An account of the execution of some pirates, which she had witnessed when a “gal,” was popular. She had a rhyme which condensed the details. The condemned were Spaniards:
Pepe hung, Qulo fell,
Felix died and went to ——
Mammy always gave the rhyme with awful emphasis.
She had had an experience before coming into our family, by purchase, which gave her easy precedence over all the mammies of all our friends. To be sure, it was an experience which the other mammies, as “good membahs of de chutch,” regarded as unholy; one which they congratulated themselves would never lie on their consciences, and of which poor Mammy was to die unshriven in their minds; for she never became a “sister,” so far as I ever learned.
But to us this experience was fruitful of many happy hours. Mammy had been tire-woman to Mrs. Gilfert, the reigning star of that date, at the old Marshall Theatre—the successor to one burnt in 1811.
The habit of the stock companies in those days was to remain the whole season, sometimes two or more, so Mammy had the opportunity to “assist” at the entire repertoire. It is one of the regrets of my life that I am not able to recall verbatim Mammy's arguments of the play, her descriptions of some of the actors, and her comments.
For some reason, when later on I wished to refresh my memory of these, Mammy had either forgotten them or suspected the intention of my asking. She ranked her experiences at the theatre along with her account of the adventures of the immortal “Mollie Cottontail” (for we did not know him as “Brer Rabbit”), and the rest of her lore, I suppose, and so could not realize that my maturer mind would care for any of them.
When I had subsequently made some acquaintance with plays, or read them, I recognized most of those described by Mammy. Some remain unidentified. Hamlet she preserved in name. Whilst she had no quotations of the words, she had a vivid recollection of the ghost scenes, and “pisenin' de king's ear.” She also gave us scenes in which “one uv them kings was hollerin' for his horse”—plainly Richard. Julius Caesar she easily kept in mind, as some acquaintance of her color bearing that name was long extant. I can still conjure up her tones and manner when she declaimed “'Dat you, Brutus?' An' he done stick him like de rest uv um; and him raised in de Caesar fam'ly like he wuz a son!”
The ingratitude of the thing struck through our night-gowns even then.
The period when Mammy's sway weakened was indeterminate. We boys after a while swapped places with Mammy, and made her the recipient of our small pedantries. I do not recollect, however, that we were ever cruel enough to throw her ignorance up to her.