Alice Wilde: The Raftsman's Daughter. A Forest Romance

								

gravelly shore from a sloping bank above, and now stood in the shadow
of the tree awaiting them.
If it had not been for the blue smoke curling up in thin wreaths
from a stick chimney which rose up in the rear, he would hardly have
discovered the dwelling at first sight--a little one-story log-house,
so completely covered with clambering vines that it looked like a green
mound. Tartarian honeysuckles waved at the very summit of the chimney,
and wild-roses curtained every window.
Taking upon herself the part of hostess, Alice led the way to the
house. Philip was again agreeably surprised, as he entered it. He had
read of squatter life, and considered himself "posted" as to what to
expect--corn-bread and bacon, an absence of forks and table-cloths,
musquitoes, the river for a wash-basin, sand for soap, the sun for
a towel, and the privilege of sharing the common bed. But upon
entering the cabin, he found himself in a large room, with two smaller
apartments partitioned from the side; the cooking seemed to be done in
a shanty in the rear. The table was set in the center of the room, with
a neat cloth, and a great glass plate, heaped with blackberries, stood
upon it, and was surrounded by a wreath of wild-flowers woven by the
same dimpled hands which had managed the oars so deftly.
"'Clar to gracious, masser, you tuk us unbeknown."
The new speaker was an old negro woman, portly and beaming, who
appeared at the back door, crowned with a yellow turban, and bearing in
her left hand that scepter of her realm, the rolling-pin.
"But not unprepared, hey, Pallas?"
"Wall, I dunno, masser. I didn't spec' the pickaninny 'ud eat more 'n
one roas' chicken. But thar's two in de oven; for, to tell de trute,
masser, I had a sense dat you war a comin'; and I know'd if you wasn't,
me and my ole man wouldn't be afraid of two fowls."
"But I've brought home company, Pallas."
"Hev you now, masser? I'se mighty glad to hear it. I'd as soon wait on
masser's frien's as to sing de Land of Canaan. Yer welcome," she added,
dropping a courtesy to the guest with as much importance as if she were
mistress of the house--as, in fact, she had been, in most matters, for
many long years. He made her a deep and gracious bow, accompanied by a
smile which took her old heart by storm.
Retreating to the kitchen outside, where Saturn, her husband, had been
pressed into service, and sat with an apron over his knees pareing
potatoes, buoyed up by the promise of roast chicken from his wife, she
told him as she rolled and cut out her biscuits:
"The finest gentleum she had sot eyes on sence she left ole
Virginny. His smile was enough to melt buttah--jus' de smile what a
sweet-mannered young gentleum ought to have. She was mighty glad," she
added, in a mysterious whisper, "dat ar' pickaninny was no older."
"Wha' for?" queried Saturn, pausing, with a potato on the end of
his knife, and a look of hopeless darkness on his face, barring the