“I know I ain' gwine to tetch it. I done made it up onct to-day. An' I ain't got no mistis.”
The mammy turned on her.
“Umh'm! I thought so! I knows jest yo' kind. Well, de sooner you git out o' dis room de better for you. 'Cause if I lay my han' 'pon you I won't let you go till I'se done what yo' mammy ought to 'a' done to you ev'y day o' yo' life.”
She moved toward her with so dangerous a gleam in her sharp little eyes that “Miss Johnson” deemed it safest to beat a hasty retreat, and before bedtime had disappeared from the premises entirely.
In the kitchen the old woman had been equally strenuous. She had shown the cook in one evening that she knew more about cooking than that well-satisfied person had ever dreamed any one knew. She had taught the other maid that she knew by instinct every lurking place of dirt, however skilfully hidden, and, withal, she had inspired them both with so much dread of her two-edged tongue that they were doing their best to conciliate her by a zeal and civility they had never shown before.
For the first time the Graemes knew what comfort was in their new home.
“Well, this is something like home,” said Mrs. Graeme that evening as she sat by the lamp. “Why, I feel like little Ben. He said to-night, 'Mamma, Mammy brought old times with her.'”
“May she live forever!” said Graeme.
In time, however, Mrs. Graeme began to feel that the old woman was confining herself too closely to the house. She needed some recreation. She had not even been to church, and Mrs. Graeme knew that this was her chief delight.
Yes, she would like to go to church, she said, but she did not know “about dese fine chutches.” She did not like much to go on the streets. “Dere was too many strange folks around for her. Dey did n't keer nuthin' for her ner she for dem.” And it was “de same way, she reckoned, with de chutches. Dey wuz new niggers, and she did n't had no use for dem, nor dey for her.”