'I think you told me she is a native African?'
'Yes, she is. She was brought from Africa when a child. She has a dim recollection of her life there, and retains the language and superstitions of her race,' replied Preston, rising from the table. 'I think you had better go at once, for she retires early; Lucy and I will follow you as soon as we can.'
Joe's cabin was located nearly in the centre of the little collection of negro houses, and a few hundred yards from the mansion. It was of logs, a story and a half high, and had originally been only about twenty feet square. To the primitive structure, however, an addition of the same dimensions had been made, and as it then stretched for more than forty feet along the narrow bypath which separated the two rows of negro shanties, it presented quite an imposing appearance. A second addition in its rear, though it did not increase its dignity in the eyes of 'street' observers, added largely to its proportions and convenience.
The various epochs in Joe's history were plainly written on his dwelling. The original building noted the time when, a common field hand, he had married a wife, and set up housekeeping; the front addition marked the era when his industry, intelligence, and devotion to his master's interest had raised him above the dead level of black servitude, and given him the management of the plantation; and the rear structure spoke pleasantly of the time when old Deborah, disabled by age from longer service at 'the great house,' and too infirm to clamber up the steep ladder which led to Joe's attic bedrooms, had come to doze away the remainder of her days under her son's roof.
The cabin was furnished with two entrance doors, and suspecting that the one in the older portion led directly into the kitchen, I rapped lightly at the other. In a moment it opened, and Joe ushered me into the living room.
That apartment occupied the whole of the newer front, and had a cheerful, cosy appearance. Its floor was covered with a tidy rag carpet, evidently of home manufacture, and its plastered walls were decorated with tasteful paper, and hung with a number of neatly framed engravings. Opposite the doorway stood a large mahogany bureau, and over it, suspended from the ceiling by leathern cords, was a curiously contrived shelving, containing a score or more of well-worn books. Among them I noticed a small edition of 'Shakespeare,' Milton's 'Poems,' Goldsmith's 'England,' the six volumes of 'Comprehensive Commentary,' Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying,' the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' a 'United States Gazetteer,' and a complete set of the theological writings of Swedenborg. Neat chintz curtains covered the small windows, a number of brightly burnished brass candlesticks ornamented a plain wooden mantle over the broad fireplace, and a yellow-pine table, oiled and varnished, on which the 'tea things' were still standing, occupied the centre of the apartment.
Through an open door, at the right of the bureau, I caught a glimpse of the dormitory of the aged Africaness. As on the exterior of the building a brief epitome of Joe's history was written, so in that room a portion of his character was traced. Its comfortable and almost elegant furnishings told, plainer than any words, that he was a devoted and affectionate son. With its rich Brussels carpet, red window hangings, cosy lounge, neat centre table, and small black-walnut bureau, it might have been mistaken for the private apartment of a white lady of some pretensions.
It was a little after nightfall when I entered the cabin, but a bright fire, blazing on the hearth, gave me a full view of its occupants. Aggy, a tidily clad, middle-aged yellow woman, was clearing away the supper table, and Joe's mother was smoking a pipe in a large arm chair, in the chimney corner.
The old negress wore a black levantine gown, open in front, and gathered about the waist by a silken cord; a red and yellow turban, from underneath which escaped a few frosted locks, and a white cambric neckerchief that fell carelessly over her shoulders, and almost hid her withered, scrawny neck. She was upward of seventy, but so infirm that she appeared nearly a hundred. One of her lean, skinny arms, escaping from the loose sleeve of her dress, rested on her knee; and her bowed, bony frame leaned against the arm of her chair, as if incapable of sitting upright. Her features, with the exception of her nose, which curved slightly upward, were thin and regular; and her eyes were large, deep, and densely black, and seemed turned inward, as if gazing with a half-wondering stare at the strange mechanism which held together her queer frame-work of bones and gutta percha.