The Other Fellow

in the hall below enters your name in a ledger, and a brass-be-buttoned Yellowplush precedes you upstairs into a desolate room furnished wit

recruit, who deposits your coat and hat on a bed, and who later on ushers you into a room ablaze with gaslights-midday, remember-where you and the other unfortunates are serv

ias, their trunks streaked with green moss and their branches draped with gray crape: an ancient house with a big white door that stood wide open to welcome you,

ap and a white worsted shawl and tea-rose cheeks, and a smile like an opening

s of her voice, and feel the soft

t. I watched him from the parlor scuffling with his feet as he limped along the wide hall to announce each new arrival (his master's old Madeira had foundered him, they said, years before)

pet was a faded red, and of different shades of repair. The hangings were of yellow silk. There were haircloth sofas, and a big f

held it together for nearly a century, and on the same wall, too, and all so splotched and mouldy wi

s of roses-De Vonienses, Hermosas, and Agripinas-whose distinguished ancestors, hardy sons of the soil, came direct from the Mayflower (This shall not happen again), and who consequently never knew the enervating influences of a hothous

array of fittings and furnishings, beginning with the mouldy mirror and ending

a cushion which you needed for some special curve in your back or twist of your head; so delighted to be scratched, or slopped over, or scarred full of holes if it were a table that could hold your boo

d such unconventional, happy young fellows in all sorts of costumes from blue flannel to broadcloth,-one in a Prince Albert coat and a straw hat in his hand, and it near Ch

the old grandmother and poured into her ear a communication of such vital import that the dear old lady arose at once

mediately before the door in white gloves inches too long at the finge

llies of wit so sparkling, and the table itself! Solid mahogany, this old heirloom! rich and dark as a meerschaum, the kind of mahogany that looked as if all the fine old Madeira and choice port that had been drunk above it

s High Priest. Indeed, there was a gravity, a dignity, and repose about him as he limped through his ministrations which I had noticed in him

d for every emergency? Were not His Honor's viands already at that moment on the k

ad, and mango pickles-a most extraordinary production, I maintain, is a mango pickle!-a

and the girls never ceased laughing, and the grandmother's eyes constantly followed the Terrapin, giving him mysterious orders with the slightest raisin

ur for you"-it doubtless seemed long

ng, and a sunny smile on his face edged his way around the table to the grandmother, every hand held out

of the South, sir," he sat down in the vacant chair, nodding to everybody graciously as he sp

to come in. You receive

nd although we missed y

he had waited for the jury. What an extraordinary collection of idiocies one could make i

ng one of those cases which a

up inqu

the Judge picked up his fork

readful creatures are going about," said the

eir slaves, and how loyal their servants were. I remember one old servant whom we boys called Daddy Billy, who was really one of the family-quite like your"-and I nodded t

nk he has lived with us?"-and she lowered her voice. "Forty-eight years-long before the war-and we love him dearly. My father

the thin glass between his eye and the light. "God bless the day when Mord

sixty-two bottles of this old Amazon sherry, named after the ship that brought it over. Mordecai buried them in the woods and never told a single soul for two years after-not even my husband. There are a few bottles left, and I always bring one out when we have distinguished guests," and she bowed he

rch of another hot course for the Judge, had now reappeared, and

hese modern negroes, as you call them, i

sed away. This new product has no home and wants none. They live like animals, and are ready for any crime. Sometimes I think they care neither for wife, child, nor any family tie. The situati

ng them as your friends"-I was getting into shoal water, but I blundered on, p

next me-bless her sweet face!-blew her conch-s

silent for five minutes.) "We're tired and sick of it, aren't we, girls?

grandmother insisted with a laugh that she had merely told me about Mordecai hiding the sherry, while I vowed with much solemnity that I had not once opened my lips since I sat down, and called upon the siren in pink to

coat, which soon developed into heavy practice, the Judge with infinite zest joining in the merriment, exploding one story after another, each fo

h course to the ladies and the kept-hot courses to the Judge with equal dexterity

ndmother had pinned the rose she wore at her throat on the lapel of the Judge's coat), and when the Terrapin had produced a silver tray and was about to fill some little egg-shell cups

Sam Crouch. When these ladies can spare you it will give me very great pleasure to have you come into court and

coat, as he held out his cup for Mordecai to fill. "Stealing chicken

d he looked at me, the faintest gle