“Well, Sally, I’m in fault, and I acknowledge it; I’ve been remiss; but I won’t let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t hurry; next year’ll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta Phelps!”
Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps on to the passage, and says:
“Missus, dey’s a sheet gone.”
“A sheet gone! Well, for the land’s sake!”
“I’ll stop up them holes to-day,” says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.
“Oh, do shet up!—s’pose the rats took the sheet? Where’s it gone, Lize?”
“Clah to goodness I hain’t no notion, Miss’ Sally. She wuz on de clo’sline yistiddy, but she done gone: she ain’ dah no mo’ now.”