Etext of Aunt Dice: the Story of a Faithful Slave:
by Nina Hill Robinson

AUNT DICE:
The Story of a Faithful Slave.
BY NINA HILL ROBINSON.
NASHVILLE, TENN.:
PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH.
BARBER & SMITH, AGENTS.
1897
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897,
BY NINA HILL ROBINSON, in the Office of the Librarian of
Congress, at Washington.

To My Beloved.

PREFACE.

IN this little work the author has preferred to follow the simple
truth, feeling all interweaving of fiction to be out of keeping with
the character of whom she has written. Beyond the use of a
story-teller's license, sparingly indulged in, this story is strictly
true.

As the details of everyday life would prove monotonous to the reader, the writer has given but
little more than the outlines of the life of this beloved servant; and though a short work--only a
recreative hour for the busy American--a simple story simply told, it is written as a tribute to the
memory of one who was faithful in all her ways, with the hope that her name may be honored
and remembered.

It is known that the speech of the Tennessee negro differs slightly from his extreme southern
kinsman. Aunt Dice was free from many of the stumblings or more uncouth forms of the negro
dialect. The word "master" she used with an "o" sound, as in "moster." Her way was her own;
she borrowed no form.

In conclusion, need it be said that it is yet the hope and desire of the Family to remove the sacred
dust of this honored servant to her chosen place of burial, where Caesar sleeps and the
Candlesticks bloom?

AUNT DICE: The Story of a Faithful Slave

CHAPTER I.

THERE are large possibilities to men of advantages. Material help is a needful stepping-stone to
greater things. A cultured faith in a higher life aids much toward the upbuilding of true worth
and character.

But to the unlearned, whose rude surroundings hold no uplifting element, to whom all books are
forever sealed--their lettering unmeaning hieroglyphics--what is the inspiration to be faithful, to
live uprightly? What is the stimulus to noble living and well-doing in the kitchens of the
ignorant?

Of such a one I write; nay, more than this: born a slave, she called nothing on earth her own.
Untutored, save in the monotonous drudgery of work, she found only one help in her way--the
simple story of the cross, sung in many a southern kitchen; the cross that uplifts wherever its
blessed shadow falls.

Of her simple, rugged life no poem need be woven, though other lives of lesser merit have found
a way into prose or rhyme; but from oft-repeated tales, the picked-up relics of her deeds and
sayings, the story of her life may at least prove her memory wholesome.

Neither can be told of her any great achievement or heroic action, for she had read no Psalm of
Life, no Book of Golden Deeds; but only one of humble plodding in the way of duty--the only
duty she saw plainly before her, that of faithfulness.

The neighboring slave owners of South Afton were curious when it was learned that William
Macy had purchased the negress Dice. Men of standing these were, in a well-to-do
neighborhood; of plethoric purses, of broad acres, and crowded negro quarters; men who
understood as well the requisites of negro barter, the buying and selling prices, as they were
familiar with the good points of their best horses. So the surprise was great when a generous sum
was paid for the negress by the owner of Riverside, known to be a wise and cautious dealer, who
for once overlooked the fact of her thirty-four years, her delicate frame, her deficiency in bone,
muscle, and flesh.

It was talked of at the river mills, the cotton gin, and the stillhouse among the hills, where men
grouped on Saturday afternoons to discuss the latest Whig news, the prices of negroes and
cotton, or the relative value of their own prime whiskies or peach brandies.

But the question was settled at last by a quiet answer: "I bought her to raise my children."
Perhaps the wise owner looked farther than bone  or muscle in the purchase of one to whom he
could trust his children. Hired to him for two years previous, he had found her trustworthiness
alone sufficient to uphold him in the sum paid for her.

It was in the winter of eighteen hundred and thirty-four (for she came in with the century) that
Aunt Dice, with her two children, was removed from a thinly-settled district twenty miles
distant, and installed as chief cook and general superintendent at Riverside plantation. Beyond
her kinship to Uncle Amos, the most trusty and best beloved of the slaves at Riverside, little was
known of her or hers, save that her mother was an excellent servant--a pioneer negress of Middle
Tennessee, brought from Virginia to the old Nashville Fort, in the perilous days of Indian
warfare. Her one other recommendation was that she was reared "in the house," an important
element in the purchase or sale of a negress: a raw "field hand" occupied no enviable position
beside the superior house girl; though in her case this did not greatly add to her value, as,
orphaned in early infancy, she was brought up amid surroundings so rude and uncouth that the
wonder was that her thirty-four years had found her true and worthy.

Concerning her own private griefs or wrongs Aunt Dice, as she was called, was strangely
reticent. If a burden were hers to shoulder, she preferred to bear it proudly alone. It was only
after years of intimacy that her new mistress, who delicately forbore to question her, learned that
her  former master kept an inn or hostelry noted for its drunken revelry and riotous living, where
travelers passed the night on their way to the "far west"; where negroes were bought and sold, or
gambled away; a home upon which civilization had hardly turned its light, or religion its morals.

"My mistis was a good 'oman," Aunt Dice had said. Perhaps the influence of this one "good
'oman" had much to do toward the shaping of her character; if so, then indeed the hard, bare
existence of this "mistis" was not passed in vain.

There were few places on the river so pleasantly situated as Riverside plantation. Commanding a
high and wide outlook, the farmhouse, with its painted whiteness, its airy rooms, and cool, wide
galleries, looked inviting enough through the surrounding maple grove and silver poplars. A
green lawn, ornamented with old-fashioned hedges of lilacs and pink crepe myrtles, sloped from
the steep bluff overlooking the river to the great double gate leading to the graveled drive by the
water's edge. Beyond the house, and farther up the river's side, were the negro quarters--a long
row of log cabins with double chimneys, and gardens attached. There was the "loom house,"
where the spinning and weaving were done. The cotton house stood near the great, wide barns,
and the "shop," with its charcoal forge. Across the "big branch," and still farther up the heights,
was the family cemetery, solemn with its waving cedars and white marble stones.   There were
broad bottom fields skirting the river's edge; rolling uplands sweeping out to the distant hills,
where the swine were fattened yearly; thence onward to the Barrens, where the cattle grazed.
Lucky the farmer who owned an outlet to the Barrens--a wild, almost unsettled country, rich only
in native grass and cool springs.

A fair domain it was, set like a jewel within Tennessean hills, fairer for its romantic scenery, its
native wilds; dearer for its crowning grace of southern life and cheer, which, alas! is but a
memory. The palmy days of Riverside have departed with the changing times; but the river that
swept around the old homestead, whose blue waters silvered in the sunshine and deepened in the
shade, laughing over rocky shoals and silent by the high, still cliffs--the river of "ye olden"
days--is still the same beautiful, lovely South Afton.   

CHAPTER II.

IT must be said that the whole plantation prospered under the steady rule of Aunt Dice. No
sooner was she domiciled by her broad cabin hearth than she began to enlarge her borders. Her
two years' experience as a hired underling held her in good stead: she understood her master's
needs, the merits and demerits of his slaves. Her second coming was an era of greater
importance. The negroes, from venerable Uncle Amos to the smallest pickaninny, realized that
she held a certain amount of power-- how much, she herself did not stop to question; she only
knew that she was grateful to a kind master, and she proved her gatitude with the remainder of
her long life. For her, too, the change was wholesome; whether from her comfortable
surroundings, or the kindly treatment of a new and much-loved master, it is hard to say, but
certain it was that the frail, sickly negress gained new strength as the years passed on, until the
neighboring slave owners reluctantly acknowledged her "the likeliest nigger on the whole creek."
Certainly she was the hardest worker: she often said there was not a lazy bone in all her body.
Not only did she help to tend and rear the children, but she was the ruling spirit of all the "hum
and hustle" of each busy day. Her first  duty was to sound the long, wild call of the hunting horn
from the back gallery, and dole out to the slaves their morning "drams" from the rum barrels in
the cellar before the day's work began.

It was here that she commenced her discipline. The long row of rollicking laborers filing up the
path from the quarters hastened to a quickstep under her searching glance. Not that she
disapproved of merriment. "Light hearts make light work" was a proverb at Riverside. But she
received no laggards at her early drink offerings. Uncle Jack knew to a nicety how long to hold
his inverted position, his usual obeisance to his morning dram. Aunt Dice heard complacently
the rhythmic "pitapat" of merry feet, the back-steps knocked out on the graveled walk, or the
jokes which were "swapped" in bantering tones and high good humor--a form of greeting that
varied little from morning to morning. 

"Hi, dar, nigger; stir yo' stumpers!"

"I takes no slack jaw dis mo'nin'. I walks right ober you 'reckly."

"Huh! ef yo' sasses me, I slams yo' down, chile, and puts my -foot on yo' haid. What's de
kon'squence ob dat?"

"A daid nigger! Dar'll be de kon'squence," is the cheerful response, while a succession of calls,
"hoorahs," and cries of "Hear dat nigger now!" "Ain't he a steppin'?" sounded clear and vibrant
on the still air.

On they came, Uncle Amos quietly in the lead,  baring his head to Aunt Dice's courteous "
Good-mo'nin'," Uncle Silas following with his usual plea for a "leetle drap mo' for de mis'ry in de
back," and the sharp response, "Step on, Silas; I want yo' room."

"Come, boys, be lively; daylight's burnin'." And the dusky column moved on with boisterous
shouts and musical calls, startling the sleepy cocks from the barnyard roosts, and echoing across
the river, which lay aflush under the eastern skies.

Aunt Dice, though supervisor, scorned an idle hour. It was she who prepared the well-cooked
meals for the master's table; who ordered provisions for the quarters; overlooked the
butter-making, the spinning and weaving, the cutting of garments, and the plain sewing for the
numerous slaves; never resting her weary feet until the last laborer went back to the fields after
the midday meal. Her master sometimes gently interfered: "Two hours' rest at noon, Dice. Man
and beast should rest in the heat of the day."

So when the songs of the laborers rang out from the fields, and the music of wheel and loom
went merrily on within, Aunt Dice went out to her cabin to take her well- earned rest and enjoy a
quiet smoke, her only indulgence. Her clean, fragrant pipe, used in unobtrusive hours, was never
offensive.

The master smiled over his purchase. He had made no mistake. Conscious of his trust, she soon
assumed control of the slaves--in a way. Respectful they certainly were; man, woman, and child 
were under her imperious sway, and well she ruled. Aunt Dice believed in discipline; while one
and all liked and admired her, she thought it best to instill into this liking a little of fear, to make
it wholesome. A lazy negro was her special detestation. She delighted in scattering a crowd of
dusky forms, basking, lizard-like, in the sun. Few of the laziest could stand the curious sidelong
glance of her sharp eyes, and many a step quickened under that searching look.

How far her rule extended even the master did not question, nor the mistress, who began to lean
upon her and trust to her guidance in the manifold duties of a southern matron. The rule of the
house--its domestic duties--it was hers to order. Her judgment was supreme, her counsel never
lost. The mistress, who as "Lady Bountiful" dispensed a wide charity, had only to say to her,
"Aunt Dice, our neighbor is sick; she needs help." Aunt Dice packed a full basket and started on
her errand of mercy, ministering to the poor in a way well fitted to heal a mind diseased. She fed
and nursed, she cleaned and swept, until the bare, rude homes of the poor whites shone bright
with the sick faces.

The master found himself referring to her wisdom: "Dicy, shall we kill hogs this week?"

"They's eatin' they heads off, Mos William, an' fat as mud."

The hogs were slaughtered.

"Is it time to plant potatoes, Dicy?"

"'Pears to me the groun's waitin' fur 'em,"  was the busy answer; and the potatoes were planted.

But Aunt Dice was also learning. Within her wholesome surroundings she found much to edify,
to help her. The nobility and upright character of her quiet master; the influence of the mistress,
a woman of kind speech and gentle manner; the pure atmosphere and well-ordered household; a
house whose God was the Lord, the Bible the most honored book in the quaint old bookcase; not
a home of pretentious superiority, but one of comfort and solid standing, of quiet, far-reaching
charity and Christian excellence--all these elements were unfolding within the stunted soul of
the slave an inherent germ of rare worth and beauty. Her observant eyes lost nothing that could
serve to strengthen or uplift her. Her hungry soul was feeding.

At night, within her cabin, sounds of mirth and revelry reached her from the quarters, the patter
of time-keeping feet, the music of fiddle, banjo, and ringing clevis pins. But the sound which
pleased her most, which reached her soul, came from the cabin of Uncle Amos, which was set
apart from the quarters in the shadow of the woods; a song whose volume of sweetness and
power poured its melody into every chink and crevice of the crowded quarters, hushing the ruder
noise of viol and uproarious mirth:

  "The mo' I pray the happier I am;
 I love God, glory, halleluiah!"   

On the still night air the melody trembled, soared, and reached from glory to glory:

  "This religion I believe,
 Glory, halleluiah! 
 Soon we'll land our souls up yonder,
 Glory, halleluiah!"

From Pisgah's top the venerable old patriarch sang:

  "Happy people ober yonder;
 Happy people ober yonder;
 Soon we'll meet dem ober yonder, 
 On de oder bright sho'."

Aunt Dice listened, and prayed. This seed, sown in good ground, rapidly grew and bore fruit. It
was shortly afterwards, as she lay on a sick bed in the early days of her invalidism, that Aunt
Dice found the wondrous peace and realized the power of redeeming love. The prayer of Uncle
Amos, strong in its faith, the piled-up promises before a throne of grace, the sure answer of
peace, proved to the purchased slave the"glorious liberty" of the soul. Aunt Dice was
"converted"; to put it plainly, she was born again. The old-time religion of Tennessee, which
blazed its way with the pioneer ax, that held its own through civil strife--the conflict of brother
with brother--that holds good to-day, was ever afterwards her stay and support. She received her
baptism from a white minister, held her membership with a white congregation, and drank the
wine in communion--an honored and trusted member.

The years passed on, and Riverside prospered.  The negro quarters broadened and throve under
the humane treatment of a kind, much-loved master. To say that Aunt Dice was a valued servant
and trusted friend but faintly expressed her worth. The children were objects of her especial
care. To tell of her stanch integrity, the faithful performance of a duty imposed upon her, it is
well to say that the pure morals she set forth, the homely advice she gave from her great,
untutored soul, live yet with the children's children.

