Susan did remember and Mary Louise took her departure with a pleasant impression of Mrs. Jane Kellogg and her friends drinking tea together, happily reminiscent of their girlhood.
“There’ll be a lot of bonnets to make for the Higgledy Piggledy Shop before long,” she said to herself. “I’ll help the girls out some more and give the money to charity.”
CHAPTER V
DANNY IS DRIVEN FROM HOME
As Mary Louise entered her home after delivering the bonnet she was met in the hall by Aunt Sally, the fat old negro cook who had been with the Hathaway family off and on since the Civil war and, before that time, had been with them only on and never off, for as a small child she had belonged to the Colonel’s father. She, with the aid of Uncle Eben, her husband, did most of the work of the great house, not because Colonel Hathaway was not willing to hire any number of servants, but because the two old ex-slaves preferred to do the work according to their own ideas. There was supposed to be a housemaid, but no matter how efficient and satisfactory this maid might prove to Mary Louise, she never met the requirements of Aunt Sally and consequently there was a procession of housemaids coming and going. Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben couldn’t and wouldn’t leave and so the housemaids must.
Aunt Sally was goodness itself where white people were concerned, but she was as hard as steel in regard to her own race. Even Uncle Eben came in for her criticism, though she never let anyone else say anything derogatory to her faithful mate.
“Eben air as good as nigger men goes,” she would assert. “He ain’t ter say puffect, but I reckon he air doin’ er his bes’ ’cordin’ ter his ’telligence.”
Aunt Sally met Mary Louise as she opened the front door and it was plain to see that something had happened. The old woman had been weeping and, as the young mistress entered she gave a final dab to her eyes with the corner of her apron.
“Why Aunt Sally, what’s the matter?”
“Lawd, honey chil’, they’s trouble a comin’! Trouble a comin’! I knowed it when yo’ maw’s pixcher fell off’n the wall las’ month—I knowed it when I dreamed ’bout nesses full er aigs an’ none er them cracked even, which air a sho sign trouble air hatchin’ an—”