It was somewhat rare in the slave States for servants to meet for religious purposes; insurrection might brood under such a cover. Mat, however, was so well known and so universally esteemed in his neighborhood, that he was allowed to hold his prayer-meetings every Sunday night.
It was to one of these that China went with her new-made friends. Nancy Carter's cabin was the meeting-house pro tem. It had been prepared for the occasion by an elaborate trimming of oak leaves and green boughs. Bouquets of flowers were interspersed with lights upon the preacher's stand. This invasion against white people's customs was due probably to the intense love which Afric's sons and daughters have for the "beautiful flowers."
Mat, tall and dignified always, seemed magnified in proportions and dignity when installed behind his stand of flowers and lights. His initial proceeding was invariably a great flourish of his white cotton handkerchief.
If Mat had a source of vanity deeper than another, it was of this above-mentioned article; and this, too, was so well known of him, that most of his presents consisted of handkerchiefs. He had, among his deposits, a good-sized box full of these useful and ornamental inventions. There was one from Lucy and Lizzie, four Sallies, three Dinahs, three Betties, two or three Janes, as many Anns, and hosts of others too numerous to mention. And every one of those donors looked steadily at the flourish of the preacher, if happily her own gift had come to the coveted honor.
The first prayer consisted of very large words very fervently uttered. This was comparatively brief, as a lengthy one for the whole world was to follow the first hymn.
Mat had adopted, of course, the custom of his superiors in the matter of singing. He read from the book the first two lines of the hymn, which the congregation seized and sung to the best of their ability. Two lines more were read, when music of voice, if not of words, became distinguishable.
Upon this occasion the preacher seemed troubled with unusual indistinctness of vision. He took his glasses from his nose more than once, violently rubbing them with his spotless handkerchief. Taking up his book for the third time, his eyes or his spectacles seemed still to be at fault. Perplexed and irritated, he exclaimed, unguardedly:
"Dog-gone-it! my eyes are dim; I cannot see to read this hymn."
The congregation supposing it all right, tuned up, and repeated it, though one would have been at great loss to make sense out of the myriad-syllabled confusion.
The preacher, surprised, attempted to explain. He said energetically, book still in hand: