her hands on her
portly hips. "I hain't used to no such trash. When anybody has lived
with the highest nobility they can't stomach such low down niggers. Why,
I used to have 'em kneelin' at my feet, four or five at a time, askin'
what I'd have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the
kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never
wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, 'How any black nigger can stand
makin' bakin' powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery to me.'"

"Well, you know Princes are not common in this country," sez I.

She drew herself up more hautily, "Such a Prince as that hain't common
in no country! Why he's so handsome and good the very birds in the trees
will stop singin' to listen to his talk, and the grass turn brighter
green where he's stepped on it, and the May-flowers peek up and blush
with happiness if he looks at 'em."

"How come you to leave him, Aunt Pheeny, if he wuz so perfect?"

"I tole you before," sez she with dignity, "that when he went off to
school I wuzn't in no ways bound to stay with ole Miss. She wuz jealous,
you know, jealous of me. Prince Arthur made more of me, we used to sing
together, you know I've sung in Concorts and Operations, been a star in
'em. Ole Miss couldn't sing no more than a green frog. And he always
said when he got married I wuz to live with him, that nachully sot up
his Ma's back, and I santered off one day, never tole her I wuz goin',
but jest lifted up my train, I wore long pink and blue satin dresses
then, and I jest santered out the house over to Californy and Asia and
so on to Chicago, and then hired out to Miss Dotie's ma. And here I is!"
sez she firmly, and took up the empty tray and departed.

She wuz a good singer, her voice full of the sweetness and heart
searchin' pathos of her race. And her wild flights of imagination never
hurt anyone but herself.

Well, after supper, which they called dinner, I felt considerable
better. Josiah stayed down in the parlor talkin' to Grandpa Huff and
Billy, and Molly come up in my room agin and sot with me, whilst
twilight let down her soft gray mantilly round us and pinned it to the
earth with silver stars (metafor).

I always take it as a great compliment when folks confide the deepest
secrets of their heart to me. And Id'no why it is, but they most always
do; I mean them that I take to nachully. Sometimes I've felt first rate
by it and spozed it wuz because I had such