est chicken, and prepared her
corn-cake with scrupulous exactness, just to her husband's taste, and
brought out certain mysterious jars on the mantel-piece, some preserves
that were never produced except on extreme occasions.

"Lor, Pete," said Mose, triumphantly, "han't we got a buster of a
breakfast!" at the same time catching at a fragment of the chicken.

Aunt Chloe gave him a sudden box on the ear. "Thar now! crowing over the
last breakfast yer poor daddy's gwine to have to home!"

"O, Chloe!" said Tom, gently.

"Wal, I can't help it," said Aunt Chloe, hiding her face in her apron;
"I 's so tossed about it, it makes me act ugly."

The boys stood quite still, looking first at their father and then
at their mother, while the baby, climbing up her clothes, began an
imperious, commanding cry.

"Thar!" said Aunt Chloe, wiping her eyes and taking up the baby; "now
I's done, I hope,--now do eat something. This yer's my nicest chicken.
Thar, boys, ye shall have some, poor critturs! Yer mammy's been cross to
yer."

The boys needed no second invitation, and went in with great zeal for
the eatables; and it was well they did so, as otherwise there would have
been very little performed to any purpose by the party.

"Now," said Aunt Chloe, bustling about after breakfast, "I must put
up yer clothes. Jest like as not, he'll take 'em all away. I know thar
ways--mean as dirt, they is! Wal, now, yer flannels for rhumatis is in
this corner; so be careful, 'cause there won't nobody make ye no more.
Then here's yer old shirts, and these yer is new ones. I toed off these
yer stockings last night, and put de ball in 'em to mend with. But Lor!
who'll ever mend for ye?" and Aunt Chloe, again overcome, laid her head
on the box side, and sobbed. "To think on 't! no crittur to do for ye,
sick or well! I don't railly think I ought ter be good now!"

The boys, having eaten everything there was on the breakfast-table,
began now to take some thought of the case; and, seeing their mother
crying, and their father looking very sad, began to whimper and put
their hands to their eyes. Uncle Tom had the baby on his knee, and was
letting her enjoy herself to the utmost extent, scratching his face
and pulling his hair, and occasionally breaking out into clamorous
explosions of delight, evidently arising out of her own internal
reflections.

"Ay, crow away, poor crittur!" said Aunt Chloe; "ye'll have to come to
it, too! ye'll live to see yer hu