"Seventy-two, Uncle Mose."
"Dat's ole, suah. Sebenty-two, sebenty-free, sebenty-foah, sebenty-five, sebenty-six, sebenty-seven, sebenty-eight, sebenty-nine—and your mudder? she was one ob de noblest lookin' ladies I ebber see. You reminds me ob her so much. She libbed to mos' a hundred. I bleeves she was done past a centurion when she died."
"No, Uncle Mose, she was only ninety-six when she died."
"Den she wasn't no chicken when she died. I know dat—ninety-six, ninety-seben, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one, two, free, foah, five, six, seben, eight—dar 108 nice fresh eggs—jess nine dozen, and heah am one moah egg in case I has discounted myse'f."
Old Mose went on his way rejoicing. A few days afterward Mrs. Burton said to her husband, "I am afraid we will have to discharge Matilda. I am satisfied she steals the milk and eggs. I am positive about the eggs, for I bought them day before yesterday, and now about half of them are gone. I stood right there and heard Old Mose count them myself, and there were nine dozen."
THE NEGRO BABY'S FUNERAL.
I was walking in Savannah, past a church decayed and dim,
When there slowly through the windows came a plaintive funeral hymn;
And the sympathy awakened, and a wonder quickly grew,
Till I found myself environed in a little negro pew.
Out at front a coloured couple sat in sorrow, nearly wild;
On the altar was a coffin, in the coffin was a child.
I could picture him when living—curly hair, protruding lip—
And had seen perhaps a thousand in my hurried Southern trip.
But no baby ever rested in the soothing arms of death
That had fanned more flames of sorrow with his little fluttering breath;
And no funeral ever glistened with more sympathy profound
Than was in the chain of teardrops that enclasped those mourners round.
Rose a sad, old coloured preacher at the little wooden desk—
With a manner grandly awkward, with a countenance grotesque;
With simplicity and shrewdness on his Ethiopian face;
With the ignorance and wisdom of a crushed, undying race.