“’Mandy Ann like mighty well to jine ’em, but I hole her back, an’ now she’s ‘Piscopal, ef she’s anything,—­an’ when de girl twins come,—­Dory an’ Judy,—­she borrowed lil chile’s gown agin.  Dat make fo’ times, an’ then I shet de gates, an’ said, “No mo’ gown, an’ no mo’ twins,” an’ thar hain’t been no mo’.

“’But I’se got a good ways from lil chile, who wan’t an atom shy of de Colonel, though he was of her, an’ when he took her han’ I could almost see him squirm like.  I think he tried to be kind, an’ he gin her a lil ivory book he had on his watch-chain, but you see he didn’t feel it.  He didn’t care for children, and it seemed as if he wanted to get away from this one.  But he couldn’t.  She was his’n; I’d bet my soul on dat.  He had to come after her an’ took her, though ’twas ’bout the wust job he ever did, I reckon.  She fit like a tiger cat about gwine wid him, an’ ’s true’s you bawn, I don’t b’lieve she’d gone ef he hadn’t took me wid him to Savannah.  I can’t tell you, Mas’r Mason, ‘bout de partin’ thar.  ’Twas drefful, an’ I kin see her now rollin’ on de flo’, wid her heels an’ han’s in de air, an’ she a-sayin’ she mus’ stay wid Shaky.  I bought her such a pretty red cloak, all lined wid white silk, an’ wrapped her in it, an’ took her on to de boat, an’ left her thar, she thinkin’ I was comin’ back, an’ the last I seen of her, as the boat moved off, she was jumpin’ up an’ down, an’ stretchin’ her arms to me, an’ the Cunnel holdin’ her tight, or I b’lieve she’d sprung overboard.  He’d a good time gettin’ her home, I reckon.  She was the very old Harry when her dander was up,’ and the old negro laughed as he thought of what the Colonel must have borne on that journey with his troublesome charge.

“There came a few lines to him, he said, telling of Col.  Crompton’s safe arrival home, and that the child was well.  After a while the war broke out, and communication with the North was cut off.  The friend in Palatka, who had returned from Europe and joined the Confederate Army, was killed, and the letter which Jake sent to Col.  Crompton when peace was restored was not answered for a long time.  At last the Colonel wrote that Eudora had married against his wishes and gone to Europe, and Jake was not to trouble him with any more letters concerning her.

“An’ that’s all I knows of her,’ he said, ’whether she’s dead or alive, or whar she is; but if I did know I b’lieve I’d walk afoot to de Norf to see her.  She ain’t my lil chile Dory no mo’, but I allus thinks of her like dat, an’ I keeps de cradle she was rocked in by my bed, an’ sometimes, when I’se lonesome nights, an’ can’t sleep for thinkin’ of her, I puts my han’ out an’ jogs it with a feelin’ the lil one is thar, an’ every day I prays she may come back to me, an’ I b’lieve she will.  Yes, sar, it comes to me that she will.’

“The tears were running down the old man’s face when, on our going to the house, he showed me the cradle close to his bed, a rude, old-fashioned, high-topped thing, such as the poorest families used years ago.  There was a pillow, or cushion, in it, and a little patchwork quilt, which, he said, Mandy Ann pieced and made.  He showed me, too, a second or third school reader, soiled and worn and pencil marked, and showing that it had been much used.