“Ezra, your Mars Pinckney is right. That’s the long and short of it. Your Parson changed baptizing in salt water for fresh water. You have confessed it, and you are changing all the time. Your hair was once black, now it is white. To-day is bright, cold, windy and sunny. To-morrow will be changed; it can’t be just like to-day. Even your oxen, Lawyer and Farmer, like a change. Grass is good enough when there is no wheat field to jump into, but when the wheat is green, sweet and rich, they leave the grass.”
“Why, you would get tired of bacon and cabbage if you had it all the time.”
“And, Ezra, if Aunt Cassey, your good and kind wife, hadn’t changed her mind and married you instead of Uncle Snake Bit Jim, her name would now be Mrs. Snake Bit Jim.”
“Dat’s what I say, boss; dat’s de application ezactly. I don’ like dis changin’ business. Bless Gord, I wish Cassey hadn’ change huh mine.”
Memories of happier days come to us all. May they soften the pillow of dear old Ezra. His first wife was my nurse, and many a time his willing hands, to give her’s rest, have rocked my cradle.
Who could our baby tears repress And lull us into drowsiness. Mammy.
There are pictures of the past in memory’s gallery before which we love to linger. To one it is perhaps the old homestead in the North, or the South. To another, a woman’s face. To a woman mayhap this picture is suggested by a simple tress of hair, or fragrant dust, _once_ violets, or an old letter, perchance kissed many times, or tear-wet, who may know? To me it is my old—
Who nursed and fed us from her breast And in her tender arms caressed? Mammy.
Who washed our faces, combed our hair And tied us in our baby chair? Mammy.
Who soaped and bathed our little forms, And rocked us in her loving arms? Mammy.
Who, when we stumped our little toes, Put balsam on to heal our woes? Mammy.
Who could our baby tears repress, And lull us into drowsiness? Mammy.
Who tucked us in our baby cot, And all our badness soon forgot? Mammy.
Who always patted us to sleep, And “Prayed the Lord our souls to keep?” Mammy.
Who rests from sorrow ’neath the sod, And all the paths of duty trod? Mammy.
Uncle David, though threescore years and ten and bent with age, was quite useful on the plantation, and was not afraid of work. His labor, however, had not been of a wearing kind. Once a week he drove Sue, a kind and gentle mare, to the mill with a load of corn and returned with bags of sweet cornmeal, the like of which is hard to get nowadays.