I told her.
“Bress your heart, Miss Carry! Len’ me a cup, and git me some yeast, and I’ll bring Mistis Graham ober, an’ I’ll be boun’, when she sees dat ar lubly little Peyty, she’ll hire him to—to—to—lor! she’ll hire him to look into his diamint eyes.”
I know she herself kissed tears out of more than one pair of “diamint eyes” while I was getting the yeast. I heard her.
“O, Maum Phillis!” I heard Jim say. “You think we’ll hire out roun’ hyar?”
“Could we, Maum Phillis?” pleaded Rose, her voice soft and warm now. “We’s done tired out. I’m clean ready to drop down in my tracks long this yer blessed stove, and nebber stir anywhars!”
“Bress you, chilluns! You hev tromped like sojers, clar from ole Carline! Spec it seems like home, findin’ one of de old place hands—Phillis knows. Dar, dar! don’t take on so. Miss Carry, she’ll bunk you down somewhar it’s warm, and thar you stay an’ rest dem feet. I’ll send my mistis ober, and dey two’ll pervide fer ye on dis yer street; dis yer one ob de Lord’s own streets.”
Well, do you think Mistis Graham and Mistis Carry dishonored Maum Phillis’s faith in them?
No, indeed! The family found homes on “de Lord’s own street.” Jam is coachman at Squire Lee’s. Peyty is at the same place, taken in at first for his sweet disposition, and “diamint eyes,” I suspect. He is now a favorite table-waiter.
Kit is Maum Phillis’s right-hand woman. Rose is our own hired girl. She is somewhat given to sleepiness, and to idling in sunny windows, and to scorching her shoes and aprons against the stove of a winter’s evening. But, on the whole, she is a good servant; and we have built her a bedroom out of the kitchen.
I have never regretted crossing the street to speak to the strangers from the south.