It was not yet sunset; and as soon as we were again assembled upon the piazza, Halbert and Jessie, who were never still, asked permission to “run up to Uncle Dick’s, and tell the servants he was coming home.”
Mrs. Lansing made no objection; and then they proposed that I should accompany them. Feeling that a walk would do me good, I turned towards Mrs. Lansing, for her consent. It was given, of course; but had I known her better I should have detected a shade of displeasure on her face.
“You had better go too,” said she to Lina; but Lina was too listless and indolent, and so we went without her, little Jessie holding my hand, and jumping instead of walking.
“Eva’s mighty lazy,” said she, at last; “don’t you think so!”
“Who’s lazy?” I asked; and she replied—
“’Thar, I done forgot again, and called her Eva. Her name is Evangeline, and we used to call her Eva, until mother read a bad book that had little Eva in it, and then she called her Lina.”
“’Twan’t a bad book, neither,” exclaimed Halbert, stopping suddenly; “Uncle Dick said ’twan’t; but it made mother mad, I tell you, and now when she gets rarin’ he calls her Mrs. St. Clare.”
I needed no one to tell me that it was “Uncle Tom,” to which he referred, but I said nothing except to chide the children for their negro language.
“I know we talk awful,” said Jessie, brushing her curls from her eyes. “Uncle Dick says we do, but I mean to learn better. I don’t talk half like I used to.”
I could not help smiling in spite of myself upon the little creature bounding and frisking at my side. Uncle Dick seemed to be her oracle, and after looking around to make sure that no one heard me, I asked “who he was?”