Her cabin was a rendezvous for the little ones, which, as best remembered, was a log room
neatly papered, with a wide fireplace, and a loft overhead. In front, below the bluff, ran the river,
ever the friend and companion of Aunt Dice's solitary hours. From the back door a sunny garden
stretched, where it was her habit to sit and smoke her pipe in summer afternoons, where she
watched the broad sweep of the cotton fields, and the silver sheen of the river through the tall
sycamores that fringed its winding course. The cabin was comfortably furnished. The
old-fashioned "four-poster" was nearly hidden beneath a huge feather bed and drapery of the
snowy counterpane. A bureau with glass handles stood under a swinging mirror. A cupboard,
suggestive of tempting edibles, occupied one corner, while a swinging shelf full of quilts hung
from the ceiling.

Aunt Dice, sitting in her split-bottomed chair by the broad hearth, was a conspicuous and
familiar figure. She was of low stature, and, after her restored  health, just fleshy enough to hide
the waistband of her everyday apron. In her cotton gown she looked comfortable enough, but in
her "Sunday" costume she was more impressive--really grand-looking--wearing her black silk
gown and mantle, or black lace shawl, to advantage. Her face is more difficult to describe--a
strong, homely face, which, whether severe or pleasing, seemed to have "character" written in
every curve and expression. Her forehead was expansive, her eyes--not the prominent
African's--were rather small, and full of fire, whether twinkling in fun or in those curious
sidelong glances which reminded one to be up and doing. Her nose was slightly flattened; her
broad, roomy cheeks were smooth and glossy; but her mouth--well, those great lips could drop
an inch or more in a seemingly senseless stupor, or twist almost to each ear in a caricature of
which the children were often unfortunate victims; yet Aunt Dice was wont to draw them up
with such a majestic sweep, such grand curves, that her face was truly inspiring.

Beyond her faithfulness and upright qualities, her next distinctive characteristic was pride, not in
'herself alone, but in her surroundings--the fair possession of her beloved owners, and the
children, with whom she spared no pains to uphold the family standing. The "grown-up children"
she considered beyond her reach or discipline; she gave them the respect due their years, kept a
shining, spotless table, laundered their linen, critically  inspected their toilets--and their visitors.
But the three youngest--two girls in long pinafores, and a toddling boy-- she called her very own;
an appropriation they were not slow to learn, since it involved a tutelage peculiarly Aunt Dice's.

Annie Macy, gentle and quiet, was too much her mother's counterpart to often need reproof; but
long and many were the times that the merry, careless Katherine sat on the low stool by the
cabin hearth--to her, in truth, the stool of repentance. Both were careful to observe their manners
and bearing more closely in this humble cabin than in wider territory and greater freedom; for
well they knew that this was Aunt Dice's vantage ground for a lecture. A lecture--without
words--they most dreaded. If one sprawled in her chair in unfeminine negligence, Aunt Dice
would festoon herself on every available one in the room; if one were unfortunate enough to let
fall a silly remark or show an unwonted stupidity in Aunt Dice's presence, she would literally
double herself on the low stool, showing a dull, expressionless face, her great lips dropping,
quivering, until from sheer pity she would laugh suddenly, lay her black hand on the delinquent
head, and say with tender emphasis: "Don't think Aunt Dice is an ole fool, chile." Now when she
laughed, remember, she laughed all over; her whole body caught the enthusiasm of those short
metallic sounds-- quickly over; but oh, how she enjoyed it! What a light in those small,  dark
eyes! What a glow over the dark face, which was neither a yellow nor a gingerbread color, but a
truly black. Her tears were something like her laugh--a quick, convulsive sobbing, short sounds
of grief; then her face was its own, its cheerfulness predominant.

The boy, whom she unceremoniously dubbed Sam--or Sammy, as occasion required--was not so
easily managed; though, strange to say, she loved him most--a love he returned with all his
might. From his crawling age he loved the space of her broad bosom, the shelter of her arms; and
many a journey did he take astride her neck to the cotton fields, whither she went on her quiet
tours of inspection. As a toddler he was ever at her heels, though in her cabin he soon learned the
usage of the stool, and was often put sobbing in the white bed after a wholesome spanking, when
the storm in his blue eyes had burst in unusual violence. His awakening, however, found a solace
and recompense sufficient even for him: the cupboard doors were as wide open as the arms of
his dark monitress.

"Whar do the chile git his temper?" was her frequent query. "Not from Mos William, nur Miss
Mary."

Many a lesson in manners and morals did she teach the children. Her natural instincts of true
courtesy and refinement were uniformly correct . She especially detested a giggle, and never
forgave a woman she knew for a rather boisterous  sneeze in church. Indeed, her sharp eyes were
ever quick to detect a breach of etiquette or a charm of personal manner.

Still, her cabin had other attractions. Aunt Dice was wise. She was careful to gloss over the
irksome effect of her "preaching." Though she never tolerated a ghost story, being free from the
superstition of her race, she kept in store a number of Indian tales for the appetite of the little
folk, and stories of wolves which howled about her cabin in the early days of the century.

When the girls were old enough for school, Aunt Dice made them sing their "b-a ba's" to her.
While she listened gravely, and thought them prodigies of learning. When their samplers,
worked in gay crewels, were brought to her, she inspected them critically: "Yours'll do, Miss
Anne; that's putty well done. You mus' have one now in silk, an' hang in mistis' room."

Over Katherine's sampler her long lip quivered and dropped.

"You don't like it, Aunt Dice!" cried the offender, almost in tears.

"It's sorter so, Katherine--only sorter. Them letters may do well 'nough; but I ain't neber seen yit
red leaves an' blue roses."

Aunt Dice ruled. The truth was plain. She had probed her way into the very hearthstone of her
mistress's household; but she never repelled or nauseated one by a close intimacy. Cleanly in
speech and person, her nature was strong and  sweet, her influence stimulating. Under her care
children were safe.

The master found for her a wider field of usefulness. The cabin connecting with hers by the
double chimney was set apart for her use, and it was usually filled with motherless slaves,
children whom the kind master had picked up from less fortunate homes; outcasts, vagrants,
with little reputation to lose and much to gain. The master stood often at her door with a new
purchase: "Dicy, take this boy to your cabin. Teach him to bathe and be clean. Teach him how to
live."

Stimulated by her master's confidence, Aunt Dice began to wield a powerful influence; not only
among her orphaned charges, but throughout the quarters she taught in homely language the
reward of virtue, the excellency of honest, upright living.   

CHAPTER III.

AUNT DICE had her own romance, however; or her sorrow, as it seems more fitting to term a
negro's tale of love. Few guess the tragedy that lies buried beneath the stoical exterior of negro
life: bravely bearing their domestic troubles, even cheerfully taking them up as their allotted
portion.

The master was somewhat surprised when Aunt Dice came to him one Christmas eve, and asked
his consent to her marriage with C`sar, a handsome, stately negro from a neighboring
plantation.

"I am sorry to hear this, Dicy," he said slowly; and perhaps this was the most lengthened advice
he had ever given her. "I hardly like the negro. He is too great a beau among the women; too
fond of gadding about. However, I shall do the best I can for you."

C`sar was ambitious. The beau of the colored community, the gallant of every social gathering,
he had looked about for years for a suitable helpmeet--a "quality nigger," whose position would
insure him a promotion to a higher standing. His inordinate vanity suggested Aunt Dice to
him--a power at Riverside, and already an aristocrat to her finger-tips--as a means to this end. As
her husband he would acquire a pre%minence among   his own which would place him on a
higher scale as a--gentleman. Riverside, too, was a fair field for his ambition in a business way;
that is, his possible purchase and position as overseer.

It was evident in a quiet way that Aunt Dice "favored" C`sar. She approved of his spotless linen,
his polite address, his elegant manners. She was attracted. His delicate attentions pleased her.
She graciously consented when he asked, with the bow of a Chesterfield: "Lady, will you hab de
goodness to 'low me to 'scort you to chu'ch?"

Aunt Dice, sitting at the rear of the "white meetinghouse," could not help but notice that C`sar
led all his colored brethren in grace and deportment, a steady dignity that with all his faults
never failed to command Aunt Dice's respect.

The master made good his promise by buying C`sar; perhaps he did not tell Aunt Dice the stern
talk he received from his new master, when he was promised the hand of the favorite slave.

So they were married. A great feast was spread, one that the darkies long remembered. Uncle
Jack stood on his head until his strained sinews reminded him of a more convenient
performance. Uncle Silas forgot his aches, and "limbered up" for the occasion. The scraping of
fiddles, the tuning of banjos, the jingle of clevis pins, told of a breakdown for the late festivities.

In the mistress's own parlor they stood before the white minister while he read the beautiful
formula of the marriage ceremony. C`sar was  resplendent in a suit of broadcloth, ruffled linen,
and white satin waistcoat. From the top of his carefully carded hair to the tip of his polished boot
he was immaculate. Aunt Dice, clothed in pure white, and not uncomely, was quiet and thankful
for the many kindnesses conferred upon her by the white people, and for the blessing laid upon
her head under the trembling hands of Uncle Amos.

C`sar proved a kind husband in many respects; indeed, he always observed toward his wife a
courteous bearing and outward show of greatest deference and respect. He executed the honors
of his cabin with all the elaborate manners of an old-school gentleman, and the careful
hospitality of a southern host. He himself was treated with some distinction as the husband of
the princess regent: his meals were served on a white cloth in the master's kitchen, his morning
drams from the family sideboard. Gifted with quick intelligence and business-like tact, he was
trusted with yearly sales of produce, and never failed his master in accurate accounts and
profitable transactions. Promoted to overseer, he indulged his love of pomp and display, and
made a stately figure in the cotton fields astride his master's handsome black horse, or riding
with conscious superiority beside the great wagons as they rolled into Nashville, laden with the
generous harvestings.

This last purchase proved a remunerative one. C`sar was a valuable slave. But the master's
misgivings proved too true. C`sar was fickle.  His shallow nature found no rest beside the deep,
still fount of his wife's love and faithfulness. Married life for him had hardly begun before he
donned his tall silk hat and renewed his gadding about--a veritable flirt to the day of his death.

Aunt Dice bore her wrongs in silence. None ever heard her complain. There was only a closer
application to duty; a noticeable tenderness and devotion to children; an unconscious leaning
toward the gentle mistress, who answered the mute appeal with unstinted sympathy.

C`sar was still an object of grave consideration with Aunt Dice. His wants were attended to
with studied care; his silk hat and black clothes always in readiness; his snowy, ruffled shirts the
wonder and admiration of his many dusky friends. But her affections settled more surely,
perhaps, around her own children, a son and daughter; particularly her son, Charley, who was
growing up to manhood, and who, as the unfolding years proved, brought upon her the keenest
trial of her life.

Charley was a bright-skinned youth, with jetty curls, and eyes that sparkled with such changeful
lights that no one could tell what lay beneath the glittering surface. "The devil is in 'em," said his
playmates.

That Charley was "rapid and onsteady" Aunt Dice realized with sorrow. Moreover, his
companionship with Sam, the youngest born of her beloved master, caused her constant
uneasiness. How far these boys ventured into mischief or danger,   Aunt Dice could not
determine. They tamed wild colts and broke the oxen; they hunted, fished, swam, played, and
scuffled. Aunt Dice detested this scuffling, which often ended seriously. Charley was ever sullen
and hard to control, but Sam, her nursling, had lately begun to measure lances with her and
declare his rights as the young master of Riverside. These bold declarations, however, had only
ended ignominiously for Sam. She found them one day--Sam and Charley--in a hand-to-hand
encounter, rolling and scuffling on her cabin floor.

"What's the cause o' this?" she demanded in a quiet, stern way, which sent Charley cowed to his
corner. Sam stood up straight and faced her with his stormy, blue eyes.

"He told me a lie. If he lies, he'll steal. I told him so."

"Don't be so sho' o' that, Sammy. Come here and set down."

Again they measured lances. Sam met her keen look boldly.

"Don't call me 'Sammy.' Call me 'Mos Sam'--Aunt Dice--I--"

Aunt Dice led him by the ear with no gentle hand to the stool in the opposite corner.

"Set yo'se'f down thar, twell you fin' yo' manners. I'll call you 'Mos Sam' whenever you 'sarves it,
chile--whenever you 'sarves it. O, Sam," her voice dropping suddenly, "why ain't you like Mos
William?"

"I can't be like father!" cried Sam wrathfully  from the stool which he was careful not to leave. "I
never can be like him."

"It 'pears to me, Sammy," Aunt Dice continued, "that you've rode ever' calf on the place, an'
lamed up the colts, an' you're jist a killin' off all ole mistis' geese. I throwed a gander in the river
t' other day, an' a goose to- day. Who is it, you or Charley?"

Mos Sam caught the wicked sparkle in Charley's eyes, and was silent. Aunt Dice looked the
guilty culprits over.

"You've allus tried to shiel' Charley, chile, but lis'en to me: keep way f'om him; he ain't no fit
comp'ny fur you."

Mos Sam wriggled on his stool. Charley dug his toes in the ashes on the hearth and eyed his
mother sullenly.

Aunt Dice picked up her knitting. Out of doors the sun shone brightly; the birds called and
whistled; the river rippled on its way and silvery trout leaped up from its blue waters, gleaming
in the sunlight. Farther up the bluff a crowd of negro boys plunged headlong into the cool depths
of the "big hole," their laughing whoops and "dar ye's" sounding tantalizingly clear to the two
captives within.

Mos Sam turned his eyes from the shining stretch of river and sought the calm glance of Aunt
Dice over her busy needles: "Mammy, I'm hungry."

Aunt Dice opened wide her cupboard doors: "Here, chile, go 'long now. Stop yo' fightin' an' be a
man," she said--to the flying heels which disappeared around the corner of her cabin.   

CHAPTER IV.

CORNSHUCKING! Not the New England "husking bee," famed in song and story, when
stalwart youths and rosy maidens were wont to meet and dance on rude barn floors after the busy
husking; when the fortunate finder of a red ear of corn tendered his prize to his lady love, the
one with whom he "kept company." Oh no! but the noisy, merry cornshucking of the ante-bellum
South, when negroes held high carnival amid swinging ears of corn and around the laden table of
the harvest feast; when master and mistress bowed cheerfully to the grotesque rule of the
merrymakers for a season--the swift-winged hours of the cornshucking night.

