Tempest and Sunshine - Page 106/234

"What is it?" said Leffie, coming forward. "Have you got him a letter from

Kentuck?"

"I hain't got nothin' else, Miss Leffie Lacey, if you please," said

Rondeau, snapping his fingers in her face, and giving Aunt Dilsey's elbow

a slight jostle, just enough to spill the oil, with which she was filling

a lamp.

"Rondeau, I 'clar' for't," said Aunt Dilsey, setting down her oil can. "If

marster don't crack your head, my old man Claib shall, if he ever gits up

agin. Thar he is in his bunk, snorin' like he was a steamboat; and

marster's asleep upstairs, I reckon. Well, 'tain't no way to live. Things

would go to rack and ruin if I didn't sweat and work to keep 'em right end

up, sartin."

Aunt Dilsey was really a very valuable servant, and had some reason for

thinking herself the main spoke in the wheel which kept her master's

household together. She had lived in the family ever since Dr. Lacey's

early recollection, and as she had nursed him when an infant, he naturally

felt a great affection for her, and intrusted her with the exclusive

management of the culinary department, little negroes and all. His

confidence in her was not misplaced, for from morning till night she was

faithful to her trust, and woe to any luckless woolly head who was found

wasting "marster's" sweetmeats and pickles.

On the first hand Aunt Dilsey was very sensitive, for being naturally

active and stirring herself, "She," to use her own words, "couldn't bar to

see folks lazin' round like thar was nothin' to do, but to git up and

stuff themselves till they's fit to bust." She also felt annoyed whenever

her young master indulged himself in a morning nap. "Ought to be up," she

said, "and airin' hisself."

On the morning following the party, her patience was severely taxed in two

ways. First, Claib, her husband, had adhered to his resolution of sleeping

over, and long after the clock struck eleven he was sleeping profoundly.

He had resisted all Aunt Dilsey's efforts to rouse him. Her scoldings,

sprinklings with hot and cold water, punching with the carving fork, had

all proved ineffectual, and as a last resort, she put the baby on his bed,

thinking "that would surely fetch him up standin', for 'twasn't in natur

to sleep with the baby wollopin' and mowin' over him." Her master, too,

troubled her. Why he couldn't get up she couldn't see. "His breakfast was

as cold as a grave stun, and she didn't keer if 'twas. She had enough to

do 'tendin' to other affairs, without keepin' the niggers and dogs from

porkin' thar noses in it."