The inconsistencies as to proprieties puzzled me then and have puzzled me ever since.
"Why mustn't I spin and churn, Milly?" I insisted. "Ain't I done tole you? Ladies don't nuvver do dem things."
"Then why can I help with the laces and muslins?"
"Cause—ladies does do dem things."
And so I became an expert blanchisseuse de fin, as it was the one household industry allowed my caste.
There was no railroad to bring us luxuries from the nearest town—Richmond—twenty-five miles distant, and we depended upon the little covered cart of Aunt Mary Miller. Aunt Mary and her husband, Uncle Jacob, were old family servants who had been given their freedom. They lived at the foot of a hill near our house, and down the path, slippery with fallen pine needles, I was often sent with Milly to summon Uncle Jacob, who was the coachman. He was very old, and gray, and always unwilling to "hitch up de new kerridge in dis bad weather." He would stand on the lawn and scan the horizon in every direction—and a dim, distant haze was enough to daunt him. Aunt Mary was allowed to collect eggs, poultry, and peacock's feathers from the neighbors, take them down to Richmond to her waiting customers, and return with sundry delightful things,—Peter Parley's books, a wax doll, oranges and candy for me, and wonderful stories of the splendors she had seen. She had other stories than these. One night "a hant" had walked around her cart and "skeered" her old horse "pretty nigh outen his senses"; as to herself, "Humph, I'se used to hants." "Where, Aunt Mary, tell me," I begged. With a furtive glance lest my elders would hear, she answered:—
"I ain't sayin' nothin'. Don't you go an' say I tole you anythin'. Jes you run down to the back of the gyardin as fur as the weepin' willer an' you'll know."
Of course I knew already what I should find beneath the willow. I had often stood at the foot of the two long white slabs and read: "Sacred to the Memory of Charles Crenshaw" and "Sacred to the Memory of Susannah Crenshaw." I knew their story. This had been their home. The brother had died early, and for love of him the sister had broken her heart. My sweet great-aunt Susannah! Had she not left a lovely Chinese basket—which I was to inherit—full of curious and precious things; a carved ivory fan, necklace, pearls, and amethysts, and a treasure of musk-scented yellow lace? Aunt Mary shook her head when I announced scornfully that I wasn't afraid of my Aunt Susannah.
"I ain't talkin'! Miss Susannah used to war blue satin high-heeled slippers. You jes listen! Some o' dese dark nights you'll hear sump'n goin' 'click, click.'"
"I know, Aunt Mary. That's the death-head moth. Milly says it won't hurt anybody, without you meddle with it."