It must be confessed, Brevet had had a little difficulty in winning his grandmother’s consent to this visit, but he had been able to meet every objection with such convincing arguments, that he had come off victor in the encounter.
“You see, Grandnana,” he had confidentially explained, with his pretty little half-southern, half-darkey accent, “I is a perfec’ stranger to them now I know, but then everything is strange to them down here, so don’t you s’pose it would be nice for me to be right there waiting at the gate, where I can call out ‘How’dy’ just so soon as ever they come in sight, and so for me not to be a stranger to them more’n the first minute, and have them find there are folks here who are very glad to know them right from the start? Besides, the lady—Mary Duff was her name—told me she just knew those little Bennetts would love to see me, and that she would surely expect me down to-day for certain.”
And so “Grandnana” succumbed, not having the heart to nip such noble hospitality in the bud, and at two o’clock precisely, the best carriage wheeled up to the door and Mammy and Brevet were quickly stowed away within it, to say nothing of a basketful of good things covered with a huge napkin of fine old damask. But who is Mammy? you ask, and indeed you should have been told pages ago, for no one for many years had been half so important as Mammy in the Ellis household. She is an old negro woman, almost as old as Joe himself, and when on the first of January, 1863, President Lincoln issued the proclamation that made all the slaves free, she was among the first to turn her back upon the plantation where she was raised, and make her way to Washington. It was there that Mrs. Ellis had found her, when in search of a nurse for her two little boys, and from that day to this she has been the faithful worshipper of the whole Ellis family. Now in her old age her one and only duty has been to care for Brevet, a care constantly lessening as that little fellow daily proves his ability to look out more and more for himself.
Brevet was not to be allowed, however, on the occasion of this first visit to their new neighbours, to make the trip alone. “Grandnana” had been very firm about that, somewhat to his chagrin, and so, if the truth be told, Mammy’s presence in the comfortable, old-fashioned carriage was at first simply tolerated. But that state of affairs did not last long. Try as he would, Brevet was too happy at heart to cherish any grievance, imaginary or otherwise, for many minutes together; and soon he and Mammy were chatting away in the merriest fashion, and the old nurse was looking forward to the unusual excitement of the day, with quite as much expectation as her little charge of seven. Had she not devoted the leisure of two long mornings of preparation to the shelling of almonds and the stoning of raisins, and then when the day came, with eager trembling hands, packed all the good things away in the great, roomy hamper that seemed now to look at her so complacently from the opposite seat of the phaeton? Yes, indeed, it was every whit as glad a day for Mammy as Brevet, and she peered out from the carriage just as anxiously as they drove up to the gate and Mary Duff came out to greet them. But Mammy had something to say before making any motion to leave the carriage.
“Are you quite sure, Miss, dat dis yere little pickaninny of ours ain’t gwine to be in any one’s way or nuffin?” she asked, bowing a how-do-you-do to Mary, and keeping a restraining hand upon Brevet.
“Oh, perfectly sure.”
“He done told us you wanted him very much,” but in a half-questioning tone, as though what Brevet “done told them” was sometimes “suspicioned” of being slightly coloured by what he himself would like to do, notwithstanding his general high standard of truthfulness.
“Brevet is perfectly right—we do want him very much,” Mary answered, heartily.
“Even if you have to take his old Mammy ‘long wid him, kase Miss Lindy wasn’t quite willin to ‘low him ter come by hisself?”
“And we’re very glad to see you, Mammy,” Mary answered cordially, and so the last of Mammy’s scruples, which were not as real as Mammy herself tried to think them, were put to rest, and Brevet was permitted to scramble out of the carriage, while Mary Duff lent a hand to Mammy’s more difficult alighting.