University of Virginia Library

4. IV.

“We will just go in the back way,” said Mrs. Wetherbe;
“I don't like to ring the bell, and wait an hour;” and accordingly
she opened a side door, and we found ourselves in the
breakfast-room, where the family were assembled.

“Why, if it isn't Aunty Wetherbe!” exclaimed a tall, pale-faced
woman, coming forward and shaking hands. “Have you
brought me something good?” she added quickly, at the same
time relieving the old lady of the basket of nice butter, the jug
of milk, the eggs, and the loaf of home-made bread, which she

had brought—partly from the kindness of her heart, partly to
secure her welcome. Thus relieved of her burdens, she went
forward to the table—for Mr. Randall did not rise—and offered
her hand.

“Lord-a-mighty, woman, I didn't know you,” he said, in a
blustering way; but he evidently didn't wish to know her.
“Who the devil have you brought with you?” referring to me,
with a nod of the head, and bending a pair of grayish blue eyes
on me.

This salutation was not particularly calculated to make me
feel happy, or at home, for I was young and timid; but removing
myself from the range of his glance, I deliberately surveyed
the group, with each of whom I felt myself acquainted, in a
moment, as well as I wished to be in my life time.

Mr. Randall, having inquired who I was, in the peculiarly
civil manner I have stated, remarked to his relation, 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 his return to dinner; so, having
wrung her hand, and told her she must come and stay six months
at his house some time, he departed, or rather went in to the ad
joining room, whence after a 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, Helph?”

His paternal feelings were soon quieted, and turning to his
wife, who had resumed her seat at the table, with hair in papers,
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 girl of fifteen, or thereabouts. “Oh,” said one
of the larger boys, as if now first aware of the presence of his
aunt, and speaking with his mouth full of food, “Oh, Miss Malinda
Hoe-the-corn, how do you do? I didn't see you before.”

Of course the good woman was disconcerted, and blushed, as
perhaps she had not done since her worthy husband asked her
if she had any liking for his name—more years ago than she
could now remember.

Observing this, the rude fellow continued, “Beg pardon: I
thought it was Malinda Hoe-the-corn, but it's 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
waist, “Get up, my love, and let's have a waltz; come, take off
your hoss-blanket.”

But she 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
laughed heartily, and all the group, with the exception of the
little girl, seemed to think he was behaving very funnily; and
in his own estimation he was evidently displaying some very
brilliant qualities, and had quite confounded a simple-minded
old woman with his abundant humor, and unembarrassed manners.
“Well,” he continued, no whit disconcerted by the 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!” she cried, 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; 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; 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 would 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,” answered Aunt Wetherbe, unobservant of
the tittering about the table.

“I'd like to get some white bantams for my wife and baby;”
and the facetious nephew closed one eye and fixed the other on
me.

“What do you call the baby?”

“My wife wants to call him for me, 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 scapegrace replied, that
he hadn't been doing nothing shorter; and, approaching the
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 mother 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!” the woman said,
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
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 a good heart shone out 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.

She had lived nearly fifty years, and most of them had been
passed in hard labor; but notwithstanding incessant toil, it
seemed to me that she was still pretty. True, she possessed
few of the attributes which, in the popular estimation, make up
beauty; neither symmetry of proportions, fairness of complexion,
nor that crowning grace of womanhood, long, heavy, and
silken tresses. No, her face was of a bright olive, and her hair
was concealed by a gorgeous turban, and I suspect more beautiful
thus 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 it. She was short and thick-set, 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.” 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 generally concealed by the long skirt of her dress, a
morning wrapper of thin white muslin, past the uses of her
mistress, who, be it known, gave nothing away which by any

possibility could be of service to 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 somewhat 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;
when 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
with the hope that we should return to dinner. Mrs. Randall,
however, said nothing about it.

Jenny, a pretty rosy-faced Irish girl, Mrs. Randall told us was
her adopted daughter; and certainly we should never have
guessed it, had she failed of this intimation.

“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.”

“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, and errands.

From my own observation, in a single hour, I felt assured
that the girl's situation was any thing but desirable: called on
constantly by all the members of the family to do this thing or
that,—for having no set tasks, it was thought she should do

every thing, and be responsible for all the accidents of all the
departments. “Here, Jenny,” called one of the little boys, who
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 brogans 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, while 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 her dress 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 woman repeated her 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 poor girl had
a slap on the ear with on 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?”

Meantime Mrs. Wetherbe had asked Jenny to pass a week at
her house, assist in preparations for the quilting party and enjoy
it; but she feared to ask liberty, and the kind old woman
broke the matter to Mrs. Randall, and I 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
should 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 Jenny's
heart, and as we hastened our work she confided to me
many of her trials and sorrows, and I soon perceived 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. It was true her father was a drunkard,
and her mother, a poor weakly woman, had six children to provide
for. Jenny gave almost all her own earnings for their support.
“They have pretended to adopt me as a child,” she said,
“that they may seem liberal to me; but I am, as you see, an
underling and a drudge.”

My heart was pained for her as I saw the hardness and hopelessness
of her fate; and when at last she was ready to go with
us, the poor attempt she made to look smart really had the effect
of rendering her less presentable than before; but between
her palm and her torn glove she had slipped two dollars in
small change, and she was quite happy. Then, too, the new
dress should be made in womanly fashion, for she was in her
fifteenth year.

We were just about setting out when, with more exultation
than regret in her tone, Mrs. Randall called Jenny to come back,
for that her little brother wanted to see her.

“Oh dear!” she said, turning away with tears in her eyes;
and in that exclamation there was the death of all her hopes.

We soon saw how it was: the miserable little wretch was
come for money, and without a word, Jenny removed the glove
and gave him all.

“Don't wait to blubber,” said the mistress; “you have lost
time enough for one day;” and the girl retired to exchange her
best dress and renew her work.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Randall had belonged to the poorest class
of people, and the possession of wealth had increased or given
scope to their natural meanness, without in the least diminishing
their vulgarity.

If there be any condition with whom I really dislike to come
in contact, it is the constitutionally mean and base-mannered who,
accidentally or by miserly plodding, become rich. You need but a
glimpse of such persons, or of their homes, to know them. No

expenditures in laces, silks, jewelry, costly carpets, or rare
woods, can remove them one hand's breadth from their proper
position; and the proper position of the Randalls was that of the
menials over whom their money alone gave them supremacy.

We were a long time in getting through our many errands,
for Mrs. Wetherbe was detained not a little in surprise or admiration
at this or that novelty. When a funeral passed, she
could not think who could be dead, and essayed all her powers
to get a glimpse of the coffin, that she might know whether it
were a child or an adult; or if a horseman cantered past, she gazed
after him, wondering if he was not going for the doctor, and if
he was, who in the world could be sick; and then, she selected
little samples of goods she wished to purchase, and carried them
up to Emeline's, to determine whether they would wash well;
but notwithstanding her frugality and cautiousness, she was not
mean; and she lightened her purse on Jenny's behalf to the
amount of the stuff for a pretty new dress. But she could not
be spared for a week, and it was agreed that Helph should be
sent to bring her on the day of the quilting; and so, between
smiles and tears, we left her.

Alas for Aunt Kitty! nothing could alleviate her disappointment:
she had prepared dinner with special reference to us, and
we had not been there to partake of it, or to praise her. “Poor
souls! de Lord help you,” she said; you will be starved a'most!”

Mrs. Randall was sorry dinner was over, but she never thought
of getting hungry when she was busy.

It was long after nightfall when, having left our friend and her
various luggage at her own home, we arrived at ours; and we
had earned excellent appetites for the supper that waited us.