Finally one morning the news came that this woman, old Clara, was dead. Two women went to sweep her cabin and perform the last sad offices. They waited all day for the body to get cold. While sitting over the fire in the evening, one of them, happening to glance at a small mirror inserted in the wall near the bed, exclaimed: "Old Clara's laughing!" They went nearer, and there was a horrible grin on the face of the corpse! Old Clara sprang out of bed, exclaiming: "Git me some meat and bread. I'm most perish'd!"
"Ole 'oman, what you mean by foolin' us so?" asked the nurses.
"I jes' want see what you all gwine do wid my things when I was dade!" replied the old woman, whose "things" consisted of all sorts of old and curious spencers, hats, plumes, necklaces, caps, and dresses, collected during her various wanderings, and worn by a generation long past.
Among these old cabin legends we sometimes collected bits of romance, and were often told how, by the coquetry of a certain Richmond belle, we had lost a handsome fortune, which impressed me even then with the fatal consequences of coquetry.
This belle engaged herself to our great-uncle, a handsome and accomplished gentleman, who, to improve his health, went to Europe, but before embarking made his will, leaving her his estate and negroes. He died abroad, and the lady accepted his property, although she was known to have been engaged to twelve others at the same time! The story in Richmond ran that these twelve gentlemen—my grandfather among them—had a wine party, and toward the close of the evening some of them, becoming communicative, began taking each other out to tell a secret, when it was discovered they all had the same secret—each was engaged to Miss Betsy McC.... This lady's name is still seen on fly leaves of old books in our library,—books used during her reign by students at William and Mary College,—showing that the young gentlemen, even at that venerable institution, sometimes allowed their classic thoughts to wander.
CHAPTER III.
As soon as my sister and myself had learned to read and cipher, we were inspired with a desire to teach the negroes who were about the house and kitchen; and my father promised to reward my sister with a handsome guitar if she would teach two boys—designed for mechanics—arithmetic.
Our regular system was every night to place chairs around the dining-table, ring a bell, and open school, she presiding at one end of the table and I at the other, each propped up on books to give us the necessary height and dignity for teachers.