"Anything, everything, Auntie, that you remember about the old days before the Civil War. Just what you've told your grand-daughter, May, and her friend, Alice, here, many times, is what I want to hear."
"Tell her, mamma," said Alice with a whoop of laughter, "about the time when your Missus sent you to the store with a note!"
"Oh that! Not that Missus?"
"Yes, Auntie that!"
"Well, I was just a little girl about eight years old, staying in Beaufort at de Missus' house, polishing her brass andirons, and scrubbing her floors, when one morning she say to me, 'Janie, take this note down to Mr. Wilcox Wholesale Store on Bay Street, and fetch me back de package de clerk gie (give) you.'
"I took de note. De man read it, and he say, 'Uh-huh'. Den he turn away and he come back wid a little package which I took back to de Missus.
"She open it when I bring it in, and say, 'Go upstairs, Miss!'
"It was a raw cowhide strap bout two feet long, and she started to pourin' it on me all de way up stairs. I didn't know what she was whippin' me bout; but she pour it on, and she pour it on.
"Turrectly she say, 'You can't say "Marse Henry", Miss? You can't say, "Marse Henry"!'
"Yes'm. Yes'm. I kin say. 'Marse Henry'!