s my knowledge of my own
being. But sing we could and did, and I read from the Scriptures of the
Old and the New Testaments, usually from the narrative portions, with a
psalm or two to "beat the upward flame" in our hearts.

And then I would preach a sermon.

Our chapel had been in good running order for over two months, when on a
certain drizzly Sunday early in March, I arose discreetly upon my
ticklish pulpit to announce through my nose, "We will commence our
services by singing the three-hundredth-and-thirty-third hymn--'Come
thou Fount of every blessing.'"

As mine was the only hymn-book in the assembly, the mention of the
number was a bit of supererogatory business. The omission of the formula
would have been a breach of chapel etiquette. I raised the tune, and
every other pair of lungs there joined in without fear of criticism or
favor of his neighbors' ears. Some of the duller and lesser children
smothered or decapitated a word here and there in the main body of the
hymn. All knew the chorus, and it shook the unceiled roof:--

"Away, away, away to glory!
My name's written on the throne.
My home's in yonder worl' o' glory,
Where my Redeemer reigns alone."

Warmed by the vigorous preliminary, I read the sixth chapter of
Revelation, still through my nose, catching my breath audibly at the end
of each clause. This oratorical touch was copied with ludicrous accuracy
from Rev. Wesley Greene, a circuit-rider who had conducted an
"arbor-meeting" at Fine Creek meeting-house last summer. Our negroes
were all Baptists, and considered themselves remiss, as devout hearers
of aught that partook of the nature of a religious service, if they did
not respond at intervals with groans and pious ejaculations. Their
children, as gravely imitative as juvenile Simiae, came up nobly to their
parts in our exercises.

The acknowledged leader in the responses, and my Grand Vizier in the
ordering of my small kingdom, my stage-manager and lieutenant-general,
was a girl of twelve, Mariposa by name. She received the fanciful title
from a young visitor to the plantation who had studied Spanish.
"Mariposa" meant butterfly, she told the baby's mother, who gratefully
accepted the compliment to her newly born daughter. The mother and her
mates called her "Mary Posy." The mistress, who was fond of the madcap
sponsor, retained the original pronunciation.

Mariposa was as black as tar, and to-day was clothed in a yellow
homespun