h,
it'd never do to say anythin' like that to Molly Tooney, if she's got me
to feed. Jes' let me tell you, Miss Miriam, don't you say nothin' to
Molly Tooney 'bout me. I never could sleep at night if I thought she was
stirrin' up pizen in my vittles. But I tell you, Miss Miriam, if you was
to say Molly, that you an' Mr. Haverley liked corn-cakes an' was always
used to 'em before you come here, an' that they 'greed with you, then in
course she'd make 'em, an' there'd be a lot left over for me, for I don't
'spect you all could eat the corn-bread she'd make, but I'd eat it, bein'
so powerful hungry for corn-meal."

"Mike," said Miriam, "you shall have corn-bread, but that is all
nonsense about Molly. I do not see how you could get such a notion into
your head."

Mike gave himself a shrug.

"Now look a here, Miss Miriam," he said; "I've heard before of red-headed
cooks, an' colored pussons as wasn't satisfied with their victuals, an'
nobody knows what they died of, an' the funerals was mighty slim, an' no
'count, the friends an' congregation thinkin' there might be somethin'
'tagious. Them red-headed kind of cooks is mighty dangerous, Miss Miriam,
an' lemme tell you, the sooner you git rid of them, the better."

Miriam's previous experiences had brought her very little into contact
with negroes, and although she did not care very much about what Mike was
saying, it interested her to hear him talk. His intonations and manner of
expressing himself pleased her fancy. She could imagine herself in the
sunny South, talking to an old family servant. This fancy was novel and
pleasant. Mike liked to talk, and was shrewd enough to see that Miriam
liked to listen to him. He determined to take advantage of this
opportunity to find out something in regard to the doleful news brought
to him by La Fleur and which, he feared, might be founded upon fact.

"Now look here, Miss Miriam," said he, lowering his voice a little, but
not enough to make him seem disrespectfully confidential, "what you want
is a first-class colored cook--not Phoebe, she's no good cook, an' won't
live in the country, an' is so mighty stuck up that she don't like
nuthin' but wheat bread, an' ain't no 'count anyway. But I got a sister,
Miss Miriam. She's a number one, fust-class cook, knows all the northen
an' southen an' easten an' westen kind of cookin', an' she's only got two
chillun, what could keep in the house all day long an' not trouble
nobody, 'side bringi