ll Aunt Chloe declared that they "fairly
took her head off" with their noise. As, according to her own statement,
this surgical operation was a matter of daily occurrence in the cabin,
the declaration no whit abated the merriment, till every one had roared
and tumbled and danced themselves down to a state of composure.

"Well, now, I hopes you're done," said Aunt Chloe, who had been busy
in pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; "and now, you Mose and you
Pete, get into thar; for we's goin' to have the meetin'."

"O mother, we don't wanter. We wants to sit up to meetin',--meetin's is
so curis. We likes 'em."

"La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let 'em sit up," said Mas'r George,
decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.

Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to
push the thing under, saying, as she did so, "Well, mebbe 't will do 'em
some good."

The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to consider
the accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.

"What we's to do for cheers, now, _I_ declar I don't know," said Aunt
Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom's weekly, for an
indefinite length of time, without any more "cheers," there seemed some
encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.

"Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last week,"
suggested Mose.

"You go long! I'll boun' you pulled 'em out; some o' your shines," said
Aunt Chloe.

"Well, it'll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!" said Mose.

"Den Uncle Peter mus'n't sit in it, cause he al'ays hitches when he gets
a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t' other night," said
Pete.

"Good Lor! get him in it, then," said Mose, "and den he'd begin, 'Come
saints--and sinners, hear me tell,' and den down he'd go,"--and Mose
imitated precisely the nasal tones of the old man, tumbling on the
floor, to illustrate the supposed catastrophe.

"Come now, be decent, can't ye?" said Aunt Chloe; "an't yer shamed?"

Mas'r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared
decidedly that Mose was a "buster." So the maternal admonition seemed
rather to fail of effect.

"Well, ole man," said Aunt Chloe, "you'll have to tote in them ar
bar'ls."

"Mother's bar'ls is like dat ar widder's, Mas'r George was reading
'bout, in de good book,--dey never fails," said Mose, aside to Peter.

"I'm sure one on 'em caved in last week," s