Mr. Daniel Halsey, who resided on Carteret street, at one time did business in Petersburg, Va., and it became the custom to have Mr. Halsey send to Petersburg for a colored girl when any of his neighbors desired such help; thus there was gradually formed a small colony of Southern negroes, who were usually intensely loyal to their employers. One of these, a large, husky negress named “Milly”, was employed by Rev. Mr. Eddy and thereby hangs a tale, as the story books say.
Shortly after the split in the Presbyterian Church, and when the feeling was very bitter and the entire neighborhood was divided into “Eddyites” and “Hineites”, Mr. Hine had occasion to call on Mr. Eddy for some purpose and was conducted by that gentleman upstairs to his study.
Two or three times during the interview Mr. Eddy, who was an extremely nervous man, thought he heard some one on the other side of the closed door and, excusing himself, got up to look out into the hall, but, seeing no one, resumed his seat. The conference over, Mr. Hine was shown out, and as Mr. Eddy returned to his study he saw standing in a niche near the head of the stairs his colored Milly, with a flat-iron in either hand and, as he approached she brandished her weapons, shouting as she did so: “Ah was ready for him! Ah was ready for him!” expecting, of course, there was to be a fight and recognizing her duty to her employer. Probably Mr. Hine never knew how close he came that day to a broken head.
Milly was one of the impulsive sort and, so far as her lights went, she lived up to them. Mrs. Perry tells how, when she used to stand on the corner of Lincoln and Elwood avenues, hesitating to engage the sea of mud which lay between her and home, and which was usually over shoe-top—the real, red, Jersey mud—Milly, when she happened to spy her beloved Sunday school teacher in this predicament, would rush from the Eddy back door to the corner, pick up the little woman, tuck her under her arm and carry her across the street as a child might carry a doll. It was of no use to resist; Milly was as large as a man and as strong as two.
PIONEERING IN WOODSIDE.
In these crude times many were the emergencies that arose, and much ingenuity was called into play to meet them, for between the Erie Railroad and that farce known as the street car, Woodside was almost as isolated as an island in mid ocean. Thus the making of a mistake that in these days would be a trifle was sometimes momentous in its consequences.
This gave a certain pioneer flavor to the situation and made of the community one great family where neighbor was dependent on neighbor, and thus brought out and developed character that the present easy times do not call out, and men and women loomed large or small as they actually deserved.
One of the small-sized emergencies which arose had to do with a certain Sunday morning communion service in the Presbyterian Church, and the situation was like this:—
Mrs. Cumming had made objection to the use of wine at the communion, claiming that its very smell was intoxicating and its influence bad, and the discussion that followed led to a resolve to try unfermented wine, which was then just beginning to be introduced. As a consequence Mr. John Maclure, at whose house the vessels used in the service were kept, and who had charge of the preparations for the service, made a special journey to New York to purchase a bottle of the unfermented wine.
Mrs. Margaret Perry, a daughter of Mr. Maclure, tells how on the Sunday morning of this particular communion service, while she was practising the morning’s music on the church organ and her father was preparing the communion table, she heard an exclamation of surprise, and looked up to ascertain the trouble.