FullReads

“I paid twenty dollars last week for the privilege of chucking a dusky gentleman down the steps; but I did not begrudge it,” said her husband, cheerfully. “The justice who imposed the fine said to me afterward that the only mistake I had made was in not breaking his neck.”

*****

At last, old Caesar was gathered to his dusky fathers, and the chickens having been mainly disposed of, Mr. Graeme went down and brought the old mammy on.

He had written the old woman to come by a certain train to Washington where he would meet her, and true to his appointment he met that train. But in the motley throng that filed through the gate was no Mam’ Lyddy, and inquiring of the train men showed that no one answering to her description could have been on the train.

Just as Graeme was turning away to go to the telegraph desk, one of the gray-clad colored porters, a stout, middle-aged man with a pleasant voice, and the address of a gentleman, approached him,

“Were you looking for some one, sir?”

“Yes, for an old colored woman, my wife’s old mammy.”

“Well, I think you may find her in the inner waiting-room. There is an old lady in there, who has been waiting there all day. She came in on the morning train, and said she was expecting you. If you will come with me, I will show you.”

“She ‘s been there all day,” the porter said, with a laugh, as they walked along. “I asked who she was waiting for; but she wouldn’t tell me. She said it was none of my business.”

“I fancy that ‘s she,” said Graeme.

“Yes, sir, that ‘s she, sure.”

Graeme thanked him. With a chuckle he led the way to where ensconced in a corner, surrounded by bundles and baskets and clad in the deepest black, and with a flaming red bow at her throat, sat Mammy Lyddy.

“Here ‘s the gentleman you were looking for,” said the porter kindly.

At sight of Graeme she rose so hastily that many of her bundles rolled on the floor.

“Why, Mammy! Why did n’t you come on the train I wrote you to come on?” enquired Graeme.

“Well, you tole me to come to-day, and I thought I would like to be on time, so I came this morning.”

“Now, if you will let me have your tickets, I will attend to everything for you,” said the porter to Graeme.

The old woman gave him a swift glance, and then seeing Graeme hand him his ticket, she turned her back, and began to fish in some mysterious recess in her garments, and after a long exploration brought out a small bag containing her ticket.

“Is he one of your servants!” she asked Graeme in an undertone.

Graeme smiled. “Well, I think he is–he is everybody’s servant and friend.”

“I did n’t know. He comes roun’ inquirin’ ’bout my business so officious I thought sure he was one o’ dese Gov’ment folks, and I done had ‘nough to do wid dat kind.”

“Like Amos Brown, Caesar’s friend.”

It was a sore subject with the old woman.

“Well, I did n’t know–I thought he was one o’ dese perliss. So I sent him ‘long ’bout he own business. But if you know him it ‘s all right.”

The passengers who streamed through the great station the evening of her arrival, were surprised to see a pudgy old black woman escorted by a gentleman who, loaded down with her bundles and baskets, was guiding her through the throng as respectfully as if she had been the first lady in the land. At the gate a lady and several children were awaiting her, and at sight of her a cry of joy went up. Dropping her bundles, the old woman threw herself into the lady’s arms and kissed her again and again, after which she received a multitude of kisses from the children.

“Well, I never saw anything like that,” said a stranger to another.