dinner to General Knox? I and Missis, we come pretty near
quarrelling about dat ar crust. What does get into ladies sometimes,
I don't know; but, sometimes, when a body has de heaviest kind o'
'sponsibility on 'em, as ye may say, and is all kinder _'seris'_
and taken up, dey takes dat ar time to be hangin' round and kinder
interferin'! Now, Missis, she wanted me to do dis way, and she wanted
me to do dat way; and, finally, I got kinder sarcy, and, says I, 'Now,
Missis, do jist look at dem beautiful white hands o' yourn with long
fingers, and all a sparkling with rings, like my white lilies when de
dew 's on 'em; and look at my great black stumpin hands. Now, don't ye
think dat de Lord must have meant _me_ to make de pie-crust, and you to
stay in de parlor? Dar! I was jist so sarcy, Mas'r George."

"And what did mother say?" said George.

"Say?--why, she kinder larfed in her eyes--dem great handsome eyes o'
hern; and, says she, 'Well, Aunt Chloe, I think you are about in the
right on 't,' says she; and she went off in de parlor. She oughter
cracked me over de head for bein' so sarcy; but dar's whar 't is--I
can't do nothin' with ladies in de kitchen!"

"Well, you made out well with that dinner,--I remember everybody said
so," said George.

"Didn't I? And wan't I behind de dinin'-room door dat bery day? and
didn't I see de General pass his plate three times for some more dat
bery pie?--and, says he, 'You must have an uncommon cook, Mrs. Shelby.'
Lor! I was fit to split myself.

"And de Gineral, he knows what cookin' is," said Aunt Chloe, drawing
herself up with an air. "Bery nice man, de Gineral! He comes of one of
de bery _fustest_ families in Old Virginny! He knows what's what, now,
as well as I do--de Gineral. Ye see, there's _pints_ in all pies, Mas'r
George; but tan't everybody knows what they is, or as orter be. But the
Gineral, he knows; I knew by his 'marks he made. Yes, he knows what de
pints is!"

By this time, Master George had arrived at that pass to which even a
boy can come (under uncommon circumstances, when he really could not eat
another morsel), and, therefore, he was at leisure to notice the pile of
woolly heads and glistening eyes which were regarding their operations
hungrily from the opposite corner.

"Here, you Mose, Pete," he said, breaking off liberal bits, and throwing
it at them; "you want some, don't you? Come, Aunt Chloe, bake them some
cakes."

And George and Tom moved to a comforta