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Show 56 I;SCLI:: 'l'Ol\l'S CAlliS: 0111 " Degrade ! would it degrade me as much as to break my faith with the helpless? No, indeed!" "lVell, you are always heroic and transcendental/' said Mr. Shelby, "but I think you had better think before you undertake such a. piece of Quixotism.'' Here the conversation was interrupted by tho appearance of Aunt Chloe, at the end of the verandah. " If you please, 1\fissis," said she. ': 'Yell, Chloe, what is it? " said her mistress, rising, and going to the end of the balcony. " If Missis would come and look at dis yer lot o' poetry." Chloe had a particular fancy for calling poultry poetry,an applica.tion of language in which she always persisted, notwithstanding frequent corrections and advisings from the young members of the family. "La sakes!" she would say, ''I can't see; one jis good as turry,- poetry suthin good, any how;" and so poetry Chloe continued to call it. Mrs. Shelby smiled as she saw a prostrate lot of chickens and ducks, over which Chloe stood, with a very grave face of consideration. "I'm a thinkin whether ~Iissis would be a havin a chicken pie o' dose yer." "Really, Aunt Chloe, I don't much care;- serve them any way you like." Chloe stood handling them over abstractedly; it was quite evident that the chickens were not what she was thinking of. At last, with the short laugh with which her tribe often introduce a doubtful proposal, she said, "Laws me, Missis ! what should Mas'r and Missis be a troublin theirsclves 1bout de money, and not a usin what's right in der hands? " and Chloe laughed agniu. LIFE AMONG TilE LOWLY. 57 "I don't understand you, Chloe," said Mrs. Shelby, nothing doubting, from her knowledge of Chloe's manner, that she had heard every word of the conversation that had passed between her and her husband. "Why, laws me, !11Jssis!" said Chloe, laughing again, 11 other folks hires out der niggcrs and makes money on 'em! Don't keep sich a tribe eatin 'em out of house and home." "Well, Chloe, who do you propose that we should hire out?" "Laws! I an't a proposin nothin; only Sam he said der w~s one of dcse yer perfectioners, dey calls 'em, in Louisville, s~1d oo wanted a good hand at cake and pastry; and said he'd g1 ve four dollars a week to one, he did." "Well, Chloe." · "Well, laws, I's a thinkin, Missis, it's time Sally was put along to be doin' something. Sally's been under my care, now, dis some time, and she does most as well as me considcrin; and if Missis would only let me go, I would bel; fetch up de money. I an' I afraid to put my cake, nor pies nother, 'long side no pe1jectioner' s." ''Confectioner's, Chloe.'' ':Law sakes, }rJissis! 't an't no odds; -words is 80 curis, cant never get 'em right!" "But, Chloe, do you want to leave your children 1 " "Laws, Missis ! de boys is big enough to do day's works· dey does well enough; and Sally, she'll take de baby,- she'~ such a pcart young un, she won't take no lookin nrter." "Louisville is a good way off." ''Law sakes! who's aferu-d?- it's down river, somer near my old man, perhaps?" said Chloe, speaking the last in the tone of a question, and looking at Mrs. Shelby. |