The negro's highest ideal of enjoyment has its necessary accompaniment of a feast. Second only
to the Christmas festivities at Riverside, with the array of baked sweetmeats, the crammed
stockings of "goodies," the bowls of creamy eggnog, the happy "Chris'mas gif's," was the yearly
cornshucking, with its merry misrule and harvest cheer. Next in turn came the hog-killing in
frosty November, where visions of sparerib pies and backbone stews were realized and enjoyed.
The sugar-making in February broke the torpor of winter; and lastly, the wheat harvest in June  
brought the busy reapers, whose sickles swung amid the yellow grain to the beat and measure of
their harvest song, while the "Bob Whites" called through the livelong day. Within a shady
inclosure, kept cooler still by swathings of wet green leaves, was the keg of whisky, no less a
feature of the summer harvest than the savory dishes served at the quarters, where the dinner
horn rang a suggestive sound that the "big pot was put in the little one."

"Cornshucking, boys!" shouted to the laborers at supper in the quarters' kitchen at Riverside
brought forth a slapping and beating, a whoop and call, a general stampede of broganed feet
under the kitchen table.

"Dram, dram; oh, dat bottle!" rolled from a pair of lusty lungs.

"Stop dat noise; wait twell yo' time come."

"Barbecue, barbecue; ham an' turkey! Possum an' taters; chicken stew! Hustle, boys, hustle!"

Preparations began. On the next day invitations went flying across the country, up and down the
river, to the colored acquaintances of neighboring plantations. On this particular occasion,
C`sar, who omitted no chance to celebrate his high position, found this a convenient time to
illustrate his authority and display his wisdom as a general manager. Pigs, lambs, and a tender
calf were slaughtered, and lay roasting slowly over hot coals in the trenches. The hills were
scoured for game, the river dragged for fish; chickens, turkeys,  and ducks were sacrificed, while
at the quarters negro women stirred their bowls of sweetened dough, "whipped" their frosting, or
tended the ovens of rich, sweet corn lightbread.

Aunt Dice suspended her rule and smiled over the merry quips and quirks of the waiting women,
the antics and pranks of the pickaninnies. She spread the long tables with clean white linen, and
piled them to fullness with jellies, custards, and dainty furnishings of her own handiwork--not
forgetting, however, to lay by a generous store for the schoolboy Sam, who was taking his first
lessons in life under the uncertain favor of a pedagogue's rule. His dinner bucket, Aunt Dice
considered, was naturally his greatest consolation since he had arrived at the age of pies, tarts,
and flaky pastry. She was wiser than she knew. The schoolboy's heart beat some of its truest
throbs for her when he opened his well-packed dinner pail after a trying lesson in syntax.

But the cornshucking!

At nightfall the steady incoming of the invited guests crowded from over the hills and up the
valleys, by twos and threes on horseback and muleback; by the dozen in heavy, lumbering
wagons; by the half dozen in swift-gliding canoes. The work began. The heaps of corn, piled
high in the cribs, dwindled surely under the strong hands of the shuckers. C`sar, ever mindful of
an opportune moment to display his superior excellence, stepped grandly in his best clothes from
crib to crib,  ordering his troop of busy boys in gathering the huskings, or stowing the corn into
barrels. Old men passed the compliments of the day or related their experiences, replete with
wisdom. Young men "swapped" their jokes, or bantered for shucking races in braggadocio-like
tones. A low, monotonous chanting slowly gathered strength as the dark, smart faces swayed
back and forth under the gleaming lamplight:

  "Th'ow it up, shuck it up--

 Corn pile, corn pile!

 Shuck it up, round it up--

 Corn pile!"

Louder grew the singing; musical intonations, a call, a beat, a whistle, touched the chorus into
life:

  "Th'ow it up, shuck it up--

 Corn, corn, corn pile, corn!

 Shuck it up, round it up--

 Corn, corn pile, corn!"

The golden ears swung high, swung low. Dusky forms swayed to and fro, while high above the
din floated the melody of the cornshucking songs, rising, falling, swelling in perfect measure.

Pickaninnies reveled in the shuck piles. Pickaninnies scampered from barn to quarters' kitchen,
and stared with wide-eyed wonder at the fancifully decked tables and huge trays of smoking
meats. Sounds of life and bustle at the quarters reached the workers in the cribs, while odors of
juicy meats drifted to them from the dying coals in the trenches.   Faster flew the busy bands.
The yellow corn swung low, swung high. The sleepy birds- twittered from the trees. The startled
king of the barnyard dunghill rang his clarion call at ten o'clock. A hundred voices flooded the
air with music, widening, swelling, pouring into the homes of neighbors, far and near, rocking
the babies to sleep; floods of music, in resonant bass and glorious soprano; a note, a call, a
whistle filling in the measure harmoniously. The hearty cheer of the opening lines blended well
with the repeating chorus:

  "Work away, boys;  Heave-ho!

 Sing away, boys;

 Heave-ho!"

Words of their own improvising did not disturb the steady rhythm:

  "Gimme dat co'n year;

 Heave-ho!

 Th'ow me dat co'n here;

 Heave-ho!"

  "Fetch up dar, nigger;

 Heave-ho!

 Limber up, nigger;

 Heave-ho!"

Uncle Amos, though hardly in his element, worked steadily from his corner in the great barn.
Duty, not inclination, called him there. He took no part in the singing: those songs were not
religious ones, therefore he failed to respond to the riotous music. A song of redeeming love
would  have fired his old eyes and made nimble his fingers, which all these merry jingles had
failed to do. Nevertheless, he endured patiently, sure of a halleluiah chorus in his honor before
the carnival ended. Uncle Amos knew that throughout the quarters his venerable white head was
universally respected. One and all did him reverence, but never more so than when in his walk
among them, as if treading the border land of another world, they sang sometimes in smothered
tones, "Ole man, ole man, yo' head's gettin' nappy," followed by a burst of applause from lusty
throats: "Yes, my Lord! an' my soul's gettin' happy." Charley was, as usual, the imp of the
occasion; an imp of the evil one himself, so thought many who had more than once borne his
overbearing insolence and sly trickery. He coupled his merry buffoonery with a cunning which
served him well in shirking his duty. The harvest feast was his to enjoy, not his to serve. He
walked the joists of the barn, swung head downward, and many a well-aimed ear of corn struck
the woolly head of a busy worker.

That Charley presumed upon his honored relationship the men of the quarters felt deeply. There
were none so bold as to inform Aunt Dice that with all her discipline, her moralizing and
instruction, she had reared one so badly. Their well-meant sympathy and deep respect for her 
kept them silent. Perhaps Aunt Dice realized her failure more than they knew, though as usual
her mantle of proud reserve shielded her from curious questions and unpleasant advice.

But little cared Charley for their liking or dislike as he swung high among the rafters, whooping,
calling, or blowing his flute-like canes. He jeered at the older and bantered the younger men, and
wound up his antics by stepping coolly in front of the master himself, who looked in
occasionally, and executing a jig of fantastic figures with wonderful rapidity.

"Bless dat boy!" said Uncle Jack cheerfully.

"He needs a tech o' Moses' rod," snarled Silas, whose ear smarted from a recent blow.

"He sho' is a hard boy," declared Steven, whose wisdom was seldom questioned.

"Dat he is!" responded a chorus of emphatic voices.

"But you is got dat up wrong, Uncle Silas, suh," continued Steve, who considered no meeting
complete without an argument. "I ain't neber hear nothin' 'tall 'bout Moses' rod; but Sol'mun do
p'intedly say in fust Ginisis, when he was libin' at--"

"Normandy," interpolated Jack.

"At Jerushalem, dat ef you spar de rod you sho' spile de boy. Ain't dat so, Uncle Amos?"

"Do your own arguin'," said Uncle Amos.

"Where is Normandy, Jack?" queried Sam, an amused listener from the window.   "Now listen at
young moster!" exclaimed Jack busily. "I don't 'zackly 'member, suh, whar dat kentry is; I
suttenly see it in my trabels, some'r's 'long 'bout Novy Scotia, Ontario, or de Lowlands," he
concluded, with all a negro's fondness for musical names.

"Now to 'clude my disc'urse," persisted Steven, who could read laboriously: "f'om de 'casion o'
Uncle Amoses last demark, it natchelly comes to min' dat to argefy we mus' hab a toler'ble
knowledge of de Bible; dat is, to 'lustrate, ef we steal an' lie--I say ef--how cum us to know de
wrong, les'n de Bible speshelly say so. So de kon'squence is, an' de natchel impersition mus' be,
dat to be saved inter de kingdom come, de Bible mus' p'int de way. How's dat, Uncle Amos?"

"I don' know nothin' 'bout de Bible, 'cep'n what de white folks say," said Uncle Amos.

"Den, suh, de question is, how cum you know you'se bawn ag'in?"

"I wunst wus blind, but now I see," said the old slave simply.

"Das so, das so," said wise Steven.

The shuffling of feet in the cribs, the triumphant cheering, told of the last "rounding up." The tall
clock in the master's dining room pealed the hour of twelve.

"Dram, dram; oh, dat bottle!" sang the workers.

Charley, from his high resting place, made a monkey spring for Silas's aching back, and bounded
out the door to be first at the feast.   Uncle Amos quietly left his corner as the last heap of corn
was rapidly disappearing. He found his way to the quarters where the waiting tables stood, and
C`sar waited also to do the honors of Riverside.

"Aunt Dice, tell Mos William to hide--dey's nearly done."

On such occasions the master little relished the demonstrative affection of his slaves--a
ceremonial ride three times around his dwelling on the hands of a stalwart pair of leaders. He
chose to "hide" after ordering a keg of his best brandy to the feast.

"Dram, dram; oh, dat bottle!" On they came in a column of two abreast, marching to the stone
steps of the back gallery; but the master's significant absence and a word from Aunt Dice turned
the column with noisy cheering back to the quarters.

And such a feast! Barbecues, brown and juicy, from a rabbit to a fat porker. Fish, broiled, baked,
and fried; opossum and sweet potatoes; ducks, geese, and turkeys, roasted and stuffed; enormous
chicken potpies; gallons of steaming coffee; mounds of frosted cakes; piles of puddings, jellies,
and elaborately trimmed pies!

The master and his household stood smiling in the background. Uncle Amos lifted his hands and
praised the "good God fur de blessin' of de harvus' feas', fur de kin' ole moster an' mistis, an' de
glory of His name."

The feast began. Negro wit flowed freely.  Negro women dressed in smart clothes served from
the heaped-up side tables, under the quiet orders of Aunt Dice.

Two hours afterwards the scraping fiddles and beating feet signaled the grand finale. The
"halleluiah" chorus, which was not forgotten, aroused Uncle Amos from his morning nap.

The galloping horses churning the river, the swish of canoes, the soft stroke of paddles, the
shouts and calls, proclaimed the hour of dawn and the departure of the guests.

With the sunrise Aunt Dice stood at her post by the rum barrel and kindly greeted the advancing
row of laborers. C`sar sat his horse like a king. The cornshucking was over.   

CHAPTER V.

THE eldest son of the house was married. The master settled him on a plantation several miles
up the river, and Charley was given to him as part of his marriage portion, which was a relief to
Aunt Dice, as he disturbed the quarters with a quarrelsome, dictatorial disposition.

Uncle Amos, too, though old in years, followed the nursling of his heart with the same devotion
as when, in his younger days, he had followed his old master, then a tender stripling, from far-off
Virginia.

Two years were spent in busy life. Aunt Dice spared no pains to uphold the open hospitality of
prosperous Riverside. She spread a tasteful and bounteous table. The old-fashioned sideboard
glittered with crystal goblets, bowls of white loaf sugar, and quaint decanters of wine and
brandy, for the refreshing of guests and numerous callers--a time-honored custom, now happily
abolished.

The elder daughters, two, were married and "settled in homes of their own," Aunt Dice said
proudly. The children, Anne and Katherine, were well provided for. New lands were added to
Riverside, new farms bought, and Mos Sam was known now as the young master.   Mos Sam
had earned his title at last--quite deservingly, Aunt Dice thought, though she still brought him to
his senses occasionally, when his hot, imperious temper flashed from the storm of his eyes.
Charley no longer urged him on. The fat steers chewed their cuds in peace; the colts frisked and
played in the pastures; the geese recovered their dignity and breasted the blue waves of the river
with their wonted calmness.

Mos Sam was wrestling with mightier questions. He pored over dry books of chemistry, he
conned his Latin verbs, he battled with his geometry, under the threatening rod of the Yankee
schoolmaster.

"Dat Yankee school-teacher! Whar he come f'om?" asked Aunt Dice suddenly, after he was duly
installed at Riverside as a permanent boarder.

"From Vermont," answered Sam, shortly.

"Whar's dat?"

"Away up north."

"Furriner?"

"Oh no, Aunt Dice; he's an American."

"He talk cur'ous," she said, musingly, "an' he make too free wid de niggers. Got any niggers?" she
asked quickly.

"Yankees don't believe in niggers; or rather, they don't believe in--slavery," stumbled Sam, with
a southerner's reluctance for the word. "They hold for equality."

"Hub! fine ekals niggers be--fur gen'l'mun an' ladies. Who waits on 'em?"   "The Yankees? They
wait on themselves commonly, or hire white hands."

"Humph! I mistrus' him," she said, emphatically. "I'll sho' speak to Mos William 'bout him. He
furgits his learnin' when he tries to beat it into you--an' his raisin'."

"I'll whip him, Aunt Dice, some day."

Aunt Dice laid her pipe on the shelf.

"Mos Sam, outside o' his whuppin' you, can't ye all see how he's a follerin' 'long o' Miss
Kath'rine--totin' of her books to school, sailin' 'bout in the skyft together, an' a fillin' of her han's
wid flowers an' sich like? Who can tell what's in dat chile's head; an' what would she do widout
niggers to wait on her?"

But Mos William smiled over Aunt Dice's warning, and refused to part with the Yankee
schoolmaster. Good schools were rare in youthful Tennessee.

