“And, mind, as I told you before, I shan’t expect you home to dinner. You won’t have time to come. And I shan’t get no dinner, neither, ’cause all the fireplace will be took up baking cakes. Soon’s ever you’re gone, me and Mocka is a-going right at making of ’em. Thanks be to goodness as we have got a-plenty of our own flour, and eggs, and milk, and butter! And when you have got plenty of flour, and eggs, and milk, and butter, sez I, you’ll get along, sez I!”
“Very well, Aunt Sibby.”
“And don’t you forget to invite Luke Barriere to the party, mind you! You mustn’t forget old friends, sez I!”
“Oh! And must I invite Judge Paul McCann?” inquired the sailor, with a twinkle in his eye, for you see
“They had been friends in youth.”
“No!” emphatically replied the old lady. “No! Them as has the least to do with old Polly McCann, sez I, comes the best off, sez I! There! Now go! You ain’t got a minute more to lose!”
The young man went out to the little stable behind the house, and put the mule to the cart, and drove around to the front door, to come in and get his overcoat and cap.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you, Roland! Hire the nigger fiddlers while you are out,” said Miss Sibby.
“I’ll remember, aunt,” replied the young man, drawing on his “surtout,” and, with cap and gloves in hand, hurrying out to the cart.
In another moment Miss Sibby heard the mule cart rattle away on its rounds.