A woman may work herself to death in her husband's field, wash, cook, scour, mend, patch, keep house, and receive gratefully any small sums her husband may give her, always answering "Sir" when he speaks to her, above all increase the population yearly—all this is her duty, but it is improper for her to take any service like housework. And so all Estelle's little accomplishments and skill were wasted, except the sewing which I had taught her and that showed in the neat, trim looking clothes of her little army of children. I think she has heard the "Well done, good and faithful servant, ... faithful over a few things."
To-day two friends of mine were to drive fourteen miles to spend the morning with me. As Dab is strangely agitated and upset by any addition to my solitary meals, I helped him prepare the lunch table before they arrived.
It looked very pretty and dainty, but I saw marks of fingers on my precious hundred and fifty-year-old urn-shaped silver sugar dish, so I told Dab to dip it in hot water and rub it dry with a cotton flannel cloth to remove the marks of his fingers. He was gone in the pantry longer than seemed to me necessary, so I followed him there. To my dismay the sugar dish which he held in his hand looked as though he had greased it thoroughly.
"Oh, Dab!" I cried. "What have you done?"
He looked at me, his face beaming with pride in his work, and answered:—
"I jus' shinin' um up wid de knife-brick!"
Words failed me as I took the precious thing in my hands, but when I had recovered a little I said: "Dab, twenty dollars could not undo the work of those five minutes—no, not fifty dollars!"
"Jus' shinin' um up wid de knife-brick."