This wasn't very encouragin'; but I wasn't a bit frightened, and I set to work again, talkin' and arguin', and kind o' hintin' that there'd been some kings seen round the place where I lived. That weren't true, o' course, and I knew I was wrong, Dolly, to mislead the poor creature, even if 't was for her good; but I quieted my conscience by thinkin' that 't was true in one way, for Hezekiah King and his nine children lived not more 'n a mile from my house.
Well, to make a long story short, I e'en persuaded the Queen o' Sheba to come home with me, and stay at my house till King Solomon turned up. She didn't much relish the idee of staying with a slave,—as she would have it I was,—but I told her I didn't work for no one but myself, and I wasn't no common kind o' slave at all; so at last she give in, poor soul, and followed me as meek as a lamb through the hole, draggin' her big moose-skin—which was her coronation-robe, she said, and she couldn't leave it behind—after her, and Bluff growlin' at her heels like all possessed.
Well, I got her home, and gave her some supper, and set her in a cheer; and you never in all your life see any one so pleased. She looked, and looked, and you'd ha' thought this kitchen was Marble Halls like them in the song. It did look cheerful and pleasant, but much the same as it does now, after sixty years, little Dolly. And if you'll believe it, it's this very arm-cheer as I'm sittin' in now, that the Queen o' Sheba sot in. It had a flowered chintz cover then, new and bright. Well, she sat back at last, and drew a long breath.
"You have done well, faithful slave!" she said. "This is my own palace that you have brought me to. I know it well,—well; and this is my throne, from which I shall judge the people till the King comes."
This is what the boys would call "rather cool;" but I only said, "Yes, your Majesty, you shall judge every one there is to judge,"—which was me and Bluff, and Crummy the cow, and ten fowls, and the pig. She was just as pleasant and condescendin' as could be all the evenin', and when I put her to bed in the fourposter in the spare room, she praised me again, and said that when the King came she would give me a carcanet of rubies, whatever that is.
Just as soon as she was asleep, the first thing that I did was to open the stove and put her rags in, piece by piece, till they was all burnt up. The moose-skin, which was a good one, I hung out on the line to air. Then I brought out some clothes of Mother's that I'd kep' laid away,—a good calico dress and some underclothing, all nice and fresh,—and laid them over the back of a cheer by her bed. It seemed kind o' strange to go to bed with a ravin' lunatic, as you may say, in the next room; but I knew I was doin' right, and that was all there was to it. The Lord would see to the rest, I thought.
Next mornin' I was up bright and early, and soon as I'd made the fire and tidied up and got breakfast under way, I went in to see how her Majesty was. She was wide awake, sittin' up in bed, and lookin' round her as wild as a hawk. Seemed as if she was just goin' to spring out o' bed; but when she saw me, she quieted down, and when I spoke easy and soothin' like, and asked her how she'd slept, she answered pleasant enough.
"But where are my robes?" said she, pointin' to the clothes I'd laid out. "Those are not my robes."
"They's new robes," I said, quite bold. "The old ones had to be taken away, your Majesty. They weren't fit for you to wear, really,—all but the coronation robe; and that's hangin' on the line, to—to take the wrinkles out."
Well, I had a hard fight over the clothes; she couldn't make up her mind nohow to put 'em on. But at last I had an idee. "Don't you know," I said, "the Bible says 'The King's Daughter is all radiant within, in raiment of wrought needlework'? Well, this is wrought needlework, every bit of it."