Mammy.
Who rests from sorrow ’neath the sod,
And all the paths of duty trod?
Mammy.
ANAH.
Uncle David, though threescore years and ten and bent with age, was quite useful on the plantation, and was not afraid of work. His labor, however, had not been of a wearing kind. Once a week he drove Sue, a kind and gentle mare, to the mill with a load of corn and returned with bags of sweet cornmeal, the like of which is hard to get nowadays.
In 1853 Sue foaled a bay mule colt with a black stripe down his back that made a cross on his shoulders. David christened the colt Anah, because he heard Parson Phil Demby preach a pow’ful sermon Christmas, the text of which was, “This was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibion his father.”[[19]]
Anah was a lively colt, and when David went to the mill often romped ahead of Sue on the road, much to the anxiety of the mother, and sometimes in a don’t-care way lagged behind for a quarter of a mile or more; and though Uncle David characterized him as worrysome an’ scan’lous, he was very fond of the colt and the colt fond of him. By and by Anah was big and old enough to break, and David soon had him going kindly and taking his old dam’s place in the cart.
David was always relied upon to select and haul the Christmas tree, which was placed in the brick kitchen. It was literally a tree, and on its many boughs hung gifts for the household and servants.
The woods loam was selected by David and hauled by Anah for Kerchibell, the old Scotch gardener, who put it on his early spring plants and flowers; indeed, almost every day the mule was hauling something, with David on the cart singing or nodding.