Aunt Dice was comforted somewhat. Mos William was wise; he seldom made mistakes. Mos
Sam was certainly on the mend--but no niggers! What sort of folks could that Yankee have? She
would keep an eye upon him.

The old house echoed to the sounds of merriment and pleasant life. The quarters flourished.
Swarms of negro boys fished and swam in the river; swarms of pickaninnies rolled on the grass.
Uncle Jack, with his wiry subalterns, led out from the stables his master's thoroughbreds, whose
sleek coats shone like burnished copper, and started  for the Franklin and Triune races, singing
the rather stirring couplet:

  "De fust time she cum roun' she open de way;

 De nex' time she cum roun' she bid 'um 'Good-day.

The golden harvests filled the barns. C`sar rode pompously back and forth inspecting the daily
work of busy slaves. Aunt Dice stepped to the music of wheel and loom, or quickened to the
far-off melody of the workers' songs: she was happy. Then came a rude awakening. Rumors
floated down the river: "Charley was quarrelsome." Aunt Dice was filled with dread. "Charley
kept strife in the quarters." A season of suspense, and the news came, swift as the dancing waves
of the river: Charley was to be sold. Again the waves came prattling by: "Sold to a slave dealer,
to be carried south!" Then it was that Aunt Dice knelt at her master's feet; her proud reserve fled
in the hour of her agony: "Mos William! Mos William! save him!"

Charley was brought in, bound, to bid his mother good-by. The master stood by and offered his
worth, twice, three times his value. But the slave dealer was obdurate. He had bought him
conditionally: he was not to sell him in Tennessee. Tears and entreaties were of no avail; mother
and son were separated. The burden of her heart so proudly guarded, the dread and suspense of a
nameless fate for her wayward son were at last revealed and realized. How she took up the
broken threads of life, wove into them her  uniform cheerfulness and steady devotion to duty,
none can judge. Yet it is well to say that through all this stormy period she never lost her
cheerful demeanor toward her white people; more noticeably toward the children, where her
inexhaustible store of a rare, quaint humor never failed.

She passed a quiet winter. The fattened swine were killed, and the great smokehouse hung full of
brown, cured meat. The cotton was picked, spun, and woven. Barrels of homemade soap were
stored away in March; then--but perhaps the river could tell it best--how the floods came in the
springtime and lifted a hoarse cry; how her brown waters crept over field and swamp and piled
her bosom with driftwood; how she laughed again when the summer returned with its hot
sunshine; how the bright blue waters danced and rippled with a cruel mirth, or gurgled softly
around the gray cliffs of the cemetery, whispering of the east-lying swamps and the deadly
typhoid fever.

For silence reigned at Riverside. No longer the wagon wheels creaked under heavy burdens; no
longer the negroes' songs rang out from the field in wild melody. The charcoal forge had paled to
ashes; the music of wheel and loom had ceased, for the silence of death was within. In the
quarters dusky forms lay tossing in pain and wild delirium; stiffened bodies were carried from
cabin doors to people the heights of Riverside cemetery.

Still the river laughed and sang. The east  winds blew with the breath of a thousand flowers.
Deadly white fogs crept up from the valleys and hung the rugged cliffs in ghostly drapery. It was
a bright morning in August, when the birds sang aglee with life, that within the darkened home
of Riverside one of the master's sons lay dead.

Aunt Dice stood the battle bravely. With her master by her side, she trod the rounds of her
mission, tiring neither by day nor night. Not that the blow fell less severely on her: her only
daughter was among the first to die, and left to her care three orphan children; neither did her
strength fail when C`sar fainted from the bleeding process then administered, and was put to
bed to fight the fever at this fearful disadvantage.

Uncle Jack lay down with the rest--happy-hearted Uncle Jack, who never spared a kindly deed
nor hoarded a kindly smile. He lay with a mute appeal in his fevered eyes until Aunt Dice closed
them forever.

"Will this never end, Dicy?" the master sometimes said, as his tears fell on the stricken faces. He
had borne his own sorrow quietly, but the sufferings of these helpless blacks appealed to his
nature in strongest sympathy.

Still the fever raged on, and C`sar went out one night on the wings of its wrath. C`sar was
dead. C`sar, the gallant beau, the gay Lothario, but ever the polite and courteous C`sar, was
dead. This was a blow to Aunt Dice. He was her sorrow, but yet her pride. She would miss him 
sorely--his delicate attentions, his unfailing courtesy, his efficient help among the negroes; she
would miss his shrewd management. His stately figure in the cotton fields she would see no
more. His failings she remembered, but they rested lightly upon her, now that he was dead. He
was laid away carefully in his black clothes and snowy linen, and looked in his narrow bed as if
he needed but the tall silk hat to take up his gay life again.

The end came at last. The fever was spent. There were long days of rest at Riverside, days of
calm while the summer waned, and the convalescent negroes dozed in their cabin doors, or
fished lazily with hook and line under the shady sycamores. With the frost came reaction. The
axes rang steadily and clear in the hills, and from the whitened fields the harvest songs told in
quavering music of renewed hope and energy. There was little to tell of the fearful fever save the
fresh-heaped mounds of earth and the tall marble shafts that gleamed amid the cedars at
Riverside cemetery.   

CHAPTER VI.

AUNT DICE went her quiet way. It seemed as if she had taken up her mission
understandingly--bearing her own troubles quietly, and assuming the burdens of others. The
cabin adjoining hers was filled with orphan charges; but the three children of her daughter Fanny
she kept in her own room with a faithful nurse whom the master had provided. The youngest of
the three, a tiny infant taken from her dead mother's bosom, required her constant oversight.

"How is our little pet, Dicy?" was the master's daily question.

The "little pet" throve wonderfully. "Pet" she was called, and a pet she was, fortunately for her,
to the end of her short life. At her crawling age she developed a fondness for the "white folks'
house," and a veritable black crow she was by nature or practice--always into mischief, or into
forbidden grounds, wherever her insatiable curiosity led her fat little body. The mistress
indulged and petted her, and kept her often out of harm's way in the cozy sitting-room corner, or
claimed her attendance when she, the mistress, went her weekly rounds among the sick and
poor.

Aunt Dice returned in full measure the kindness heaped upon her during her late affliction.  The
children of her mistress--always "the children" with Aunt Dice, though they were growing to
manhood and womanhood--were objects of her unsparing devotion. Her rebukes were a little
more stern, perhaps; but even in this she was never tiresome, always ending a lecture with a
quaint piece of drollery and inimitable grotesqueness that one must have known to understand.
Aunt Dice was never loquacious. Her sentences were short, terse, and to the point. Indeed, if an
expressive gesture could avail, words were not used. A shrug of her shoulders was a sign of
disapproval; her dropped lip a ridicule and sufficient lecture in itself; her sidelong look a
question that laid bare the heart; but one of her broad, sunshiny smiles was a sufficient
recompense for all the golden deeds ever done at Riverside.

Katherine, the eldest of "the children," was thoroughly initiated into these ways; and Katherine
now was uppermost in Aunt Dice's mind, for with the blooming womanhood and brilliant beauty
of this "merry maiden" the question of a possible marriage forced itself upon Aunt Dice's mind.
She looked with some dismay upon the prospects of her nursling. Who was her choice? Could it
still be the Yankee schoolmaster, who was soon to return to his northern home? Aunt Dice only
hoped he would depart in peace, and leave the child where negroes were plentiful. Or was it her
Cousin Harry--handsome, good-natured Mos Harry, who had strings of negroes to be sure,  but
was much too fond of his wine cup and much too generous to "save money"?

Aunt Dice put the question plainly when Katherine next visited her cabin: "Who is you goin' to
marry, chile?

 "Guess, Aunt Dice," said the spoiled "chile," spreading out her dainty skirts and resting her
slippered feet on the old dog iron.

"That Yankee school-teacher?" ventured the interrogator, painfully.

Katherine pulled a soft, dark curl over her sparkling eyes and smiled wickedly.

"Not yo' Cousin Harry? He's shiftless, chile, if he is a Macy."

A ringing laugh caused the questioner to stumble sadly in her guessing.

"Sho'ly not that ill- mannered upstart what brags on his money? I'd ruther 'twould be that
Yankee--"

The dark curls rested in Aunt Dice's lap. A little ear showed rosy red. "Aunt Dice, you dear,
blind old mammy, where are your sharp eyes?"

"The preacher!" said mammy suddenly, dropping her pipe in her surprise. "Who would a thought
it? Well, well, chile, you'll never be rich, that's sho', but you'll be kin'ly keered fur all the same.
You shall have some niggers to wait on ye. Thar's Harriet an' Chany, Dick an' Joel--all Amos's
grandchildren. An' you've got a nice home all waitin' fur ye."   Aunt Dice had thought little of the
"preacher" as a possible suitor, though he was often at Riverside, as at other plantations,
preaching at the quarters, visiting the sick, faithful in duty and earnest in action. He pleased Aunt
Dice. Earnest endeavor always pleased her.

The wedding came off quietly, and very beautiful Katherine looked in her white gown and
flowing veil; a new dignity on her bright young face, a graver smile on her red lips, which
answered to the name of "wife."

With the following winter came a surprise which was a joy and pain to Aunt Dice. It was at the
time of sugar-making in the hills, and the campers-out made merry over great kettles of boiling
maple sirup, their songs and laughter floating out on the frosty air. Aunt Dice went out to the
hills on her daily round of inspection; but what was her surprise to see her son Charley, the
gayest of the gay, the central figure of the group by the camp fires!

Charley had "run off"; had found his way, no one knew how, through the trackless miles of
forest and swamp, to "home and old moster." But the master could avail nothing, though he
again tried to buy him when the slave dealer appeared. Charley was not discouraged. He
bestowed a parting message, full of hope: "Sho' now, mammy, 'tain't no use to grieve a'ter me.
I'se gwine to keep on runnin' off twell moster do buy me."   He was as good as his word. When
the harvest feast was spread, and the shuckers swung their corn to the measure of musical rhyme,
Charley surprised them by a spring to the great barn floor, and a rapid "pitapat," executed with
wonderful agility for his worn shoes and weary legs.

"Dat 'strep'rous boy'll get his 'sarts some day," commented Steven.

"A rascally scound'el," said Silas, who had survived the fever, and lived to anathematize his
kind.

Charley was hardly a welcome visitor at the quarters, even under this romantic guise, though his
ability as a "runaway nigger," and his varied experiences, true or imaginary, surprised and
interested them. His stay was short. After the Christmas festivities, the reappearance of the slave
dealer caused him to turn his face toward southern Mississippi.

Again the dreary length of miles was traversed, and again Charley arrived at Riverside, footsore
and weary; after which the exasperated owner sold him--not to the master, but to a neighboring
planter across the river.

Soon afterwards Aunt Dice gave evidence of a weakness that sorely puzzled her kind old master.
"This is Dicy's only slip," he was wont to say. The "slip" was a second marriage, to an old
half-witted negro, called Joe Cris, an overseer on the plantation to which Charley belonged. The
marriage was sudden, and seemingly without reason.  Even Charley could not understand this
foolish step. The master's consent had not been asked; indeed, she had been married some weeks
before the news reached him.

Joe Cris was a standing theme for a joke at Riverside quarters. He was a small, dark African--a
Guinea negro, some called him--with an unusual infliction of impediments: a halting speech; an
ambling, rolling gait; eyes that struggled painfully to focus an object; and a brain which served
him well with its one merit--that of remaining true to its one idea, which merit alone raised him
to overseer. He did as he was ordered, just that and no more. He lacked the ingenuity to go
farther, the cunning to do less; so he served well in his place as second overseer.

None ever dreamed that Aunt Dice could look twice at simple Joe Cris. His Saturday night visits
had been barely tolerated by her, though always accompanied by some humble offering--a string
of pepper, a hen and chickens, a jug of molasses--which she accepted with a stately reserve that
made his humble attention more cringing.

With "Mrs. Cris" the joke came to a sudden end. Who was bold enough to laugh at Aunt Dice?
So in the quarters there was a painful silence. Aunt Dice went about quietly, very quietly, almost
like one dreaming, while the pickaninnies reveled in sunshine and idle hours, disregarding her
low call to duty.

Perhaps it was a "slip." The master, after his  first sore surprise, kindly let the matter rest,
understanding well Aunt Dice's proud reserve, and forbearing to question the motive, wise or
unwise, of her sudden marriage. His confidence in her was not shaken. His sympathy, though
unasked, was tendered in various ways. Aunt Dice was still the honored and trusty servant.
Indeed, the bond between her kind master and herself seemed more closely drawn as her tender
devotion upheld his approaching infirmities. His dependence upon her was great, greater than
she knew. She watched him as he sat on the back gallery, the sunlight on his silvered head, an
open Bible across his knees. "That Bible is jes' blistered with his tears," she said. She followed
him with anxious interest as he went his quiet way among his slaves; his tenderness and care of
them she never spoke of without emotion. He carried them upon his heart; their welfare was his
constant study. He felt deeply the responsibility of these ignorant souls upon his own. He went to
Aunt Dice one day with a message from Uncle Amos, who was done with earthly things. "Go to
him, Dicy; see that he has a clean pillow to die on."

Aunt Dice departed on her mission. On a snow-white bed, the dying saint prayed his last prayer
and sang his last halleluiah on earth. She returned home with an aching heart. Mos William was
failing; he would soon follow. She watched him, waited upon him; she tended and served him,
her stern composure almost upset at times by his kindly  smile. A long talk they had together,
after which Aunt Dice was never quite the same: there was a greater devotion; a steadier
watchfulness, if possible; a tenderer interest in her master's children, as if she had thrown aside
her own troubles as worthless things, and had consecrated herself wholly to her master's own.

Still, with the undiminished confidence and esteem of her dear master, Aunt Dice, though deeply
grateful, could not bring herself once to explain to him the cause of her sudden marriage.
Regarding her own private burdens she was, as usual, mute and noncommittal.

A year afterwards, to her unspeakable sorrow, her master sickened and died, after having at last
succeeded in buying Charley and restoring him to his mother. This last act overcame her
reserve--too late, indeed, for the master's ears, but around the finished grave, when the white
mourners had departed, and the negroes, hitherto orderly and quiet, lifted a wail for the dead
master, there was heard a sharp note of agony, and Aunt Dice knelt in passionate grief.

