RELY Percy was a product of the war—one of those stray “chilluns” who drifted into camp with the refugees who were constantly coming under Uncle Sam's paternal care.
It was but a short time before he drifted out again and into our home. We (Allie and I) were in search of a boy “to run errands,” and do odd jobs about the house, and this particular boy was sent to me by one of our soldier friends. When we saw his mirthful face (he had a perpetual grin) we thought he'd do very nicely for us. It was quite the fashion for boys to work in families in Memphis, washing dishes, preparing vegetables, and kindred labors, and though at first our Northern ideas were rudely disturbed by that fact, we soon became used to it, and enjoyed having a boy for such work. Indeed, it was rather a relief to Allie, for, as she said, if she hired a girl of the same age she would be in a measure responsible for her manners, and she would have to instruct her in the care of her wardrobe; but with a boy no such difficulties presented themselves. Like too many white boys of good families, it was supposed a boy could knock around and shift for himself; in other words he did not need any particular care, beyond providing him with enough to eat, drink and wear.
The boy informed us when he came to us that his name was Percy. Allie suggested that it would be much more ready to call him Jim or Sam. In an instant his family pride was up in arms.
[Original]
“'Scuse me, Missie, but I cahnt go back on my raising dat ar way. It wud be slighting my marsa's family. Percy it is, and I cahnt see my way clar to answer to no oder name.”
We afterward learned that his name was Jerry, and that he had fallen deeply in love with the name Percy, it belonging to a colonel in the Southern army who used to visit at his master's house, and so he had appropriated it.
But Percy it remained, and if it was rather incongruous to see the high-born Percy scrubbing the kitchen floor or delving into the garbage box in search of a silver fork or spoon that he had thrown in with the remains of a meal, it couldn't be helped.
He had some odd ways about him, that rather startled Allie. He believed in Voodooism and when one day he informed her in a stage whisper that a very elegant old lady who called often, but who had lost one eye through some misfortune, was a witch, and was trying to “spell” him, she promptly ordered him out of the house till he could learn to keep his thoughts to himself. He despised winter, and one morning when he woke up and saw a light snowfall that had come down the night before, he expressed himself thus—