“Oh, many years. I was a slave on the block, in Car’lina, and Marster Phil comed in and seen me, and pitied me like, and bid me off, and kep’ me from gwine South with a trader, an’ brought me home and sot me free, and I’ve lived with him ever since, an’, please Heaven, I will sarve him till I die, for all he’s done for me. Is you gwine to stay, Miss Overton?”
Edna told her that she was, and that she was sure she should like it very much if she could get something to do.
“You likes to work then, and so did Miss Maude, though she ’pears more of a lady than ’nough I’ve seen what wouldn’t lift thar finger to fotch a thing,” Becky said, and Edna asked:
“Who is Maude? Uncle Phil has spoken of her once or twice.”
“Why she’s Maude Somerton, from New York,” Becky replied; “and she came fust to Prospect Cottage, as they call a house way up on the hills whar the city gentry sometimes stay summers for a spell, and whar Miss Maude’s Aunt Burton was onct with her daughter called Georgie, though she was a girl.”
Edna was interested now, and moved a little nearer to Becky, who continued:
“I know precious little ’bout them Burtons, only they was mighty big feelin’, and Miss Maude was a kind of poor relation, I s’pects; leastwise she wanted to teach school, and Uncle Phil was committee-man and let her have it, and she was to board round, and didn’t like it, and went at Marster Phil till he took her in, though he hated to like pison, and it was allus a mystery to me how she did it, for he don’t hanker after wimmen much, and never could bar to have ’em ’round.”
Here Aunt Becky paused a moment, and taking advantage of the pause, we will present our readers with a picture which Aunt Becky did not see, else she would have known just how Maude Somerton persuaded Uncle Philip to let her have a home beneath his roof. The time, five o’clock or thereabouts, on a warm summer afternoon: the place, a strip of meadow land on Uncle Phil’s premises: the Dramatis Personæ, Uncle Phil and Maude Somerton: She, with the duties of the day over, wending her way slowly toward the small and rather uncomfortable gable-roofed house up the mountain-road, where it was her fate to board for that week, aye, for two or three weeks, judging by the number of children, who seldom left her alone for a moment, and who each night contended for the honor of sleeping with the “school marm.” He, industriously raking up into mounds the fragrant hay, and casting now and then a wistful glance at a bank of clouds which threatened rain; when suddenly, across the field, and bearing swiftly down upon him, came an airy form, her blue linen dress held just high enough to clear the grass, and at the same time show her pretty boots, with the Broadway stamp upon them, and her dainty white petticoat, whose tucks and ruffles were the envy of all the girls in Rocky Point, and the bane of the wash-woman’s life. Uncle Phil saw the apparition, and saw the tucks and ruffles, and thought what pretty feet Miss Somerton had, and what tall boots she wore, and wondered why she was coming toward him in such hot haste.
“Most likely some of those Beals’ boys have been raisin’ Cain, and so she comes to me as committee-man. I’ll be blamed if I don’t throw up the office, for I can’t have wimmen taggin’ after me this way,” he thought, and pretending not to see the young girl, now so near to him, he kept on with his raking, until right before his very face came the vision of blue and white, and a little, fat, dimpled hand was laid upon his rake, and a pair of soft, blue eyes looked up into his with something like tears in them, while a pleading voice told him how terrible it was to board round, to eat the best cake every day, to be company all the time, and never feel at home; besides, having from one to three children fighting to sleep with you every night, when you wanted so much to be alone. And then, still grasping the rake, Maude asked if she might stay altogether at his house, where everything was so nice, and cool, and quiet, and she could have a room to herself, undisturbed by children.
“You will, I know you will, Mr. Overton,” and she stopped for his reply.