“A dog’s foot!” exclaimed Aunt Judy. “All the metaphysics under the sun wouldn’t make a pound of butter.”
“That’s a fact!” said Uncle Tim.
| [12] | Anonymous. |
XVI.
A TIGHT RACE CONSIDERIN’.
During my medical studies, passed in a small village in Mississippi, I became acquainted with a family named Hibbs, residing a few miles in the country. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Hibbs and son. They were plain, unlettered people, honest in intent and deed, but overflowing with that which amply made up for all their deficiencies of education, namely, warm-hearted hospitality, the distinguishing trait of southern character. They were originally from Virginia, from whence they had emigrated in quest of a clime more genial, and a soil more productive than that in which their fathers toiled.
Their search had been rewarded, their expectations realized, and now, in their old age, though not wealthy in the “Astorian” sense, still they had sufficient to keep the “wolf from the door,” and drop something more substantial than condolence and tears, in the hat that poverty hands round for the kind offerings of humanity.
The old man was like the generality of old planters, men whose ambition is embraced by the family or social circle, and whose thoughts turn more on the relative value of “Sea Island” and “Mastodon,” and the improvement of their plantations, than the “glorious victories of Whiggery in Kentucky,” or the “triumphs of democracy in Arkansas.”
The old lady was a shrewd, active dame, kind-hearted and long-tongued, benevolent and impartial, making her coffee as strong for the poor pedestrian, with his all upon his back, as the broadcloth sojourner, with his “up-country pacer.”
She was a member of the church, as well as the daughter of a man who had once owned a race-horse: and these circumstances gave her an indisputable right, she thought, to “let on all she knew,” when religion or horse-flesh was the theme.