Jake clenched his fist to show what he would do, and hugging the baby to him, continued, “Dis my ‘ittle chile till its fader comes; doan’ you worry.  I’se strong an’ kin work, an’ Mandy Ann’s done got to stir de stumps more’n she has.”

He cast a threatening look at Mandy Ann, who had at first been appalled at the advent of the baby, and for a while kept aloof even from Ted, when the “Hatty” was in.  Then she rallied and, like Jake, was ready to do battle with any one who hunched their shoulders at Miss Dory.  She had two good square fights with Ted on the subject, and two or three more with some of her own class near the clearing, and as she came off victor each time it was thought wise not to provoke her, except as Ted from the safety of the “Hatty’s” deck sometimes called to her, when he saw her on the shore with the baby in her arms and asked how little Boston was getting along.  Mandy Ann felt that she could kill him, and every one else who spoke slightingly of her charge.  She had told Jake over and over again all she could remember of the stranger’s visit, and more than she could remember when she saw how eager he was for every detail.  She told him of the card taken to her mistress on a china plate, of the table with its four candles, and ole Miss’s handkerchief for a napkin, and of her waiting just as she had seen it done at Miss Perkins’s.

“The gemman was gran’ an’ tall, an’ mighty fine spoken, like all dem quality from de Norf,” she said, although in fact he was the first person she had ever seen from the North; but that made no difference with Mandy Ann.  “He was a gemman—­he had given her a dollar, and he was shoo to come back.”

This she said many times to her young mistress, keeping her spirits up, helping her to hope against hope, while the seasons came and went, and letters were sometimes received or sent, first to Tom Hardy and forwarded by him either to the North or to Eudora.  There was no lack of money, but this was not what the young girl wanted.  Mandy Ann had said she had not much sperrit, and she certainly had not enough to claim her rights, but clung to a morbid fancy of what was her duty, bearing up bravely for a long time, trying to learn, trying to read the books recommended to her in her Northern letters, and sent for by Jake to Palatka, trying to understand what she read, and, most pitiful of all, trying to be a lady, fashioned after her own ideas, and those of Jake and Mandy Ann.  Jake told her what he had seen the quality do in Richmond, while Mandy Ann boasted her superior knowledge, because of her three months with Miss Perkins’s in Jacksonville, and rehearsed many times the way she had seen young ladies “come into de house, shake han’s an’ say how d’ye, an’ hole’ thar kyard cases so” (illustrating with a bit of block), “an’ thar parasols so” (taking up granny’s cane), “an’ set on the aidge of thar char straight up, an’ Miss Perkins bowin’ an’ smilin’ an’ sayin’ how glad she was