“I’ll take my shoes from off’n my feet,
And walk into de golden street,
Glory, Halla_lu_!”

sang Mammy.  Sam and Jim and Joe came filing in.  They had been—­well, where hadn’t they been!  They had been down to the Bayou, which ran a good quarter of a mile back of the place, “fishin for cat,” and chunking at an unwary rabbit that had taken refuge in a hollow tree; they had been out in the field, cutting open two or three half-grown watermelons to see if they were ripe; they had been across the prairie to a mott of sweet-gum trees, where they had stuck up the cuffs and bosoms of their shirts with gum and torn their trousers in climbing a persimmon tree to peep into a bird’s-nest.  And they were rushing across the yard in chase of a horned-frog when they caught sight of Mammy Delphy under the kitchen shed.

“Let’s go and get Mammy Delphy to give us some meat and go a crawfishin’, boys,” suggested Sam.

“And I’m hungry, for one,” added Joe.

Accordingly they filed in, as I said, and stood for a moment listening to Mammy Delphy’s song.

“Give us somethin’ to eat, Mammy, please,” said Jim.

“An’ some craw-fish bait and a piece of string,” put in the other two in a breath.

“I ain’t a gwine to do it, chillun,” replied Mammy Delphy, giving them a gentle push with her elbow, for they were leaning coaxingly against her shoulders, “I ain’t a gwine to do it.  Yer ma’s got comp’ny for dinner and dat sassy Marthy-Ann done tuk herself to ‘Mancipation-Day, an’ Jin, she totin of Mis’ May’s baby to sleep, an’ I ain’t got no time to wase on yer. Go’long!” And as she spoke Mammy arose, chicken in hand, and went into the kitchen to get whatever the boys wanted, as they were perfectly aware she would, from the beginning.

“Lawd o’ mussy!  Jest look at dat lazy nigger!  Grief!” she exclaimed as she entered, “Grief, yer lazy good-for-nuthin’ nigger, is yer gwine ter let dem sweet-taters burn clar up?”

And seizing the collar of a negro man who sat nodding by the stove, she gave him a sound shaking.  He opened his eyes, grinned and got up slowly, looking a little sheepish as he did so.  At that moment the woolly head of Jin, the baby’s little black nurse, was poked in at the door.

“Daddy,” she cried, “Miss May say as how she want you to come an’ tie up her Malcasum rose, whar dem boys is done pull down.”

And Jin bestowed a withering look upon the culprits, who were already digging their fingers into the remnants of a meat-pie, and disappeared, followed by her father.

“Mammy Delphy,” said Joe, when they were out under the vines again and Mammy had recommenced her work, “what made you name Uncle Grief, Grief?  That’s a mighty funny name, ain’t it, boys?”

“Well, chillun,” said Mammy, plucking away at the chicken, “dat’s so; it is a curus name like; me’n de ole man—­he dead an’ gone, chillun, long fo’ you was born;—­me’n de ole man ’sulted long time ’bout dat chile’s name an’ he war goin’ on six months old fo’ we name him at all.”