them? where should she put them that they would be the most out of the way? for she could never suffer them to be round when she had company." The chamber of which Anna had spoken was out of the question, for it was too nice, and besides that, it was reserved for the children of her New Orleans friends, who nearly every summer came up to visit her.
At the rear of the building was a long, low room, containing a fireplace and two windows, which looked out upon the negro quarters and the hemp fields beyond. This room, which in the summer was used for storing feather-beds, blankets, and so forth, was plastered, but minus either paper or paint. Still it was quite comfortable, "better than they were accustomed to at home," Mrs. Livingstone said, and this she decided to give them. Accordingly the negroes were set at work scrubbing the floor, washing the windows, and scouring the sills, until the room at least possessed the virtue of being clean. A faded carpet, discarded as good for nothing, and over which the rats had long held their nightly revels, was brought to light, shaken, mended, and nailed down—then came a bedstead, which Mrs. Livingstone had designed as a Christmas gift to one of the negroes, but which of course would do well enough for her mother-in-law. Next followed an old wooden rocking-chair, whose ancestry Anna had tried in vain to trace, and which Carrie had often proposed burning. This, with two or three more chairs of a later date, a small wardrobe, and a square table, completed the furniture of the room, if we except the plain muslin curtains which shaded the windows, destitute of blinds. Taking it by itself, the room looked tolerably well, but when compared with the richly furnished apartments around it, it seemed meager and poor indeed; "but if they wanted anything better, they could get it themselves. They were welcome to make any alterations they chose."
This mode of reasoning hardly satisfied Anna, and unknown to her mother she took from her own chamber a handsome hearth-rug, and carrying it to her grandmother's room, laid it before the fireplace. Coming accidentally upon a roll of green paper, she, with the help of Corinda, a black girl, made some shades for the windows, which faced the west, rendering the room intolerably hot during the summer season. Then, at the suggestion of Corinda, she looped back the muslin curtains with some green ribbons, which she had intended using for her "dolly's dress." The bare appearance of the table troubled her, but by rummaging, she brought to light a cast-off spread, which, though soiled and worn, was on one side quite handsome.
"Now, if we only had something for the mantel," said she; "it seems so empty."
Corinda thought a moment, then rolling up the whites of her eyes, replied, "Don't you mind them little pitchers" (meaning vases) "which Master Atherton done gin you? They'd look mighty fine up thar, full of sprigs and posies."
Without hesitating a moment Anna brought the vases, and as she did not know the exact time when her grandmother would arrive, she determined to fill them with fresh flowers every morning.
"There, it looks a heap better, don't it, Carrie?" said she to her sister, who chanced to be passing the door and looked in.
"You must be smart," answered Carrie, "taking so much pains just for them; and as I live, if you haven't got those elegant vases that Captain Atherton gave you for a birthday present! I know mother won't like it. I mean to tell her;" and away she ran with the important news.
"There, I told you so," said she, quickly returning. "She says you carry them straight back and let the room alone."
Anna began to cry, saying "the vases were hers, and she should think she might do what she pleased with them."
"What did you go and blab for, you great for shame, you?" exclaimed
John Jr., suddenly appearing in the doorway, at the same time giving
Carrie a push, which set her to crying, and brought Mrs. Livingstone to
the scene of action,
"Can't my vases stay in here? Nobody'll hurt 'em, and they'll look so pretty," said Anna.
"Can't that hateful John behave, and let me alone?" said Carrie.
"And can't Carrie quit sticking her nose in other folks' business?" chimed in John Jr.
"Oh Lordy, what a fuss," said Corinda, while poor Mrs. Livingstone, half distracted, took refuge under one of her dreadful headaches, and telling her children "to fight their own battles and let her alone," returned to her room.
"A body'd s'pose marster's kin warn't of no kind of count," said Aunt Milly, the head cook, to a group of sables, who, in the kitchen, were discussing the furniture of the "trump'ry room," as they were in the habit of calling the chamber set apart for Mrs. Nichols. "Yes, they would s'pose they warn't of no kind o' count, the way miss goes on, ravin' and tarin' and puttin' 'em off with low-lived truck that we black folks wouldn't begin to tache with the tongs. Massy knows ef my ole mother warn't dead and gone to kingdom come, I should never think o' sarvin' her so, and I don't set myself up to be nothin' but an old nigger, and a black one at that. But Lor' that's the way with more'n half the white folks. They jine the church, and then they think they done got a title deed to one of them houses up in heaven (that nobody ever built) sure enough. Goin' straight thar, as fast as a span of race-horses can carry 'em. Ki! Won't they be disappointed, some on 'em, and Miss Matilda 'long the rest, when she drives up, hosses all a reekin' sweat, and spects to walk straight into the best room, but is told to go to the kitchen and turn hoe-cakes for us niggers, who are eatin' at the fust table, with silver forks and napkins——?"
Here old Milly stopped to breathe, and her daughter Vine, who had listened breathlessly to her mother's description of the "good time coming," asked "when these things come to pass, if Miss Carrie wouldn't have to swing the feathers over the table to keep off the flies, instead of herself?"
"Yes, that she will, child," returned her mother; "Things is all gwine to be changed in the wink of your eye. Miss Anna read that very tex' to me last Sunday and I knew in a minit what it meant. Now thar's Miss Anna, blessed lamb. She's one of 'em that'll wear her white gowns and stay in t'other room, with her face shinin' like an ile lamp!"
While this interesting conversation was going on in the kitchen, John Jr., in the parlor was teasing his mother for money, with which to go up to Lexington the next day. "You may just as well give it to me without any fuss," said he, "for if you don't, I'll get my bills at the Phoenix charged. The old man is good, and they'll trust. But then a feller feels more independent when he can pay down, and treat a friend, if he likes; so hand over four or five Vs."
At first Mrs. Livingstone refused, but her head ached so hard and her "nerves trembled so," that she did not feel equal to the task of contending with John Jr., who was always sure in the end to have his own way. Yielding at last to his importunities, she gave him fifteen dollars, charging him to "keep out of bad company and be a good boy."
"Trust me for that," said he, and pulling the tail of Anna's pet kitten, upsetting Carrie's work-box, poking a black baby's ribs with his walking cane, and knocking down a cob-house, which "Thomas Jefferson" had been all day building, he mounted his favorite "Firelock," and together with a young negro, rode off.
"The Lord send us a little peace now," said Aunt Milly, tossing her squalling baby up in the air, and telling Thomas Jefferson not to cry, "for his young master was done gone off."
"And I hope to goodness he'll stay off a spell," she added, "for thar's ole Sam to pay the whole time he's at home, and if ever thar was a tickled critter in this world it's me, when he clar's out."
"I'm glad, too," said Anna, who had been sent to the kitchen to stop the screaming, "and I wish he'd stay ever so long, for I don't take a bit of comfort when he's at home."
"Great hateful! I wish he didn't live
