"Mammy!" said the privileged child, reprovingly, "I thought you were
too good a Christian to break the commandments in that way. You
shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain."
"Gracious! Sugar-pie! how you talk! Ef I don't call 'pon Him in time
of trouble, who can I ask to help me?" was the confident reply.
With no thought of any more formidable cause of outcry than a cramp
in the much-quoted spine, Mabel dreamed on sketchily and indolently,
enjoying the sight of the once-familiar process of building a
wood-fire, until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued
through the interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper
began to sing the low, drowsy tune, more suggestive of home-cheer
and fireside comfort than the shrill, monotonous chirp of the famous
cricket on the hearth. The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons
rested were next swept clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail,
and the architect of the edifice stepped back with a satisfied nod.
"I have often wished for a glimpse of one of your beautiful fires,
Mammy, since I have been in Albany," said Mabel, kindly. "Our rooms
and halls are all heated by furnaces. An open fireplace would be a
novelty to Northerners, and such a roaring, blazing pile of hard
wood as that, be considered at unpardonable extravagance."
"Humph! I never did have no 'pinion of them people." Phillis tossed
her turban and cocked her prominent chin. "It's all make money, and
save! save! If I was 'lowed to go with you, I'll be bound I'd see
you have sech things as you've been 'customed to. The new folks,
them what comed from nothin' and nowhar, and made every dollar they
can call their own with their own hands, don't know how to feel for
and look after real ladies."
"You are wrong about that, if you mean that I have not every comfort
I could ask. My house is warm in the bitterest weather, and far more
handsomely furnished than this. And I have many kind friends. I like
the Northern people, and so would you, if you knew them well."
"They send dreadful poor samples down this way, then," muttered
Phillis, significantly. "And, some as pertends to be somebody is
nobody, or wuss, ef the truth was known. Don't talk to me 'bout 'em,
Miss Mabel, darling! 'Twas a mighty black day for us when one on 'em
fust laid eyes upon Mars' Winston. You've hearn, ain't you, that my
house is to be tore down, and I'm to go into the quarters 'long with
the field hands and sich like common trash? So long as our skins is
all the same color, some folks can't see no difference in us."