’Massa K——­ tinks a heap ob de Gunnel, Aunty; but he reckons he’m sort o’ crazy now; dat make him afeard,’ said Scip, in an apologetic tone.

‘What ef he am crazy?  You’se safe har,’ rejoined the old woman, dropping her aged limbs into a chair, and rocking away with much the same air which ancient white ladies occasionally assume.

‘Won’t you ax Massa K——­ to a cheer?’ said Scip; ’he hab ben bery kine to me.’

The negress then offered me a seat; but it was some minutes before I rendered myself sufficiently agreeable to thaw out the icy dignity of her manner.  Meanwhile I glanced around the apartment.

Though the exterior of the cabin was like the others on the plantation, the interior had a rude, grotesque elegance about it far in advance of any negro hut I had ever seen.  The logs were chinked with clay, and the one window, though destitute of glass, and ornamented with the inevitable board-shutter, had a green moreen curtain, which kept out the wind and the rain.  A worn but neat and well-swept carpet partly covered the floor, and on the low bed was spread a patch-work counterpane.  Against the side of the room opposite the door stood an antique, brass-handled bureau, and an old-fashioned table, covered with a faded woolen cloth, occupied the centre of the apartment.  In the corner near the fire was a curiously-contrived side-board, made of narrow strips of yellow pine, tongued and grooved together, and oiled so as to bring out the beautiful grain of the wood.  On it were several broken and cracked glasses, and an array of irregular crockery.  The rocking-chair, in which the old negress passed the most of her time, was of mahogany, wadded and covered with chintz, and the arm-seat I occupied, though old and patched in many places, had evidently moved in good society.

The mistress of this second-hand furniture establishment was arrayed in a mass of cast-off finery, whose gay colors were in striking contrast with her jet-black skin and bent, decrepit form.  Her gown, which was very short, was of flaming red and yellow worsted stuff, and the enormous turban that graced her head and hid all but a few tufts of her frizzled, ‘pepper-and-salt’ locks, was evidently a contribution from the family stock of worn-out pillow-cases.  She was very aged,—­upwards of seventy,—­and so thin that, had she not been endowed with speech and motion, she might have passed for a bundle of whalebone thrown into human shape, and covered with a coating of gutta-percha.  It was evident she had been a valued house-servant, whose few remaining years were being soothed and solaced by the kind and indulgent care of a grateful master.

Scip, I soon saw, was a favorite with the old-negress, and the marked respect he showed me quickly dispelled the angry feeling excited by my doubts of ‘Massa Davy,’ and opened her heart and her mouth at the same moment.  She was terribly garrulous; her tongue, as soon as it got under way, ran on as if propelled by machinery and acquainted with the secret of perpetual motion; but she was an interesting study.  The single-hearted attachment she showed for her master and his family gave me a new insight into the practical working of ’the peculiar institution,’ and convinced me that even slavery, in some of its aspects, is not so black as it is painted.