Sez Molly, “If they are ignorant you ought to overlook it, Aunt Pheeny.”

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“Overlook it!” sez she, turnin’ an’ facin’ us with her hands on her portly hips.  “I hain’t used to no such trash.  When anybody has lived with the highest nobility they can’t stomach such low down niggers.  Why, I used to have ’em kneelin’ at my feet, four or five at a time, askin’ what I’d have for dinner.  And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, ’How any black nigger can stand makin’ bakin’ powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery to me.’”

“Well, you know Princes are not common in this country,” sez I.

She drew herself up more hautily, “Such a Prince as that hain’t common in no country!  Why he’s so handsome and good the very birds in the trees will stop singin’ to listen to his talk, and the grass turn brighter green where he’s stepped on it, and the May-flowers peek up and blush with happiness if he looks at ’em.”

“How come you to leave him, Aunt Pheeny, if he wuz so perfect?”

“I tole you before,” sez she with dignity, “that when he went off to school I wuzn’t in no ways bound to stay with ole Miss.  She wuz jealous, you know, jealous of me.  Prince Arthur made more of me, we used to sing together, you know I’ve sung in Concorts and Operations, been a star in ’em.  Ole Miss couldn’t sing no more than a green frog.  And he always said when he got married I wuz to live with him, that nachully sot up his Ma’s back, and I santered off one day, never tole her I wuz goin’, but jest lifted up my train, I wore long pink and blue satin dresses then, and I jest santered out the house over to Californy and Asia and so on to Chicago, and then hired out to Miss Dotie’s ma.  And here I is!” sez she firmly, and took up the empty tray and departed.

She wuz a good singer, her voice full of the sweetness and heart searchin’ pathos of her race.  And her wild flights of imagination never hurt anyone but herself.

Well, after supper, which they called dinner, I felt considerable better.  Josiah stayed down in the parlor talkin’ to Grandpa Huff and Billy, and Molly come up in my room agin and sot with me, whilst twilight let down her soft gray mantilly round us and pinned it to the earth with silver stars (metafor).

I always take it as a great compliment when folks confide the deepest secrets of their heart to me.  And Id’no why it is, but they most always do; I mean them that I take to nachully.  Sometimes I’ve felt first rate by it and spozed it wuz because I had such a noble riz up look to my face.  But Josiah sez it is because I have such a soft look that folks think they can pour their griefs into me and they will sink in, some like water into cotton battin, and they can lose sight of their sorrows for a spell and relieve ’em some.  Well, Id’no which it is, but ‘tennyrate as Molly sot there with me lookin’ as wan and pale as a white rose on a cold November evenin’ she told me the whole story, hid from her own folks but revealed unto a Samantha.