And the last I heard of Aunt Nancy, the “tender,” she was going to school, but not progressing very rapidly.  She did learn her letters once, but, having to stop school to make a living, she soon forgot them, and she explained it by saying: 

“Yer see, honey, dat man wat larnt me dem readin’s, he wuz sich er onstedfus’ man, an’ gittin’ drunk, an’ votin’ an’ sich, tell I furgittin’ wat he larnt me; but dey’s er colored gemman fum de Norf wat’s tuck him up er pay-school ober hyear in de ‘catermy, an’ ef’n I kin git him fur ter take out’n his pay in dat furmifuge wat I makes, I ’low ter go ter him er time er two, caze he’s er membah ub de Zion Chu’ch, an’ er mighty stedfus’ man, an’ dat wat he larns me den I’ll stay larnt.”

And Dumps?  Well, the merry, lighthearted little girl is an “old maid” now; and if Mammy could see her, she would think she was “steady” enough at last.

Somebody, you know, must attend to the wants and comforts of the gray-haired woman in the asylum; and Diddie had her boy to support and educate, so Dumps teaches school and takes care of her mother, and is doing what Uncle Snake-bit Bob told the Sunday-school children that God had made them to do; for

  Dumps is doing “De bes’ she kin.”

 The end

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