"O my master! my blessed master! I married him to be kind to Charley; an' ye never knowed it!
ye never knowed it!"

The negroes stood with bared heads and listened. In that wild regret the mystery of the second
marriage was explained. To shield the wayward Charley--the insolent, overbearing Charley--she
had sacrificed herself.   

CHAPTER VII.

IN the quiet days that followed, Aunt Dice recovered her usual flow of spirits and wonted
activity. The plantation throve under her wise rule and industrious example. The negroes
respected, obeyed her. Charley was married, and happier than formerly in the home of his youth.

Joe Cris no longer troubled Aunt Dice, but considerately kept away, visiting her only once a
year, bringing his humble offering as an apology for his presence. These visits were received
with studied kindness, but great formality. Perhaps the simple old soul felt dimly that he had
greatly wronged Aunt Dice; perhaps the enormity of her sacrifice dawned upon him in a clearer
afterthought, for he held to the day of his death that "Miss Dicy" was as far above him as the
stars.

To the mistress Aunt Dice was a trusted friend, a friend of long-tried worth and human
excellence. The young heir of Riverside, who had returned from college, returned also--to rule?
Oh no! to the safe covert of Aunt Dice's ample wings and to her almost idolatrous affection. Mos
Sam was ever afterwards the song of her heart and burden of her prayers.

But her next care was now her young mistress, Anne, who was gentler than ever in her black 
gown, growing more and more like her honored mother, consequently more and more dear to
Aunt Dice. The question of her approaching marriage was a responsible one, now that the
master's wise counsel was no more. Aunt Dice smoked many a pipe over the problem; she
pondered deeply, silently, as the fragrant puffs floated up the broad-throated chimney.

Would he pass--that slender, boyish-looking doctor, who was so kind to Mos William in his last
illness--who had already won her mistress's gentle respect; would he pass? She learned that he
had settled near a small village four miles distant, and had begun the practice of medicine; but
who was he--Mos John Trevor? Mos Sam, who looked a stranger through, had received him
kindly, generously; a sure sign of approval.

The "young doctor" himself had given Aunt Dice no cause for disquietude; indeed, from the
beginning of his friendly footing at Riverside he had shown a fondness for her--an honest
admiration, which she had unconsciously returned. How could she have felt otherwise when he
had shown from the first a respect and delicate consideration for her, which she had never failed
to appreciate? To her surprise he followed at her heels, talking, laughing, questioning,
enthusiastic over the winding river, the high cliffs, the blue hills. He praised her cooking, her
feathered brood of fowls, her neat dairy. He even found his way to her cabin, and developed a
fondness for her cupboard,  second only to Mos Sam himself. Aunt Dice soon found herself
appropriated. She cleaned his gun, mended his fishing-net, and instructed him as to the
"likeliest" holes in the river for fishing. He reminded her of a boy turned loose from school to a
long holiday. And so it was: the fresh, green beauty of Riverside was a rest indeed from the long
lecture room at the Nashville Medical College, which he had quitted, however, with no small
honor, it was said.

But this "boy," hardly turning twenty-one, was to wed sweet Anne Macy, one of the children of
Aunt Dice's heart. The stern experience of her own sad life admonished her. Would the boy
make the man in this case? When trials came--as they surely visited all--would he pass, would he
hold true? She resorted to the usual formula--a trying ordeal of questions.

"Whar his folks live, Miss Anne?"

"In Nashville, Aunt Dice," answered Anne painfully.

"Humph! city folks! Ain't they bought a place roun' here some'r's?"

"The plantation, Beechwood, near West Afton."

"I know where 'tis--a likely place, though West Afton might be called 'Mud River,' fur its color.
Is they got many niggers at Beechwood?" she asked carelessly.

"I suppose so, Aunt Dice."

"I likes the boy, Miss Anne," Aunt Dice concluded, noticing Anne's flushed face; "but he's  too
young--too young. Seems ef he can't git 'nough fishin' an' huntin' 'long o' Mos Sam. He ain't took
life in earnest yit, but he'll have to learn by'mby--then will he stan' by ye faithful?"

"Brother Sam speaks well of him, Aunt Dice," said patient Anne; "he says he is a man of fine
morals and upright character--"

"Oh, he's been well raised, that I knows; he's well-behavin' an' p'lite, an' none too heavy-handed
at the sideboard, I notice. I never 'spect to see anuther Mos William, but he may do well 'nough. I
wish ye well, chile; I wish ye well. You'll have my own gran'chilluns to wait on ye; they're
young, but I'll look a'ter ye."

John Trevor and sweet Anne Macy were married. Riverside looked beautiful that soft October
night. The rooms shone brightly. From dining room to guest chamber, all was complete under
the finishing touch of Aunt Dice's faithful fingers. The mistress, clad in a black satin gown
which hung in straight lustrous folds about her, her soft muslin kerchief folded neatly over her
bosom, her dark hair parted smoothly over madonna-like brows, looked every inch her real
self--a sweet, old-fashioned southern woman.

John Trevor arrived from Nashville with his mother and sisters--women Aunt Dice knew at a
glance to be gracious and womanly. She stood on the lawn in her best black silk as the carriage,
with its stately-stepping horses, drew up through the double gate.   "I'm glad the chile was well
fixed fur clo'es," Aunt Dice said afterwards, by way of a cheerful remark to the lonely mistress.
"Thar was her white dress in co'se fur the weddin'; then her lavender-sprigged mull will do well
'nough over lavender silk fur secon' mo'nin'; then thar's her bomb'zine, an' black silk, an' bonnits
to match, an' all them putty chintzes made the new blouse waist. Mos John's folks is nice people.
I partic'lar favored one o' them gals."

"Which one, Aunt Dice?" asked the young master, flashing a keen look upon her.

"The one that wus tall an' fair, with the sweet, proud look--Miss Helen, they calls her."

Mos Sam whistled softly, looking far out at the silver-flashing river, through the sunlit
sycamores. Perhaps he "favored" her too--the tall, fair girl, with the "sweet, proud look."   

CHAPTER VIII.

DOCTOR TREVOR and his young wife were often at Riverside; a swift horse to a light buggy
soon covered the five-mile distance. He was always sure of a welcome. The mistress smiled
upon him. The young master greeted him cordially. Aunt Dice ministered to him, gradually
unbending from her dignified demeanor and favoring him occasionally with her grotesque
figures, grimaces, and caricatures, all of which conveyed a moral easily interpreted by the wise
observer. Notwithstanding, she watched him closely. John Trevor was still boyish and full of
fun. He climbed the hills, hunted in the Barrens, and fished for hours by the deep blue "hole"
under the bluff. When called professionally, as he was now the family physician, his first
greeting from the double gate was:"Quick, Aunt Dice--my pole and reel! I'll have time for an
hour's fishing." Aunt Dice began to wonder if life would ever prove an earnest thing to the
pleasure-loving young physician.

True to her word, she rode over to Beechwood at stated intervals on her mistress's riding horse,
to look after Anne and her household. These visits John Trevor usually appropriated. To him
Aunt Dice was an unfailing source of amusement. He never tired of her droll ways and quaint
remarks.  He followed her from kitchen to garden; he chatted with her, questioned her, smoked
with her, ever on the alert for a new gesture or original saying. To him she was a study. He
delighted in reading to her short, simple stories, content to watch her grave, puzzled face. He
ransacked the library for a suitable story, one within the range of her understanding. Ah! he had
it--a simple thing, giving in connection with a domestic scene a detailed account of choice
eatables, cooked to a turn.

Aunt Dice listened. For once she was on a level with the story. The savor of imaginary viands on
an imaginary table smote her nostrils. She interrupted him: "Stop, Mos John! stop! I'm a perishin'
fur a piece o' co'nbread--I'm so hungry." Mos John laughed delightedly and--lunched with her.

Aunt Dice's intense pride, her grand air, the majestic sweep of her broad lips, interested as well
as amused John Trevor. She never wore gaudy colors, nor used a head handkerchief--a style too
significant of the common African type to suit her patrician fancy. Despite her color, she never
termed herself a negro. She had pondered long over the problem of her lineage, contenting
herself at last with the concession that she sprang from the bluest "blue blood" of far-away
Africa. When suggested to her by John Trevor--by reason of gout in her great toe--that she may
have descended from a long race of kings,  for centuries used to high living and princely diet
(cannibalism was omitted), she listened gravely, and must have believed herself a princess in
cotton, for ever afterwards this particular toe received her tenderest consideration. In spite of her
precautions, Aunt Dice found within her heart a growing fondness for Mos John. "He ain't been
tried yit," she argued; but she carried home a cheerful report to the mistress. "Mos John's a good
purvider--a leetle too free-handed with money, but Miss Anne's well keered fur."

Aunt Dice's services were often in demand at Beechwood. One day in the following spring Anne
Trevor read in some dismay a note which her husband had laid in her hand. It ran thus: April 15,
185-

My Boy: I shall drive out next Thursday with a party of friends to spend the day with you.

Have us a good dinner.

Affectionately,  JOHN TREVOR, SR. "What shall we do?" asked Anne, helplessly. "Too early
for vegetables--Eliza so inexperienced--"

"Send for Aunt Dice," advised John, promptly.

Aunt Dice was sent for.

"Got many aigs?" she asked, after due explanations.

"Yes, several dozen."

"Then I'll make out. Kill me a sucking pig, Mos John," she said, rising busily; "make the  niggers
seine fur fish. Tell 'em I want a sof'-shell turtle, sho', fur soup. Gimme one o' your fattes' hens,
Miss Anne, an' that'll do fur meat. Git out your bes' table kiver, your gol' ban' chany, ole mistis
giv' you, an' see ef your silver needs a shine."

Thus strengthened, the work progressed. Aunt Dice flitted hither and thither, retarded only by the
persistent attendance of John Trevor, who enjoyed the pleasant bustle. "He's the wust sp'iled boy
I knows of," she said cheerfully. "You'll have to humor him all your days, Miss Anne."

Thursday came, and with it the guests. Aunt Dice surveyed the table with some pride. The
sucking pig lay roasted whole, with a rosy apple in his mouth; the fat hen, garnished with parsley
and boiled eggs, was brown and juicy; the turtle soup, excellent; the salads, fish, and potatoes,
perfect. Crimson jellies and amber wine gleamed rich and warm with the burnished silver and
sweet spring flowers. Strong black coffee, served in tiny cups, was sent to the pleasant
drawing-room.

John Trevor, Sr., recognized a good dinner. Before his departure he sought Aunt Dice, bent on
the usual "tipping," a custom of the times. "Aunt Dice," he said kindly, tendering her a shining
coin, "you gave us a good dinner, a good dinner, ma'am. You are an excellent cook, I see."

"Thanky, suh," said Aunt Dice, drawing up her lips; "but I never 'ceive money, suh, fur duty."  
"Take your money, madam!" roared the astonished visitor, tossing the coin on the floor and
retiring somewhat discomfited. "Zounds! My son, it seems you have an aristocrat in your
kitchen."

"An aristocrat indeed, father!" laughed John Trevor. "A true blue-blooded patrician."

It was ever a rule with Aunt Dice to make or earn her own living: she kept her fowls and
received a steady income for her fancy cookery at the country stores. Beyond the many presents
bestowed upon her, which she accepted with a grateful pride, her whole life was spent for others,
"without money and without price."

During the next fall Aunt Dice was sent for on quite a different errand--to the bedside of a sick
slave. Charity, the laundress of the family, was ill--stout, able-bodied Charity, who laughed and
sang over her tubs and ironing table, but who never found time to consider the possible failure of
strength or the ending of life. She was sick unto death, Aunt Dice knew from the first. She
watched the young master keenly. He was attentive, skillful as a physician; but would he nurse a
sick slave as tenderly as her kind old master had done? One night she went quietly to his room,
where he sat reading: "Mos John, Charity's dyin', an' she's--afeard. Can't you send to Miss
Kath'rine's fur the preacher?"

"He is not at home, Aunt Dice," he said, rising; "I will do what I can."   "You?" She eyed him
doubtfully as he took up a Bible from the table.

"Come on."

"Turn them niggers out, Mos John," she said as they entered the cabin.

John Trevor sternly ordered out a crowd of negro women, who for hours had been chanting and
moaning over the wages of sin and the eternal damnation of the sinner.

Charity lay, with wild, fear-stricken eyes, tossing, turning, muttering over and over the pleading
cry, "I'se 'feard to die, Mos John! I'se 'feard to die!"

John Trevor sat by her bedside, and talked to her quietly of the Saviour's love, his plenteous
redemption and free grace; he knelt beside her, and poured out an earnest prayer for peace, for
the seal of divine forgiveness. But the wild eyes gazed on him hopelessly; the restless head
tossed over the pillow. The horror of death enveloped her. The master opened the Bible and read
to her, words of life, of wonderful promises, and of sure fulfillment. He sang to her, in rich, full
tones, songs of redeeming love. Still the dying negress moaned and prayed in despair. Again the
master knelt, pleading, struggling, persevering, holding up the promises on which he had built
his faith.

Aunt Dice, sitting quietly by the hearth, looked at him inquiringly. "Will you give it up?" the
mute glance said.

"Until morning light, Aunt Dice," the master answered, turning to the bed with a firm resolve  on
his boyish face, as if he had said, as Jacob did, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me."

Aunt Dice listened reverently, though not without an amazed surprise, as the young master held
up before the dying slave a crucified Redeemer--his boundless love and mercy, his wonderful
power. Could this be the gay, fun-loving young physician into whose care she had almost feared
to trust the child of her rearing? Could this earnest watcher by the bedside be the boy of a short
year ago, whom she had questioned so seriously? A beautiful light was shining in his eyes,
grown suddenly so dear to her. Words fell from his lips in strange eloquence. Aunt Dice had a
higher conception of the Wonderful One that night than she had ever had before. She listened
surprisedly, and with quickened pulses, as he told of living waters--of springs in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.

Through the long hours of the night the master pleaded, prayed, sang, battling against death itself
for a purchased soul. The negress lay at last with her eyes upon his face, listening, feeding upon
the words of life. The restless tossing ceased. The master sang, in clear, full tones--tones that
since have soothed many a dying pillow:

  "Are not thy mercies large and free?

