"What is it?" said Leffie, coming forward. "Have you got him a letter from
Kentuck?"
"I hain't got nothin' else, Miss Leffie Lacey, if you please," said
Rondeau, snapping his fingers in her face, and giving Aunt Dilsey's elbow
a slight jostle, just enough to spill the oil, with which she was filling
a lamp.
"Rondeau, I 'clar' for't," said Aunt Dilsey, setting down her oil can. "If
marster don't crack your head, my old man Claib shall, if he ever gits up
agin. Thar he is in his bunk, snorin' like he was a steamboat; and
marster's asleep upstairs, I reckon. Well, 'tain't no way to live. Things
would go to rack and ruin if I didn't sweat and work to keep 'em right end
up, sartin."
Aunt Dilsey was really a very valuable servant, and had some reason for
thinking herself the main spoke in the wheel which kept her master's
household together. She had lived in the family ever since Dr. Lacey's
early recollection, and as she had nursed him when an infant, he naturally
felt a great affection for her, and intrusted her with the exclusive
management of the culinary department, little negroes and all. His
confidence in her was not misplaced, for from morning till night she was
faithful to her trust, and woe to any luckless woolly head who was found
wasting "marster's" sweetmeats and pickles.
On the first hand Aunt Dilsey was very sensitive, for being naturally
active and stirring herself, "She," to use her own words, "couldn't bar to
see folks lazin' round like thar was nothin' to do, but to git up and
stuff themselves till they's fit to bust." She also felt annoyed whenever
her young master indulged himself in a morning nap. "Ought to be up," she
said, "and airin' hisself."
On the morning following the party, her patience was severely taxed in two
ways. First, Claib, her husband, had adhered to his resolution of sleeping
over, and long after the clock struck eleven he was sleeping profoundly.
He had resisted all Aunt Dilsey's efforts to rouse him. Her scoldings,
sprinklings with hot and cold water, punching with the carving fork, had
all proved ineffectual, and as a last resort, she put the baby on his bed,
thinking "that would surely fetch him up standin', for 'twasn't in natur
to sleep with the baby wollopin' and mowin' over him." Her master, too,
troubled her. Why he couldn't get up she couldn't see. "His breakfast was
as cold as a grave stun, and she didn't keer if 'twas. She had enough to
do 'tendin' to other affairs, without keepin' the niggers and dogs from
porkin' thar noses in it."