"Eve'body was happy 'cept one. Dat one was de mist'ess, standin' in de door. She wouldn't come out to de coach where de horses was a-champin' de bits an' de froth a-droppin' on de groun', an' she wouldn't speak to Marse Tom. She kep' back in de do'way.
"Miss Rachel was dat mean she wouldn't come downstairs.
"Miss Nannie gib Marse Tom Boling her han' an' look up in his face like a queen, an' den she kissed Marse Henry, an' whispered somethin' in his ear dat nobody didn't hear, only de tears gin to jump out an' roll down his cheeks, an' den she looked de mist'ess full in de face, an' 'thout a word dropped her a low curtsey.
"I come de las'. She looked at me for a minute wid her eyes a-swimmin', an' den she th'owed her arms roun' my neck an' hugged an' kissed me, an' den I see an arm slip 'roun' her wais' an' lif her in de coach. Den de horses 'gin a plunge an' dey was off.
"An' arter dat dey had five years--de happiest years dem two ever seen. I know, 'cause Marse Henry gin me to her, an' I lived wid 'em day in an' day out till dat baby come, an' den--"
Aunt Chloe stopped and reached out her hand as if to steady herself. The tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Then she advanced a step, fixed her eyes on the portrait, and in a voice broken with emotion, said:--
"Honey, chile,--honey, chile,--is you tired a-waitin' for yo' ole mammy? Keep a-watchin', honey--keep a-watchin'--It won't be long now 'fore I come. Keep a-watchin'."
I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the fact argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning words by heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I believe my remembrance of events depends much more upon the events themselves than upon my possessing any special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I am too imaginative, and the earliest impressions I received were of a kind to stimulate the imagination abnormally. A long series of little misfortunes, so connected with each other as to suggest a sort of weird fatality, so worked upon my melancholy temperament when I was a boy that, before I was of age, I sincerely believed myself to be under a curse, and not only myself, but my whole family and every individual who bore my name.