 May not a sinner trust in thee?"

A look of peace stole over the dying face. He sang again, softly:

  "Jesus can make a dying bed

 Feel soft as downy pillows are."   There was a flash of light, a cry of joy: "Free, Mos John! I'm
free--free!"

The sunlight touched the chimney tops at Beechwood, gilded the cabin walls of the quarters, as
the soul of the slave, in a transport of joy, sped out on the wings of the morning.

Aunt Dice laid her rough, dark hand on the master's head: "Thar--thar--Mos John; you've done
'nough. Come up to the house, an' rest."

She entered the room where the young wife lay, listening.

"Git up f'om thar, Miss Anne!" she said sharply. "Why ain't you had Mos John a cup o' hot
coffee? O, chile!" she cried, breaking into convulsive sobbing, as she noticed the tear-wet pillow,
"he'll do--Mos John'll do--ye needn't never be afeard."

Mos John had "passed" with her that night.   

CHAPTER IX.

THE old conservative South had many virtues to call her own. Not the least of these was the
purity of her religion. Her old aristocracy, her highborn dames and courtly men, thought it no
concession to honor the world's Redeemer. In this respect the South may still be called
conservative. While she fills her homes with products of northern thrift and invention, while she
brightens her firesides with periodicals of northern literary excellence, her libraries, which still
honor the well-worn volumes of Bacon, Shakespeare, Bunyan, and Sir Walter Scott, are
subservient to and ever as things apart from the Bible, whose living truths are accepted from
cover to cover.

Aunt Dice was comforted. "Mos John'll allus be faithful," she said. She felt that her young
mistress was safe in his care. Her own grandchildren, the motherless ones, would still look up to
a kind master. These three grandchildren, who were part of Anne Trevor's marriage portion,
were contented and happy at Beechwood. Eliza, the eldest, was quiet and true, much like her
honored grandmother; Julia was tall, strong, and willing; while Pet--still a spoiled pet--was very
fat and saucy, very good-natured, and very delinquent in her duty sometimes.   The years passed
on. The "children" prospered. The olive branches grew. Aunt Dice shared with her mistress the
honors of grandmother, and visited back and forth, always a distinguished guest, and always a
welcome home-comer. The mistress, who now seldom left Riverside, leaned upon her trusted
servant. The young master was still the darling of Aunt Dice's heart. The negroes were happy in
the quarters. Charley's children played about her; Aunt Dice was at peace.

With her advancing years a season of rest was a grateful respite to faithful Aunt Dice. But the
serenity of her old age was again to be broken by a rumor whose portentous meaning she little
understood. A civil war was threatened, and the gloom that settled over the country spoke in
prophecy of a darker future.

Aunt Dice had thought but little of political questions. She had lived through the days of ardent
Whigism, but had failed to respond to the enthusiasm of the "hard-cider campaign," or any other
campaign of political meaning. She had heard of wars, certainly. She had a childish memory of
1812, a dim report that had reached her of Indian warfare and troublous times, but the
misfortunes of war she had never realized. She had seen some of her neighbors drill in
cumbersome fashion for the Mexican war, and start out on the long journey westward with much
military pomp and display. She had seen a remnant return  from its questionable glory, wasted by
disease or toughened in experience. Mexico was a dim, distant land to Aunt Dice--too far away
to hold her sympathy. Her little world she counted within the boundary of her blue Tennessee
hills, or the twenty-mile length of the sparkling, winding river, her loved South Afton.

A civil war, she was told, meant much. She pondered long over the question. She studied with a
new interest the portrait of General Winfield Scott which hung over the dining-room mantel at
Riverside. Would Mos Sam ever be a stern-faced soldier like this ? Her hot-blooded, imperious
master, she was sure, would be among the first to take up arms; he who had known no use of
arms save his unerring rifle when he followed the baying of his hounds in his famous deer
hunting in the Barrens. How could she live without Mos Sam, the light of Riverside?

"We niggers is g'wine ter be free," was the whispered thought at the quarters. Aunt Dice received
such comments with a sharp repimand and a sidelong look which invited no further arguement.
But even her strong will could not quell the rising spirit of freedom among the slaves. The
meaning of the war, so often spoken of in subdued accents throughout the quarters, dawned
slowly upon her. It meant, to her at least, the ruin of Riverside.

The day came when the master, answering the call to arms, prepared to depart; a sad day to 
Aunt Dice, who summoned all her stern composure for this strange parting. He knocked at her
cabin door that night, as she expected.

"Come in, Mos Sam; tak' a cheer." Her pipe trembled slightly in her hand.

The master drew up his chair to the hearth, where a small fire of "chunks" was kept smoldering
the summer through. He gave her directions concerning the negroes, the growing cotton and
wheat, and other details of plantation affairs.

"I un'erstan', Mos Sam," she answered.

He moved his chair restlessly. A shadow, which of late had dimmed the luster of his smile,
rested sadly on his brow. Aunt Dice smoked in silence.

"Miss Mary ain't what she wus sence Mos William died."

"No?" sadly.

"This war'll go hard with her."

He turned with a quick, restless motion: "Watch after her, Aunt Dice; take care of her."

He drew a folded paper from his pocket, looked over it slowly, and handed it to Aunt Dice.

"Aunt Dice, this gives you your freedom, if you should need it. My mother's name is signed, and
my own. You can use it as you choose."

Aunt Dice took the paper gingerly, between finger and thumb, and laid it promptly on the coals.

"You don't know what may happen, Aunt Dice. You are never to be sold again."

"I'll hold my own; you needn't be afeard. I  knows my business; Mos William tole me that afore
he died. I b'longs to ole mistis as long as she live--then I'm yourn, 'ceptin' I'm to look after the
chillun when they's sick, or when they needs help. You needn't bother 'bout me. The wust trubble
is all these nigger fam'lies you've bought in at the sale."

"You knew my father's request, Aunt Dice--they were not to be sold or divided unwillingly."

"That's so. You wus to buy in all who wus onwillin' to be 'vided out, an' more'n plenty wus
onwillin' enuff to make a putty big debt--what ain't paid yit."

"Riverside will soon cancel it, Aunt Dice."

"But stop, Mos Sam. Mos William didn't know 'bout this war a-comin' on. You'd sho' be ruined if
the niggers wus sot free."

"Aunt Dice," flashed the young master, "do you mean to say the South will be whipped?"

"I jes' mean--I don' know," said Aunt Dice, sorrowfully. She leaned over the coals, her head
showing silvery in the faint light. There was a pathetic droop about her shoulders, an old look in
her bent form.

"Cheer up, Granny Vic," said the master, turning upon her the warmth of his sunny smile. "This
war will soon be over; then for a merry wedding at Riverside! You shall rule master, mistress,
niggers, and all."

"Who is it, Mos Sam?" she asked, composedly.   "The little girl who minces when she walks,
who fidgets in church, and giggles incessantly."

Aunt Dice's long lip quivered, swung back and forth, and dropped with the senseless stupor of a
slobbering horse, finishing with a smirk, a giggle, so successfully imitating the "little girl" in
question that the cabin rang with the master's laughter.

"Oh well, Aunt Dice, the one-hundred-and-fifty-pounder, who rides neck-to-neck with Fleetfoot,
and is always 'in at the death' in a fox chase."

"Too bold an' for'ard, Mos Sam--too bold an' for'ard, 'fur Mos William's son," she said, sternly.
There was silence. Aunt Dice resumed her smoking.

"Why not some o' your neighbor gals--they're all likely."

"Indeed they are--and worthy," said the master.

Aunt Dice looked stolidly at the fire. Her calm indifference betrayed no hint of curiosity.

"Aunt Dice, what about the girl with the sweet, proud look?"

"Thar! I knowed it was a-comin'; I knowed it. She's a good 'oman, Mos Sam--a fine 'oman. I've
seen her time an' ag'in at Beechwood. She'll make a likely mistis fur Riverside--one you'll be
proud of."

Mos Sam whistled softly, a shadow chasing away the sunshine of his smile. After all, Riverside
may never know the woman of his choice as its  fair mistress. His own life may be offered up on
a battlefield, his body uncoffined, his very name unknown in a strange land. "Good-night, Aunt
Dice," he said, at length, turning to the door.

"Mos Sam?" Aunt Dice considered that she had always found a cheerful word to lighten a heavy
heart. Her boy should not leave her door without the memory of a smile. "I've allus been ag'in
your fightin' as a boy," she continued, "but ef you sees that Yankee school-teacher, you may
whup him--wunst."

"All right, Granny Vic!" laughed the master. "I'll thrash him for your sake."

Next morning the master stood on the lawn with his faithful servant, ready for his departure; a
bright June morning, when Riverside looked her fairest: the old home smiling from her cool
galleries and shady maples; her pastures dotted with sheep and cattle, and tinkling with sounds
of peace; her gardens abloom with roses, and the river shimmering and dreaming at her feet! The
group of negroes in the background did not detract from the picture, though their wails mingled
with the deep-mouthed baying of the master's hounds, who were soon to forget the music of his
hunting horn.

But the master, whose keen eye had taken in his surroundings at a glance, now lingered under
the maples with a restless tread, the strained pressure of his lips revealing only a hard white line
about his mouth. He little heeded the glorious beauty of Riverside. His hounds fawned upon 
him, unnoticed. The group of friends, the grief-stricken faces of his sisters--Anne and
Katherine--the kindly sympathy in John Trevor's eyes, he did not see; he only saw a delicate
figure gowned in gray standing on the gallery, whose hair shone with faint gleams of silver
through the soft muslin cap.

In this supreme moment the questions of state or country seemed strangely small beside the little
mother who stood before him, mighty in her love; the little mother within whose arms all his
childish griefs and pains had been rocked to sleep. Friend and foe were alike to him for the
while--unworthy of a touch of her garments. Not even the memory of a fair, proud face intruded
upon this sacred parting which tried the souls of mother and son; a parting which she mercifully
shortened by turning quietly into her room without even a mother's caress, lest the action prove
too strong a test of her fortitude, or weaken the courage of her soldier boy. The quick splashing
of horses' feet crossing the river cut the air with a sickening sense of grief and loss.

Aunt Dice was left the central figure of the thronging group of slaves, her tears on her dusky
cheeks, the sunlight on her gray head, and a new care in her heart, for the master had said at
parting, "Aunt Dice, I leave to you my mother and my home."   

CHAPTER X.

A YEAR passed slowly. The mistress, who had so bravely hung up her blue chintz gowns and
donned the colors of her son, seemed to falter through the long silence which brought no news of
him. She followed Aunt Dice about like a shadow, which often sent the faithful watcher to her
cabin in hot haste for a troubled smoke and a struggle for fortitude.

"Aunt Dice, can you bring your knitting and sit with me awhile at night?"

"To be sho' I kin. What's to hender me?"

Aunt Dice never knew how she smiled or brought herself to gossip, and tell her "silly nothings,"
as they sat together at night, knitting socks for "rebel" soldiers; she never knew how she changed
from a decisive, short-spoken woman to a loquacious, ceaseless talker; she only knew that she
had gained her end when rewarded by a patient smile. She discussed the weather, the flight of
wild geese, the soap-making, the spinning and weaving, the young calves, the spring lambs; she
talked of old, old times, of far-away memories--anything and everything but the children, lest the
thought bring up the absent boy, whose name was never mentioned. She searched the place for
an atom of news. "Ole Topknot's in  fur anuther settin' spell. Sousin' in the river don' do no good,
so I sot her on goose aigs; she'll git settin' 'nough now fur a spell, I reck'n. Topknots ain't noted
fur sense. The mockin' birds is splittin' they throats; they's feelin' the springtime" --she would
say, to tempt her mistress out into the soft April sunshine; or, "The dogwood's blossomin' an' the
redbud in the hills--'tain't long afore spring." Still the frail, tired body faded slowly.

"Remember my poor, Aunt Dice," the mistress said one day; and then the faithful watcher knew
that, with all her care, her multiplied words and cheerful encouragement had been in vain. John
Trevor was her help and comfort; he gave to Riverside all the time that his growing practice and
growing family would admit. But all the tenderness of faithful friends could not avail. Before the
close of spring the gentle soul of the mistress went out, to know no sad to-morrow of that
gloomy time. Aunt Dice stood alone--terribly alone! Shocked, amazed at the magnitude of her
duty, but one thought spurred her on--the thought of her master.

"Mos Sam is ruined," Aunt Dice said, as she closed the doors of Riverside, after the sad funeral.
The negroes no longer made a show of submission. Riverside was burdened with debt and
crowded with rebellious slaves; a turbulent spirit had risen among them, which Aunt Dice found
impossible to quell. She managed  with difficulty to till the land and gather the crop. A new
suspicion filled her with dread. Charley, her own son, whose purchase money had swelled the
debt of Riverside, was dictatorial, rebellious, a disturbing element in the quarters. She upbraided
him sternly; she commanded, implored, entreated, but an angry, sullen look was the only
response. She pointed to a tall marble shaft which shone solemnly from the cemetery: "Fur Mos
William's sake, Charley, don' leave Mos Sam."

"G'way f'om here, mammy; lemme 'lone. I'm g' wine to Nashvul, I is, an' be a free gen'l'mun. I'll
tote fur no man f'om dis here on."

Her pleading was vain. Charley's cabin was empty one morning. Aunt Dice was bereft.

Thus her long watch began. She saw the negroes depart, slaves no longer, swelling day after day
the number of them who had "run off to the Yankees." But the glory of Riverside had also
departed. She saw the old home shorn of its beauty; the fences were burned, the barns emptied,
the cattle, horses, and sheep driven off or slaughtered; the home of her beloved mistress
desecrated and pillaged under the cruel ravages of war. Even the tall clock in the dining-room
corner, which had ticked in and out the happy years of Riverside's prosperity, stood with a white,
dismayed face, its glass doors shattered, its pendulum crushed and broken, its faithful hands
ruthlessly torn from their place of duty; the old clock, which had rung in  the births, chimed at
the weddings, and tolled out the deaths at Riverside, stared now from its corner like a human
thing bereft of a soul!

