at once. He honored my ministry with
his presence on Sundays. There was a touch of dandyism in him that then
and there came out. Clad in a blue broadcloth dress-coat of the olden
cut, vest to match, tight-fitting pantaloons, stove-pipe hat, and yellow
kid gloves, he was a gorgeous object to behold. He knew it, and there
was a pleasant self-consciousness in the way he bore himself in the
sanctuary.

Uncle Joe was the heartiest laugher I ever knew. He was always as full
of happy life as a frisky colt or a plump pig. When he entered a knot of
idlers on the streets, it was the signal or a humorous uproar. His
quaint sayings, witty repartee, and contagious laughter, never failed.
He was as agile as a monkey, and his dancing was a marvel. For a dime he
would "cut the pigeon wing," or give a "double-shuffle" or "breakdown"
in a way that made the beholder dizzy.

What was Uncle Joe's age nobody could guess--he had passed the line of
probable surmising. His own version of the matter on a certain occasion
was curious. We had a colored female servant--an old-fashioned aunty
from Mississippi--who, with a bandanna handkerchief on her head, went
about the house singing the old Methodist choruses so naturally that it
gave us a home-feeling to have her about us. Uncle Joe and Aunt Tishy
became good friends, and he got into the habit of dropping in at the
parsonage on Sunday evenings to escort her to church. On this particular
occasion I was in the little study adjoining the dining-room where Aunt
Tishy was engaged in cleaning away the dishes after tea. I was not
eavesdropping, but could not help hearing what they said. My name was
mentioned.

"O yes," said Uncle Joe; "I knowed Massa Fitchjarals back dar in
Virginny. I use ter hear 'im preach dar when I was a boy."

There was a silence. Aunt Tishy couldn't swallow that. Uncle Joe's
statement, if true, would have made me more than a hundred years old, or
brought him down to less than forty. The latter was his object; he
wanted to impress Aunt Tishy with the idea that he was young-enough to
be an eligible gallant to any lady. But it failed. That unfortunate
remark ruined Uncle Joe's prospects: Aunt Tishy positively refused to go
with him to church, and just as soon as he had left she went into the
sitting-room in high disgust, saying:

"What made dat nigger tell me a lie like dat? Tut, tut, tut!"

She cut him ever after, saying she would n't keep company with a liar,
"even if he w