“Well, I wish I was a trick nigger, then,” remarked Dumps, gravely.
“Lordy, Miss Dumps, yer’d better not be er talkin’ like dat,” said Dilsey, her eyes open wide in horror. “Hit’s pow’ful wicked ter be trick niggers.”
“I don’t know what’s the matter with Dumps,” said Diddie; “she’s gettin’ ter be so sinful; an’ ef she don’t stop it, I sha’n’t sleep with her. She’ll be er breakin’ out with the measles or sump’n some uv these days, jes fur er judgment on her; an’ I don’t want ter be catchin’ no judgments just on account of her badness.”
“Well, I’ll take it back, Diddie,” humbly answered Dumps. “I didn’t know it was wicked; and won’t you sleep with me now?”
Diddie having promised to consider the matter, the little folks walked slowly on to the house, Dilsey and Chris and Riar all taking turns in telling them the wonderful spells and cures and troubles that Daddy Jake had wrought with his “trick-bags.”
CHAPTER XVII
WHAT BECAME OF THEM
Well, of course, I can’t tell you all that happened to these little girls. I have tried to give you some idea of how they lived in their Mississippi home, and I hope you have been amused and entertained; and now as “Diddie” said about her book, I’ve got to “wind up,” and tell you what became of them.
The family lived happily on the plantation until the war broke out in 1861.
Then Major Waldron clasped his wife to his heart, kissed his daughters, shook hands with his faithful slaves, and went as a soldier to Virginia; and he is sleeping now on the slope of Malvern Hill, where he
“Nobly died for Dixie.”