Aunt Dice heard nothing of the master; still her lonely watch went on, and she said to herself
sometimes as a sad refrain: "Mos Sam, you're ruined--you're ruined!" The long winters passed;
the dull "wash-wash" of the river sounded on her listening ears. The summers came and went;
the whippoorwills called from the cemetery, the mocking birds trilled in the maples, the river
murmured like a friend at her feet--still the master came not. News of him floated to her at last
between the silences: Mos Sam was a brave soldier--was captain of a company--was
wounded--in prison; then she heard no more.

Once only did her heart fail. A squad of Confederate soldiers passing by one day saw a pathetic
figure standing over the bluff, beckoning to them.

"Whar is Mos Sam?" she quavered, thinking in her innocent soul that all the world should know
"Mos Sam."

"Dead!" "killed!" "shot!" came back to her in a rude, laughing chorus.

"I jes' whooped an' hollered all night," she said to a kind neighbor, who reassured her.

Her fidelity did not go unquestioned. Her own color eyed her askance as a friend to the "rebels."
Among her white neighbors some looked on her with suspicion, as possibly harboring Federals;
she was accordingly visited by a company  of blue-coated soldiers, who threatened her with fire,
steel, and ugly army pistols if she did not disclose to them the hiding place of some "rebels" in
the vicinity. But her stern old eyes did not quail. She knew not the meaning of "martyr"; she had
never heard of a "noble Roman"; but her one lesson of faithfulness she had learned well. The
soldiers passed over the river with a rousing cheer for Aunt Dice; then she realized sadly that she
had been under trial.

Still she sowed her scanty seed and reaped her shattered harvests. The little worn path over the
bluff by the river told of her weekly visits to the nearest store, where she sold her chickens and
eggs; told also of as many visits to the cemetery, where, on these errands, it was her habit to sit
and rest, alone with her dead. Years before she had planted in an oblong circle about C`sar's
grave those early harbingers of spring--golden candlesticks--which, when aflame in early March,
lit up the somber cedars, and made a glorious altarpiece of the simple headstone. Here she rested
on her weekly journeys.

Aunt Dice realized at last that the end of the great civil war was near--a disastrous ending for the
South, but peace was none the less welcome. The golden candlesticks had bloomed again around
C`sar's grave when the blessed news came--the long war was over.

Where was Mos Sam? How she scraped and saved and hoarded! How she watched and waited 
in the silence! How she hoped and feared and prayed in the solitude of her lonely cabin!

But the master rode in quietly one night in the light of the young moon, stabled his Yankee mare,
climbed the rickety fence by the deserted quarters, and looked over his desolate home. The river
murmuring below, the lazy "swish-swish" of her waters against the rocks, were the only sounds
that greeted him. At length a familiar figure came slowly down the path, with bowed head, and
hands folded behind her. "Aunt Dice!" he called softly. She looked up quickly, knowing well the
square shoulders outlined against the twilight sky; then running to him swiftly, she fell on her
knees at his feet, taking up the old refrain: "Mos Sam, you're ruined--you're ruined!"

Her strength gave way at last; her strained nerves relaxed. She had bravely dared those four long
years alone. Her trust was fulfilled. She continued sobbing at his feet.

"Don't grieve, Aunt Dice," the master said, sadly. "Your boy has come back to you, and he is half
starved."

Aunt Dice listened. She had heard complaints of a half-starved boy before, though never so sadly
as this. She dried her tears suddenly. She hoarded her sweet surprise. "Nuthin' in the house fitten'
fur you to eat, Mos Sam--nuthin' but a piece o' co'n bread."

"Give me one of your good, brown corn pones, Aunt Dice," said the master, cheerfully.   She
followed him to the house, unlocked the doors, brought him cool water from the great spring
under the bluff; and while he looked over the silent rooms--so strangely silent, without a
mother's welcome--Aunt Dice prepared her surprise, for which she had lived on husks! She had
long waited for this hour. With deft hands and springing step she flitted back and forth, from
kitchen to dining room, grown young again in her great joy. Her dear old eyes, dim with
watching, shone bright through happy tears.

And such a repast! Corn pones, brown enough; but such flaky biscuits, such fragrant coffee; and
chicken, fried a delicate brown! She did not stop to consider or even conjecture what stint and
frugality, under the prevailing prices, brought forth these treasures of coffee, lard, and flour. She
poured the coffee, waiting upon her master, watching him, who ate as if all those pent-up years
of hunger and starvation were requited in that one meal!

Nor was this all. After she had built a fire in the late mistress's room, where the little armchair
beckoned silently from its corner--which room was to be from henceforth Mos Sam's own, with
all its sacred memories--Aunt Dice laid out before the master various articles of dress, sorely
needed by him, saying, with characteristic brevity: "The chillun holped me. Miss Kath'rine made
the clo'es, Miss Anne the shurts. Mos John giv' you the boots--they cos' fifty dollars."   " Why,
Aunt Dice, what a fortune!" the master said, delightedly. "I shall be a gentleman again--not a
poor 'Johnny Reb' " --stroking his ragged, gray sleeve-- "poor 'Johnny Reb!' "

Aunt Dice looked at her master with some asperity. She had fed many a tramp who looked more
decent. "I've sot your bath tub at the door," she said, in the old tone of command. "Th'ow them
rags in the fire, Mos Sam. I never thought Mos William's son'd a looked like that." She turned to
bid him good-night.

"Aunt Dice," said the master, looking far into the flaming coals, "I saw your Yankee
schoolmaster."

"Did you whup him?" she asked, quickly. Her added knowledge of the Yankee had rather
stimulated her desire for this particular whipping.

"No," he answered slowly; "I must say your Yankee friend whipped me."

Aunt Dice looked at her master in amazed inquiry. He met her glance thoughtfully. "I was in
prison, and he visited me."

"Thar now!" said Aunt Dice. "Well, I'm glad I washed an' orned his clo'es, an' dorned all his
socks. I allus thought he had a hankerin' a'ter Miss Kath'rine!"

"I think he liked her," said the master, musingly.   

CHAPTER XI.

THROUGHOUT the year the table was supplied, the master knew not how; not poorly or
sparingly kept, but almost with the generous excellency of former days. The master little
dreamed of the struggle as, weak from recent wounds, he built fences, or plowed his Yankee
mare beside a venerable riding-horse which was once his mother's. Too proud to acknowledge
that she lived by her wits, Aunt Dice smuggled to the country store her chickens, eggs, and
butter, her fancy cookies and gingerbread, so that her slender purse held out as did the proverbial
meal barrel.

Yet the year was a happy one. It was her pleasure to labor with unceasing thrift to provide these
luxuries; her pride to lend a helping hand to the upbuilding of her master's broken fortunes. It
was a happy year, notwithstanding the new burden of debt which lay heavily upon the master. He
was forced to borrow a sufficient sum to build up the waste places, to buy grain and stock, and
for the additional expense of hire--a new experience for the impoverished southerner. His
impatient soul chafed under the fretting weight. "What shall I do, Aunt Dice?" he asked one day,
in an extremity of doubt and distress.

Aunt Dice glanced at him quickly and started  in a swift trot for her cabin. A new problem this
for her sixty-sixth year! She smoked her faithful pipe while she studied. What was to be done?
Sell Riverside? Oh no! She pondered, questioned, considered. After all there was but one way,
she concluded, as she laid her pipe on the shelf. She went back cheerfully. "Shoulder your debts,
Mos Sam; you can't shift 'em. Go 'long now to work. Go 'long, les'n yon don't want no br'iled
chicken an' waffles fur supper."

Mos Sam was comforted, somehow.

At this time a message from Joe Cris, who was earning a precarious living by basket-making
near Nashville, startled Aunt Dice into remembrance of her painful past. He sent her his humble
regards; also an invitation to share with him his home and small living. Aunt Dice spurned the
offer with contempt, and returned a sharp answer, with the significant question, "Is you a fool?"
For this Aunt Dice may have been censured. Indeed, it was evident that she, who had ever been
so responsive to the slightest call of duty, was strangely delinquent in the obligations of her
second marriage. But her conscience in this respect was a matter of education. Tutored in her
one school of faithfulness--that of allegiance to her white people--she scorned all persuasion,
advantageous or otherwise, to leave her beloved Riverside. Perhaps, too, she felt that she had
been unfairly bought. Joe Cris had no great claim upon her. Moreover, in the days following
their  freedom, many of the negroes were uncertain breadwinners. Improvident in summer;
ragged, shivering, or homeless in winter; they too often made a pitiable spectacle of gaunt
hunger and wretchedness. The question of bread, clothing, and shelter had a broader meaning
than they had realized. The dependent slaves found in their freedom such cares and
responsibilities that robbed the word of much of its sweetness and flavor. Many, chary of their
wings, remained within the security of their former homes; some stayed through pure devotion
to their masters, while a large number, trained to divers trades, earned a comfortable living. Aunt
Dice had small confidence in the ability of the negro, much less would she trust herself in the
keeping of one. Nevertheless, she made it her duty to send Joe Cris gifts of clothing and money
as long as he lived. Mos Sam needed her; she would not leave him.

With the next year's increase Riverside began to assume an ante-bellum look; not with the old
prosperity, for loans and mortgages were the questions of the day, but the long deserted cabins
were peopled with dusky forms, some of whom were former slaves.

Aunt Dice began again her imperious rule and discipline. The old fields crept into life. The
rolling uplands were covered in billowy wheat. The tinkling of sheep bells sounded a call of
peace, while the river sang in her old happy way, for the master was to bring home a bride in the
late fall--  the woman with the "sweet, proud look," whose love had bidden him hope through
five dark years. Fortunately for Aunt Dice, the soon-to-be mistress held a high place in her
esteem. As the time approached, she began preparations for the wedding.

The day dawned cold and snowy. "Fix up things, Aunt Dice," said the master, as he departed for
his twenty-mile ride to Nashville. She needed no further order. When the wedding party returned
she met them on the lawn in stately fashion, her master's hounds baying about her. The old home
smiled with the warmth of old-fashioned southern hospitality. The hickory fires roared up the
chimneys in generous welcome. The long table in the dining room gleamed and glittered with
the evidences that Aunt Dice's faithful hands had not lost their cunning.

There were eight long years of quiet for Riverside; years that were golden with hope and rich
with its promises; years of peace and rest after the turbulent season of war. Children played
again under the maples. Childish laughter rang through the cool galleries. The new mistress
reigned with a queenly grace and charm of manner that held captive the esteem of all South
Afton. Indeed, the country folk soon learned to love the strange woman in their midst, who was
so wondrous kind and sweet.

Aunt Dice never criticised her. She never made her mistress a subject of her trying mimicry,  but
invariably held her up to the numerous grandchildren as a model of gracious dignity and
charming womanhood. But Mos Sam was still the darling of Aunt Dice's heart. To him she filled
the office of mother in more ways than one. The responsibilities of this relation she did not
shirk. If she thought he needed reproof, she was quick and stern in giving it. "Git up f'om thar,
Mos Sam, complainin' of your woun's, an' wishin' ye had a millyun. Go to work. Money won't
walk to ye." Such rebukes were wholesome, and never out of place in the days when the debt
problem was an unanswered one and a grievous burden to the southern landowner.

Aunt Dice may have saved her master from a fatal despondency in his straitened circumstances
by her kindly words of cheer, or a caustic rebuke which she covered adroitly with a quaint
remark, sure to bring a smile; but much more did she prefer to honor him with all the doting
fondness of a mother.

"Anything in your cupboard for me, Aunt Dice?" was the frequent question.

"Dunno, Mos Sam," she would answer, almost ignoring the question; "ye'd better look."

He was sure to find a generous store--whitest bread and honey, cold chicken, her famous pies
and cookies, which were noted for their excellence.

These were her happy hours. He was all her own when he sat with her in her cabin and talked
with her of the old times, the days of her kind old master.   

CHAPTER XII.

THE subject of the war was a sore one to Aunt Dice. She looked upon it as a personal matter,
deploring the thought that her own people had caused the ruin of Riverside--had impoverished
her dear young master. She tried to bury this sorrow quietly as she had buried her other griefs,
but she could not order the thoughts of her master nor bid his bitter memories be gone. She knew
that the war spirit controlled him when she saw his restless pacing back and forth; the nervous
twitch of his fingers, as if they longed to draw a sword; the quick flash of his eyes, as if the
vision of a hard-fought battle rose up before him, or the roar of cannon and musketry lingered in
his ears.

"Debt ain't all he's a studyin' over," Aunt Dice said. She watched him as he sat on the gallery,
gazing with far-seeing eyes across the dimpling, smiling river.

"Aunt Dice, I would gladly fight through four years more--go hungry, ragged; sleep in
snowdrifts, by the wayside, anywhere--just to try the whole thing over."

"Mos Sam, let the war go. What good do it do to set an' study over it? It's all pas' an' gone now;
make the best of it." 

But the blood of his comrades, so sadly spilled in vain, called to him pleadingly. The negroes he
did not care to have, and would not own again. It was the stupendous failure of a stupendous
undertaking that chafed and nettled his imperious nature. He felt whipped. The reflection was
anything but consoling. In these sad hours he felt that he had offered upon the altar of his
country all that was truest and best within him. Only a soldier of fortune was left, warped and
frayed as the clothes he wore home. He turned to his wife in the bitterness of his soul, and held
her close in his arms. "What can I promise my Helen, the wife of a poor rebel soldier?"

"This 'poor rebel soldier' is my brave knight," she answered, smiling.

These seasons of unrest were happily transient. .Life was still before him. His winning smile and
genial manner still earned for him the honored title of the "Light of Riverside." The hired "work
hands" in the cabins were under the just and temperate rule of a kind "boss," a convenient
substitute for the word master.

Aunt Dice's three granddaughters, after varied experiences, were married and established at
Riverside, where their husbands worked "on shares," or for wages, for their necessary food and
clothing. But Charley belonged to the numberless horde of swarthy citizens who termed
themselves the "new niggers." He had shaken the dust of Riverside forever from his feet, save for
an occasional  visit to his mother, whither he went sometimes in a hired buggy, with jaunty horse
and trappings; sometimes, however, riding a gaunt, bony mule; but more often afoot, ragged,
unkempt, and hungry. After such visits Aunt Dice's purse was left in a collapsed state.

