Holly and I had passed whole afternoons in gathering hazel-nuts which grew near a fence not far from the house; and having filled a very respectable-sized bag with them, I felt quite impatient at the idea of returning home well-laden with supplies, like any prudent housekeeper. Aunt Henshaw was to accompany me, and selecting some of her choicest produce, and an immense bunch of herbs, as antidotes for all the aches and ills which human flesh is heir to, on a bright, glowing September morning, we set forward on my homeward journey. "Blessings brighten as they leave us;" and although I had been considered the torment of the whole household, all regretted my departure, and begged me to come soon again.
"Now, Miss Amy," said Sylvia, as I was taking a long private farewell in the kitchen, "jest take a piece of advice from an old colored woman what has lived longer in the world than you have, and roasted chickens and fried sassages ever sense she can remember. Buckwheat cakes is very good, but to keep your own counsel is a heap better—so when you go home don't you go to telling about that ere pig-pen business, or the time when the old hen flewed at you, or tumbling off the old horse. People that don't say nothin' often gits credit for bein' quite sensible, and p'raps you can deceive 'em too; for you'll be kind o' made a fuss with when you fust get home, and if you don't let on about all these here scrapes they'll think more of you."
Sylvia's advice struck me as being very sensible, and I therefore resolved to act upon it, and endeavor to make them consider me quite a different character from the hoyden Amy. I kissed Cousin Statia, who took up her sewing as calmly as though nothing of any importance was about to occur; and having delighted Holly's eyes with a bright ribbon in which all the colors of the rainbow seemed combined, I presented Sylvia with a collar worked by myself, and passed out to the stage, which was waiting for us. Our journey home was quite an uneventful one; and the wind being more favorable, we were not so long on the passage.
My parents were watching for us with anxious solicitude; but when the door opened in bounded a wild, blooming hoyden, in whose sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks they could detect no trace of the delicate invalid. Henry and Fred, with a troop of younger brothers, stood ready to devour me with kisses; but Mammy, rushing impulsively forward, pushed them all aside, and cried and laughed over me alternately, while she almost crushed me with the violence of her affection. Before I was well seated, Fred spied out the bag of hazel-nuts; and a vigorous sound of cracking informed me that the work of devastation had already commenced.
How they all stared at my ear-rings! But mamma turned pale and burst into tears; while I stood still, feeling very uncomfortable, and yet not being exactly aware of the manner in which I had displeased her. Aunt Henshaw, however, with a minute accuracy that struck me as being painfully correct, related every circumstance connected with that unfortunate business, from her finding me extended on the bed to the time when the rings were placed in my ears.
"Oh Amy! how could you!" exclaimed my mother; "I have always despised the barbarous practice of making holes in the flesh for the sake of ornament," she continued, "but to have them pierced by an ignorant colored woman! Come here, child, and let me look at your ears. They are completely spoiled!" she exclaimed, "the holes are one-sided, and close to the very bone! What is to be done?"
Aunt Henshaw suggested that it would be better to let those grow up, and have others made in the right place; but I still retained a vivid recollection of that scene of torture, and did not therefore feel willing to have it repeated. But the ear-rings must come out—they were no ornament all one-sided; so they were laid away in cotton, while I had the pleasure of reflecting on the suffering I had endured for nothing. Being thus brought down at the very commencement of my attempt to be sensible, and finding it less trouble to resume my natural character, I concluded to disregard Sylvia's well-meant advice. I was very poor at keeping a secret; so one by one all the scrapes in which I had figured came to light, to the great horror of the others, and the delight of Fred, who was quite pleased to discover a congenial soul.
Mammy at length seized upon me again, and carrying me almost by force to the nursery, she locked the door and sat down beside me; determined, as she said, to have me to herself for a while. Having requested an account of all the adventures I had met with, she listened with the most absorbed attention while I unfolded the various circumstances of my visit. Mammy was sometimes amused, sometimes frightened, and often shocked, but generally for the dignity of the family; for as I had been its representative, she feared that it would suffer in the eyes of the country people.
Time passed on; Aunt Henshaw returned home, and things proceeded in their usual way. My vanity was flattered by the increased attention which I met with on all sides; my parents appeared to consider me much less of a child since my return, and I was in consequence almost emancipated from the nursery; while Mammy and Jane no longer chided me for my misdemeanors—which, to say the truth, were much less frequent than formerly.