she kinder larfed in her eyes—dem great handsome eyes o’ hern; and, says she, ‘Well, Aunt Chloe, I think you are about in the right on’t,’ says she; and she went off in de parlour. She oughter cracked me over de head for being so sarcy; but dar’s whar ’tis—I can’t do nothin’ with ladies in de kitchen!
“Well, you made out well with that dinner—I remember everybody said so,” said George.
“Didn’t I? And wan’t I behind de dinin’-room door dat bery day? and didn’t I see de gineral pass his plate three times for some more dat bery pie? and, says he, ‘You must have an uncommon cook, Mrs. Shelby.’ Lor! I was fit to split myself.
“And de gineral, he knows what cookin’ is,” said Aunt Chloe, drawing herself up with an air. “Bery nice man, de gineral! He comes of one of de bery fustest families in Old Virginny! He knows what’s what, now, as well as I do—de gineral. Ye see, there’s pints in all pies, Mas’r George; but ’tan’t everybody knows what they is or orter be. But de gineral, he knows; I knew by his ’marks he made. Yes, he knows what de pints is!”
By this time, Master George had arrived at that pass to which even a boy can come (under uncommon circumstances), when he really could not eat another morsel, and, therefore, he was at leisure to notice the pile of woolly heads and glistening eyes which were regarding their operations hungrily from the opposite corner.
“Here, you Mose, Pete,” he said, breaking off liberal bits and throwing them at them; “you want some, don’t you? Come, Aunt Chloe, bake them some cakes.”
And George and Tom moved to a comfortable seat in the chimney-corner, while Aunt Chloe, after baking a goodly pile of cakes, took her baby on her lap, and began alternately filling its mouth and her own, and distributing to Mose and Pete, who seemed rather to prefer eating theirs as they rolled about on the floor, under the table, tickling each other, and occasionally pulling the baby’s toes.
“Oh, go ’long, will ye?” said the mother, giving now and then a kick, in a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too obstreperous. “Can’t ye be decent when white folks comes to see ye? Stop dat ar, now, will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I’ll take ye down a buttonhole lower, when Mas’r George is gone!”
What meaning was couched under this terrible threat, it is difficult to say; but certain it is that its awful indistinctness seemed to produce very little impression on the young sinners addressed.
“La, now!” said Uncle Tom, “they are so full of tickle all the while, they can’t behave themselves.”
Here the boys emerged from under the table, and with hands and faces well plastered with molasses, began a vigorous kissing of the baby.
“Get along wid ye!” said the mother, pushing away their woolly heads. “Ye’ll all stick together, and never get clar, if ye do dat fashion. Go ’long to de spring and wash yerselves!” she said, seconding her exhortations by a slap, which resounded very formidably, but which seemed only to knock out so much more laugh from the young ones, as they tumbled precipitately over each other out of doors, where they fairly screamed with merriment.
“Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?” said Aunt Chloe, rather complacently, as producing an old towel, kept for such emergencies, she poured a little water out of the cracked teapot on it, and began rubbing off the molasses from the baby’s face and hands; and, having polished her till she shone, she set her down in Tom’s lap, while she busied herself in clearing away supper. The baby employed the intervals in pulling Tom’s nose, scratching his face, and burying her fat hands in his woolly hair, which last operation seemed to afford her special content.
“An’t she a peart young un?” said Tom, holding her from him to take a full-length view; then, getting up, he set her on his broad shoulder and began capering and dancing with her while Mas’r George snapped at her with his pocket-handkerchief, and Mose and Pete, now returned again, roared after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they “fairly took her head off” with their noise. As, according to her own statement, this surgical operation was a matter of daily occurrence in the cabin, the declaration no whit abated the merriment, till every one had roared and tumbled and danced themselves down to a state of composure.
“Well, now, I hopes you’re done,” said Aunt Chloe, who had been busy in pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; “and now, you Mose and you Pete, get into thar; for we’s goin’ to have the meetin’.”
“Oh, mother! we don’t wanter. We wants to sit up to meetin’—meetin’s is so curis. We likes ’em.”
“La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let ’em sit up,” said Mas’r George decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.
Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to push the thing under, saying, as she did so, “Well, mebbe ’twill do ’em some good.”
The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to consider the accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.
“What we’s to do for cheers, now, I declar’ I don’t know,” said Aunt Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom’s, weekly, for an indefinite length of time, without any more “cheers,” there seemed some encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.
“Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last week,” suggested Mose.
“You go ’long! I’ll boun’ you pulled ’em out; some o’ your shines,” said Aunt Chloe.
“Well, it ’ll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!” said Mose.
“Den Uncle Peter mus’n’t sit in it, ’cause he al’ays hitches when he gets a-singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t’other night,” said Pete.
“Good Lor! get him in it, then,” said Mose, “and den he’d begin, ‘Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell,’ and den down he’d go;” and Mose imitated precisely the nasal tones of the old man, tumbling on the floor to illustrate the supposed catastrophe.
“Come, now, be decent, can’t ye?” said Aunt Chloe; “an’t yer ’shamed?”
Mas’r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared decidedly that Mose was a “buster.” So the maternal admonition seemed rather to fail of effect.
“Well, ole man,” said Aunt Chloe, “you’ll have to tote in them ar bar’ls.”
“Mother’s bar’ls is like dat ar widder’s Mas’r George was reading ’bout in de good book—dey never fails,” said Mose aside to Pete.
“I’m sure one on ’em caved in last week,” said Pete, “and let ’em all down in de middle of de singin’; dat ar was failin’, warn’t it?”
During this aside between Mose and Pete two empty casks had been rolled into the cabin, and being secured from rolling, by stones on each side, boards were laid across them, which arrangement, together with the turning down of certain tubs and pails, and the disposing of the rickety chairs, at last completed the preparation.
“Mas’r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know he’ll stay to read for us,” said Aunt Chloe; “’pears like ’twill be so much more interestin’.”
George