But the "new niggers!" "Ho, for Nashville!" seemed to be the watchword and cry of liberated
thousands--a greater problem by far than all the debts and mortgages that covered the sunny
lands of Tennessee. Into Nashville they poured, a living stream of life, fearfully free. They
swarmed the streets, crowded the corners, obstructed the sidewalks, while dainty ladies stepped
aside, and white men muttered nameless maledictions through their closed teeth. Whether in
vehicles or shining "turnouts," or shaky rattletraps, the new negroes kept the center of the road,
to see the "white man pass round," without the customary greeting or doffing of hat or cap. In the
depths of the country the fields and woods were strangely silent. There was a dearth of old-time
melodies, of feasting and revelry. The musical calls and sound of the sweet cane flutes gave
place to a new song, if song it could be called, replete with a significant triumph:

 "Possum up a gum stump, coon up a holler,  I met dat white man, an' he owed me a -dollar."''

The word "master," too, had fallen into disuse, and "Mr. and Mrs." Brown were substituted, and
rolled under tongues too thick to conceal a  malicious pleasure, which stung the southerner
ofttimes to quick resentment.

Aunt Dice knew at a glance the fortunate ones who applied at Riverside for situations. The
master, who still, as he gave them to understand, was lord of his own domain, kindly received
the applicant who stood before him with bared head and called him "Mos Sam" in the old-time
way. Not that he commanded or required this humble obeisance; but knowing the negro well, he
knew the conservative ones to be the most worthy, and as such were apt to be for a generation or
more to follow.

When Archibald, a stalwart youth of twenty-one--a former slave who had been "onwillin' to be
'vided out" at the sale--appeared at Riverside for a comfortable dinner and a possible job, Aunt
Dice looked him over dubiously. His dashing appearance, his display of brass jewelry, his
stylishly carded hair, betokened little favor from the master. When about to pay his " 'spects to
de boss," Aunt Dice called out warningly: "Min' your manners, Arch, I tell you; min' your
manners."

But Archibald, brimful of freedom and the importance of his twenty-one years, stepped jauntily
to the master's front door. "Howdy, Mr. Macy. How's Mrs. Macy, yo' lady?" Archibald felt a grip
of steel within his collar for answer, and a kick which caused him to measure his length under
the maples. 

"You might as well go now, Arch," said Aunt Dice, quietly observant from the kitchen.
"Manners is cheap, an' mighty handy sometimes."

Aunt Dice, under the new order of things, was extremely exclusive in her social life. Few
colored people she tolerated, fewer still she visited; on such occasions her "grand air" was most
noticeable. She still held her membership with her white people's church, and condescended
once a year to attend a colored congregation near by, where their wild gestures and noisy
worship disgusted and annoyed her. Still she was not without a certain interest in her own race.
She deplored their failings, encouraged every honest effort, and lent a helping hand to every
worthy applicant. She might have been what is termed a "white folks' nigger," one who is
cordially hated and distrusted by his own people, especially as he prospers by his white "liking."
But certain it was that Aunt Dice, bravely as she dared their suspicion, commanded the respect,
if she did not gain the love, of her colored acquaintances. Born a slave, this unreconstructed soul
never acknowledged her freedom, and scorned the offer of wages at the close of the war. Feeling
that she belonged to her white people, and almost one of them, no national proclamation of
freedom swerved her allegiance to them for an instant. Among her white neighbors she was ever
treated with distinguished regard. On her usual church goings, or weekly visits to the store, she
never  lacked attention and courtesy due a lady. Indeed, so honest was she in all her dealings, so
well grounded in truth and purity of character, that no instance was ever known when her
self-respect went begging.

The new mistress was not slow to learn the value of Aunt Dice as friend and adviser; nor did she
hesitate to accept her companionship as a boon at lonely Riverside. Aunt Dice's afternoon nap
was an unvarying rule of the house--an hour which the mistress found to be irksome waiting, as
she was usually favored with an afternoon call, now that the spinning wheels were silent, and
leisure hours numerous. The sight of Aunt Dice's homely, squat figure, as she sat on the low
doorstep with her fragrant pipe, was a pleasant one to the mistress, who began to look forward to
these daily visits. Aunt Dice, coming up the path from her cabin, often saw the stately figure of
her mistress pacing the length of the gallery, and heard her clear, rich tones greeting her: "Aunt
Dice, how long your naps are! I have been waiting an hour or more for you."

"Well, you wus in a hurry," Aunt Dice would say composedly, seating herself on the step, and
watching the mistress's delicate hands flash in and out with her dainty lace-making. Perhaps the
lovely lady of Riverside was lonely at times when the master was absent; perhaps she felt a
tender longing for her bright Nashville home--a home of unusual affection and charming
personalities.  Aunt Dice was considerate. She understood the tender look across the river and up
the long lane that stretched its way toward Nashville. She interested her mistress in household
affairs, instructed her in the secrets of the dairy, the raising of fowls, and other minor duties of
the country housekeeper. Helen Macy was a happy woman with her husband and children about
her, and frequent glimpses of her beloved brother, John Trevor. Riverside was still a pleasant
home, and not without its comforts, though groaning still under the burden of debt, and too poor
by far to afford her the luxury of a piano, or even her favorite books. But she loved the smiling
river--blue, dimpling South Afton; she never tired of the rugged bluffs, the dizzy cliffs, clothed
and crowned with verdure; she loved the breezy uplands, the distant hills sleeping in yellow
sunshine; she was fond of the old house with its quaint architecture, its cool, wide rooms; she
was happy at Riverside. "I am really thinking, Sam, of wearing print gowns," she said one day.
And print gowns she wore, even to the critical eyes of her husband, as a queen "her purple robe."

"Sing, Helen," the master sometimes said as they sat together on the moonlit gallery; and Helen
sang.

The negroes crowded to their cabin doors. "Hush! Miss Helen's singin'."

Aunt Dice listened from her pleasant back garden.  The river lapped softly, while the sweet, rich
voice of the mistress trembled and soared with the song of a river hardly more romantic in scene
than the lovely one at her feet: "Flow gently, sweet Afton." The old, old songs rang full and
clear: the music of "Convent Bells"; the lover's old song, "When the stars are in the quiet sky";
and "Kathleen Mavourneen." The master, whose eyes grew stormy under "Maryland, my
Maryland," were quiet and tender when he listened to a glad "Gloria," or "Come, ye
disconsolate."

The new mistress found in Aunt Dice an efficient help in dispensing hospitalities. With her
conservative ways she was a pleasant feature of social gatherings at Riverside. The old
sideboard, with its array of decanters and sparkling crystal, was a thing of the past, but her
ingenuity proved more than equal to its loss. It was her pleasure to plan surprises for guests or
afternoon callers--to spread a table under the maples, or improvise a dainty lunch on a tray
covered in spotless linen, for those only whom she favored. If she felt that Riverside was
honored, she "opened her heart"; otherwise, she was significantly silent. Yet she made a pathetic
picture, bearing in her trembling hands these offerings of old-fashioned hospitality, these
testimonials of her "family pride." The house, too, was brightened occasionally with family
gatherings, and often filled to overflowing with the children--Aunt Dice's "gran'chillun," as she 
called them. They played on the lawn, waded in the shallows of the river; gathered mussel shells
and periwinkles on the sand bar; "kept house," and played "ladies," on the great rocks by the
"Branch." They swarmed on the galleries, up the quaint stairways, and peeped fearfully into the
depths of the dark "scuttle hole." A visit to Aunt Dice's cabin was a ceremonial not to be
overlooked; there they were treated to the same discipline, the same grimaces, contortions, and
humiliating caricatures that their mothers were of old, to say nothing of the open cupboard doors
as an aftermath. Valuable lessons, too, they learned in that humble cabin; one of which, at least,
was never forgotten--to "speed the parting guest," a maxim which finds an echo in many a
hostess's heart. "I must go, Granny," said often and reluctantly, brought forth from her the
wholesome advice: "When ye say 'go,' go. Don't palaver 'bout it." A form of good-by which
certainly speeded the "parting guest."

The visits of these grandchildren Aunt Dice demanded. She exacted a certain amount of
deference due her. She required them to pay their respects to her at stated intervals, a duty which
they were not loath to do; but " 'nough of a thing wus 'nough," she said. "Time you chillun wus
gittin' 'long home now," she would command, after a protracted stay. When they pleaded for one
day more, Aunt Dice was firm. In spite of the protestations of the mistress, though much to  the
amusement of the master, who knew the hold she kept upon his purse strings in those straitened
times, Aunt Dice ruled. "Go 'long, chillun"--be it whispered once, and forever relegated to the
shades in the interests of southern hospitality; "go 'long--Mos Sam's flour barrel's a gittin' low."  

CHAPTER XIII.

BEECHWOOD was a memory only. A cluster of tall chimneys told where the pleasant mansion
had stood, while grass and weeds grew about the deserted cabins. The lands, no longer a family
possession, were divided into several farms under enterprising owners. Doctor Trevor, who had
removed to the village of P--, close by, owned a small farm within its limits, the cottage and
office fronting the village street or pike. "Vine Cottage" it was called, from the riotous growth of
vines--rose, clematis, and wild honeysuckle--over the trees, porches, and fences. In front ran a
brooklet, falling across a bend in the pike, forming a miniature cataract, which the children
called "Niagara Falls"--in the winter only; the summer found its dry bed a rich field for a
playground.

The farm, beyond a few acres in cultivation, rounded into hills, bristled into thickets, or gaped
into gullies--another convenient playground for the children, provided they were regardless of
clean frocks and constitutionally fond of clay pies; a farm which conveyed less than half the
meaning of the word, and left a rich overplus in woody depths and dewy dingles; in thickets
musical with birds and fragrant with wild flowers; in orchards where bees hung drowsily over
seas of pink and  white bloom, where the fruit was the rosiest and most luscious; in gardens
where big red roses ran riot over squashes and melons, of the sweetest and best. Morning-glories
gloried in the corn, and flung their purple banners from the topmost tasseling; raspberries
ripened along the hillsides and narrow paths; dewberry vines scrambled over gullies and ran
helter-skelter through the best bottom field, bearing their luscious fruit. The old beeches,
crowning the hill pasture, were the shadiest in the whole country round; while the willows,
fringing the streamlet at its base, listened to a musical rhyme never dreamed of by the farmer's
boy who plowed his weary way on the opposite hillsides. Rural beauty held here a peaceful
reign; rural sights and sounds were undisturbed by the hurrying bustle of busy life. Hawks sailed
lazily overhead; owls brooded in hollow trees; the blue heron dreamed in the swamp; while the
crows cawed from the treetops through the livelong days. The spirits of the woods--the birds, the
flowers--driven from the carefully husbanded soil of the neighboring hills, gathered here for a
continual jubilee, and sang and grew and sported within their wonted haunts--the leafy coverts of
Vine Cottage farm.

John Trevor, though he had suffered reverses during the trying times of war, and was struggling
with others to master the question of debt, possessed still a characteristic buoyancy and
hopefulness  of disposition. Busy with a heavy practice, and his wife and children depending
solely upon him, he was still a "good purvider," as Aunt Dice had said. She never had cause to
retract her decision of his faithfulness and worth. Stone by stone he had built an honored name
in the place of his adoption. Older heads than his looked up to him, and steady farmers of long
experience and varied wisdom looked kindly upon him and trusted him.

In his busy life he had little time for his wonted sports and pleasures. Through the more leisure
month of May, a few hours spent on the banks of his beloved South Afton with rod and line was
the only recreation permitted him from year's end to year's end. There, while the soft swish of the
waters against the rocks, the smiling sky overhead, the calling of birds from the fields, rested and
refreshed him, he lived a different life for the time--something apart from the pill-making,
prescription-writing duties of workyday hours.

"Mos John'll never grow ole," Aunt Dice said; "he keep his heart young." All that she saw lovely
and beautiful in nature she called his. The blue skies and sailing white clouds, the wayside
flowers, all that the country physician saw and noted through the long lanes, by the hill ridge
roads or the dusty pikes; even the squirrels that chattered from the trees or sported along rock
walls and rail fences--all were his. "Mos John's martins is come," she would say in the  spring;
or, "I hear Mos John's little flute bird," of the sweet-throated thrush. The cooing spring doves,
the whistling summer partridges, all were Mos John's. "The birds is singin' fur Mos John," she
was wont to say, as if she thought that nature knew and loved her own, or that the skies smiled
more sweetly over the daily walk of one beneath who was so earnest and true. She began to
watch jealously the solitary fisherman by the bluff spring in the spare hours of the May-time
seasons. "You'se got a call, Mos John; I hates to tell ye," she said sometimes, showing her
silvered head over the bluff. "'Pears like ye might have a leetle res'."

"Never mind, Aunt Dice," answered the country physician, cheerfully. "I shall take a trip to the
mountains some time in the near future, and for two whole weeks I shall rest and forget all the
world of aches and pains."

"To be sho' ye might," she said. The far-off mountains had grown suddenly interesting to her,
since they held in reserve a rest and solace for the tired physician.

From the first year of his career John Trevor had resolved upon this little recreation--two long
weeks to spend upon the mountains, among the mountain brooks and speckled trout. It was a
picture framed in his mind which cheered him often by the lonely wayside. But the pleasant
vision flitted before him like a mirage of the desert. The earnestness of his profession had 
developed through sober experience. Resolutions formed within him under the kindly
admonitions of college lecturers had grown to a steady purpose. The years of his youth, it was
true, had been spent mainly in the upbuilding of his practice, in overcoming prejudices against
his inexperience, and perhaps more than all his outcropping progressive ideas. None the less,
too, did he know that he had run the gauntlet through the length and breadth of his practice in
matters of religion, morals, and politics; in which he was fairly successful, he was pleased to
remember. His modest little debt, though only the sum of a few hundreds, had assumed a
proportion to his income which caused him to waken occasionally at night and stare blindly into
darkness, trying to conjecture the best possible mode of payment; a problem he needed not to
have considered, were all those unpaid accounts which accumulated in his office desk
forthcoming. Nevertheless, in the prime of his manhood he contemplated with some pleasure the
wide bounds of his substantial practice. He had won. He had paid