“Why,” says the Colonel, “he's a young man yet, your uncle, only fifty-three. I've known older fools than he to go and do it. Eh, Ned?”
“Yes, marsa. Yes, suh. I've seed 'em at seventy, an' shufflin' about peart as Marse Clarence's gamecocks. Why, dar was old Marse Ludlow—”
“Now, Mister Johnson,” Virginia put in severely, “no more about old Ludlow.”
Ned grinned from ear to ear, and in the ecstasy of his delight dropped the Colonel's clothes-brush. “Lan' sakes!” he cried, “ef she ain't recommembered.” Recovering his gravity and the brush simultaneously, he made Virginia a low bow. “Mornin', Miss Jinny. I sholy is gwinter s'lute you dis day. May de good Lawd make you happy, Miss Jinny, an' give you a good husban'—”
“Thank you, Mister Johnson, thank you,” said Virginia, blushing.
“How come she recommembered, Marse Comyn? Dat's de quality. Dat's why. Doan't you talk to Ned 'bout de quality, Marsa.”
“And when did I ever talk to you about the quality, you scalawag?” asks the Colonel, laughing.
“Th' ain't none 'cept de bes' quality keep they word dat-a-way,” said Ned, as he went off to tell Uncle Ben in the kitchen.
Was there ever, in all this wide country, a good cook who was not a tyrant? Uncle Ben Carvel was a veritable emperor in his own domain; and the Colonel himself, had he desired to enter the kitchen, would have been obliged to come with humble and submissive spirit. As for Virginia, she had had since childhood more than one passage at arms with Uncle Ben. And the question of who had come off victorious had been the subject of many a debate below stairs.
There were a few days in the year, however, when Uncle Ben permitted the sanctity of his territory to be violated. One was the seventh of December. On such a day it was his habit to retire to the broken chair beside the sink (the chair to which he had clung for five-and-twenty years). There he would sit, blinking, and carrying on the while an undercurrent of protests and rumblings, while Miss Virginia and other young ladies mixed and chopped and boiled and baked and gossiped. But woe to the unfortunate Rosetta if she overstepped the bounds of respect! Woe to Ned or Jackson or Tato, if they came an inch over the threshold from the hall beyond! Even Aunt Easter stepped gingerly, though she was wont to affirm, when assisting Miss Jinny in her toilet, an absolute contempt for Ben's commands.