“Now in just about two jiffies that will be ready to cut. Keep one eye on it, won’t you Mammy, while I run up-stairs for my paraffin paper,” she said, as she set the pans outside to cool and whisked from the kitchen, Mammy saying under her breath as she vanished:
“If folks could once hear dat chile whis’le dey’d hanker fef ter hear it agin, an’ dey’d keep on a hankerin’ twell dey’d done hit. She beat der bu’ds, an’ dat’s a fac’.”
“Now I guess I can cut it,” cried Constance, as she came hurrying back.
The sudden chill of the keen November air had made the candy the exact consistency for cutting into little squares, and in the course of the next half hour they were all cut, carefully wrapped in bits of paraffin paper and neatly tied in small white paper packages with baby-ribbon of different colors. Four dozen as inviting parcels of delicious home-made candy as any one could desire, and all made and done up within an hour and a half.
“There, Mammy! What do you think of that for my initial venture?” asked Constance, looking with not a little satisfaction upon the packages as they lay in the large flat box into which she had carefully packed them.
“Bate yo’ dey hits de markit spang on de haid,” chuckled Mammy. “An’ now I’se gwine tek holt. La, ain’ I gwine cut a dash, dough! Yo’ see me,” and hastily donning her hood and shawl, and catching up an apple from her panful, off Mammy hurried to the little stable which stood in one corner of the small grounds, where Baltie had lived, and certainly flourished since the family came to dwell in this new home.
Mammy never entered that stable without some tidbit for her pet, for she had grown to love the blind old horse as well as Jean did, and was secretly consumed with pride at his transformation. As she entered the stable, Baltie greeted her with his soft nicker.
“Yas, honey, Mammy’s comin’; comin’ wid yo’ lolly-pop, kase she want yo’ ter step out spry. Yo’s gwine enter a pa’tner-ship, yo’ know dat, Baltie-hawse? Yo’ sure is. Yo’s de silen’ pa’tner, yo’ is, an’ de bline one too. Jis as well ter hab one ob ’em bline mebbe,” and Mammy chuckled delightedly at her own joke. “Now come ’long out an’ be hitched up, kase we’s gwine inter business, yo’ an’ me’ an’ we gotter do some hustlin’. Come ’long,” and opening the door of the box-stall in which old Baltie now-a-days luxuriated, Mammy dragged him forth by his forelock and in less time than one could have believed it possible, had him harnessed to the old-fashioned basket phaeton which during Mrs. Stuyvesant’s early married life had been a most up-to-date equipage, but which now looked as odd and antiquated as the old horse harnessed to it. But in Mammy’s eyes they were tangible riches, for Hadyn Stuyvesant had presented her with both phaeton and harness.
Opening wide the stable doors, Mammy clambered into her chariot, and taking up the reins, guided her steed gently forward. Baltie ambled sedately up to the back door where Constance was waiting to hand Mammy the box.
“Mind de do’ an’ don’ let my apples bake all ter cinders,” warned Mammy.