"A half, then."

Going to the laundry, I said to Anarky, "Chang-how will assist you in
the ironing to-day, so that you can get through quickly and show my
friends some of your best cooking, Anarky. I do hope--"

"What Shang-doodle know 'bout i'unin'?" asked Anarky sulkily.

"Oh, he knows ever so much," said I with cheerful faith; "and I do hope
you will try to get on nicely with him this time. You know what the
Bible says about brothers dwelling together in unity, and all that?"

"Chang-jaw ain't none o' my brudder, an' I ain't none o' his'n,"
resisted Anarky.

"Oh yes, we are all brothers; and if you will only be Chang-how's long
enough to get through with the ironing, I will give you almost anything
you want."

"Gimme a nigger all day long," said Anarky: "I fa'rly hates a Chinee an'
a Orrisher."

"Try it to-day, though, Anarky, for my sake," said I persuasively; and
she consented, though sulkily enough.

Hearing Chang-how coming, I seated myself on the stairway leading into
the laundry, curious to see how they would work together.

Anarky pointed authoritatively to a heap of dried linen. "Sprinkle dem
ar cloze," said she to Chang. "I'm gwine out in de yard to git what's on
de line."

While she was gone, Chang-how, as is the manner of his people, filled
his mouth with water, and was blowing it in a fine spray over the linen
when Anarky appeared in the doorway, a basket of clothes on her head,
her knuckles on her hips. As she caught sight of Chang-how moistening
the linen with water from his mouth she stopped: she staggered, her
basket fell to the floor, and, stooping down, she threw her hands above
her head, then brought them down again with a violent slap on her knees.

"Good Lor'! come down," said she, "an' look at dat yaller houn'
a-spittin' on Mis' Maud's cloze.--I got you now! Can't nobody blame me
fur beatin' you 'bout _dat_."

Then she flew at him, and what a scene it was! She, black, brawny, of
immense physical power--he, lithe, sinewy, supple as a panther. It was a
spectacle! First one, then the other, seemed to have the advantage. She
would catch him in her powerful grasp, and, lifting him off his feet,
swing him in the air as if about to slam him to his final resting-place,
when by some inexplicable manoeuvre he would writhe from between her
fingers or wriggle himself to the back of her neck and mash her nose
flat against her breast as if bent on suffocating her or breaking her
neck. In a mo