do this thing
and that,—for having no set tasks assigned, it was thought
she could do every thing, and furthermore be responsible for
all the accidents of all the departments. “Here, Jenny,”
called one of the little boys, and they were no less accomplished
in their way than the older brothers, “black my shoes,
and do it quick, too,”—at the same time throwing a pair of
coarse stogies roughly against her.

“I haven't time,” she answered, “you must do it yourself.”

“That's a great big lie,” said the boy; and prostrating himself
on the floor, he caught her skirts and held her fast, as he
informed us that her father was nobody but an old drunkard,
and her mother was a washerwoman, and that Jenny had
better look at home before she got too proud to black shoes.

“Let me go,” said she; “if my father is a drunkard, yours
is no better,”—and she vainly tried to pull away from him,
her face burning with shame and anger for the exposure.

“Jenny!” called Mrs. Randall from the head of the stairs,
“come along with you and do your chamber-work.”

“Franklin is holding me, and won't let me come,” she answered.
But the lady repeated the order, saying she would
hear no such stories.

“It's pretty much so!” called out Mrs. Wetherbe, “it's
pretty much so, Emeline.” But as she descended, the boy
loosened his hold, and of course received no blame—and the

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girl a slap on the ear, with the admonition to see now if she
could do her work.

“Sissy,” said Aunt Kitty, putting her head in the door,
“can't you just run, honey, and get me a cent's worth of
yeast?”

And this is only a sample of the constant requirements at
her hands, and of the treatment she received.

Meantime Mrs. Wetherbe had asked Jenny to pass a week
at her house, assist in preparations for, and enjoy the quilting
party; but she feared to ask liberty, and the kind old lady
broke the matter to Mrs. Randall, and I too seconded the appeal.

“She has no dress to wear,” urged the mistress.

“Then she ought to have,” responded the old lady, with spirit.

“I have money enough to get one,” said Jenny, bashfully;
“can't I go with these ladies and get it?”

But Mrs. Randall said she had been idling away too much
time to ask for more, and she enumerated a dozen things that
required to be done; however, Mrs. Wetherbe and I combated
the decision, and volunteered our assistance, so that reluctant
permission to go out with us was granted. Gratitude
opened the heart of the little maid, and as we hastened our
work, she confided to me many of her trials and sorrows, from
which it appeared that the three shillings per week made all
her compensation, with the exception of now and then an old
pair of gloves or a faded ribbon, cast off by her mistress.
True it was, her father was a drunkard, and her mother, a poor
weakly woman, had six children to provide for, and that she
gave her own earnings to their support, almost altogether.
“They have pretended to adopt me as a child,” she said, “that
they may appear liberal in the eyes of the world; but I am, as
you see, an underling and a drudge.”

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