for young Miss, an’ t’other for de rag doll lil chile took norf wid her and called Judy, for an ole woman who has gone to de Canaan she used to sing about—­“Oh, I’se boun’ for de lan’ of Canaan.”  She was powerful in pra’r, an’ at de fust meetin’ after de wah, an’ she knew she was free, I b’lieve you could of hearn her across de lake to Sanford, she shout “Glory, bress de Lawd!” so loud.  But for all she was free, she wouldn’t leave ole Miss Thomas.  “I likes my mistis, an’ I ain’t gwine to leave her wid somebody else to comb her har, an’ make her corn bread,” she said, when dey tried to persuade her to go to Palatky.  She staid wid ole Miss, who buried her decent, an’ has gone herself to jine her an’ Miss Dory in de better land, which seems to me is not far away; an’ offen, when I sees de sun go down in a glory of red an’ purple an’ yaller,—­I’se mighty fond of yaller,—­I says to myself, “It’s dat way dey goes to de udder world, whar, please God, I’ll go some day fore berry long,—­for I tries to be good.”

“There was a rapt look in Jake’s face as he turned it to the west, and I would have given much to know that my future was as assured as his.”

Here the first part of Mr. Mason’s letter closed abruptly, as a friend came to call, but he added hastily, “To-morrow I’ll finish, and tell you about the child who now occupies all Jake’s thoughts, praying every day that he may see her again.”

CHAPTER X

PART SECOND OF REV.  MR. MASON’S LETTER

“I was interrupted yesterday, and hardly know where to begin again, or what I have written, as Jake was a little mixed and went forward and back at times, showing that his memory was, as he said, leaky, but when he struck the child he was bright as a guinea.  ‘Lil Chile’ and ’Honey Bee’ he calls her.  He told me of her running into the house to meet the Colonel, with her soiled frock, and her face and hands besmeared with molasses; of her tussle with Mandy Ann, who wanted to wash her face and change her clothes, and of her fine appearance at the last in a white gown, her best, which he had bought and Mandy Ann made not long before, and which the Colonel would not take with him.  So they kept it, and Mandy Ann washed and ironed it, and put it away with some sweet herbs, and aired it every year till she was married, when Jake cared for it till Mandy Ann’s twins were born,—­Alex and Aaron.  Then Mandy Ann borrowed it for them to be christened in, one of them one Sunday and one the next, so that both had the honor of wearing it, while Jake was sponsor, ‘For,’ said he, ‘Mandy Ann has gin up them hollerin’ meetin’s whar white folks done come to see de ole darkies have a kind of powow, as dey use to have befo’ de wah.  Clar for’t if de folks from de Norf don’t gin de blacks money to sing de ole-time songs an’ rock an’ weave back an’ forth till dey have de pow’.  I don’t think much of dat ar, jess ‘musin’ theyselves wid our religion;’ and Jake looked his disgust, and continued: