"AUNT FANNY 'SPERSED DAT CROWD'."—Page 161.
Aunt Fanny kept herself liberally supplied with pocket-money, one of her chief sources of revenue being soap, which she made in large quantities and sold at high prices; especially what she called her "butter soap," which was in great demand, and which was made from all the butter which she did not consider fresh enough for the delicate appetites of her mistress and master. She appropriated one of the largest basement rooms, had it shelved, and filled it with soap. In order to carry on business so extensively, huge logs were kept blazing on the kitchen hearth under the soap-pot day and night. During the war, wood becoming scarce and expensive, "Mars' Charles" found that it drained his purse to keep the kitchen fire supplied.
Thinking the matter over one day in his library, and concluding it would greatly lessen his expenses if Aunt Fanny could be prevailed upon to discontinue her soap trade, he sent for her, and said very mildly:
"Fanny, I have a proposition to make you."
"What is it, Mars' Charles?"
"Well, Fanny, as my expenses are very heavy now, if you will give up your soap-boiling for this year, I will agree to pay you fifty dollars."
With arms akimbo, and looking at him with astonishment but with firmness in her eye, she replied: "Couldn't possibly do it, Mars' Charles; because soap, sir, soap's my main-tain-ance!"
With this she strode majestically out of the room. "Mars' Charles" said no more, but continued paying fabulous sums for wood, while Aunt Fanny continued boiling her soap.
This woman not only ordered but kept all the family supplies, her mistress having no disposition to keep the keys or in any way interfere with her.