Chapter XIII

“A summer house, hey!” said the old lady, as with stealthy, cat-like steps, she crossed a small piece of woods, between her house and Ruth’s; “a summer house! that’s the way the money goes, is it? What have we here? a book;” (picking up a volume which lay half hidden in the moss at her feet;) “poetry, I declare! the most frivolous of all reading; all pencil marked;—and here’s something in Ruth’s own hand-writing—that’s poetry, too: worse and worse.”

“Well, we’ll see how the kitchen of this poetess looks. I will go into the house the back way, and take them by surprise; that’s the way to find people out. None of your company faces for me.” And the old lady peered curiously through her spectacles, on either side, as she passed along towards the kitchen door, and exclaimed, as her eye fell on the shining row, “six milkpans!—wonder if they buy their milk, or keep a cow. If they buy it, it must cost them something; if they keep a cow, I’ve no question the milk is half wasted.”

The old lady passed her skinny forefinger across one of the pans, examining her finger very minutely after the operation; and then applied the tip of her nose to the interior of it. There was no fault to be found with that milkpan, if it was Ruth’s; so, scrutinizing two or three dish towels, which were hanging on a line to dry, she stepped cautiously up to the kitchen door. A tidy, respectable-looking black woman met her on the threshold; her woolly locks bound with a gay-striped bandanna, and her ebony face shining with irresistible good humor.

“Is Ruth in?” said the old lady.

“Who, Missis?” said Dinah.

“Ruth.”

“Missis Hall lives here,” answered Dinah, with a puzzled look.

“Exactly,” said the old lady; “she is my son’s wife.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon, Missis,” said Dinah, curtseying respectfully. “I never heard her name called Ruth afore: massa calls her ‘bird,’ and ‘sunbeam.’”

The old lady frowned.

“Is she at home?” she repeated, with stately dignity.

“No,” said Dinah, “Missis is gone rambling off in the woods with little Daisy. She’s powerful fond of flowers, and things. She climbs fences like a squir’l! it makes this chil’ laf’ to see the ol’ farmers stare at her.”

“You must have a great deal to do, here;” said the old lady, frowning; “Ruth isn’t much of a hand at house-work.”

“Plenty to do, Missis, and willin’ hands to do it. Dinah don’t care how hard she works, if she don’t work to the tune of a lash; and Missis Hall goes singing about the house so that it makes time fly.”

“She don’t ever help you any, does she?” said the persevering old lady.

“Lor’ bless you! yes, Missis. She comes right in and makes a pie for Massa Harry, or cooks a steak jess’ as easy as she pulls off a flower; and when Dinah’s cooking anything new, she asks more questions how it’s done than this chil’ kin answer.”

“You have a great deal of company, I suppose; that must make you extra trouble, I should think; people riding out from the city to supper, when you are all through and cleared away: don’t it tire you?”

“No; Missis Hall takes it easy. She laf’s merry, and says to the company, ‘you get tea enough in the city, so I shan’t give you any; we had tea long ago; but here’s some fresh milk, and some raspberries and cake; and if you can’t eat that, you ought to go hungry.’”

“She irons Harry’s shirts, I suppose?” said the old lady.

“She? s’pose dis chil’ let her? when she’s so careful, too, of ol’ Dinah’s bones?”

“Well,” said the old lady, foiled at all points, “I’ll walk over the house a bit, I guess; I won’t trouble you to wait on me, Dinah;” and the old lady started on her exploring tour.