of bits of wood and
leather and controlled by certain springs made of rubber bands, by
manipulating which the mule could be made to kick furiously. Since the
colonel had affairs to engage his attention, and Phil seemed perfectly
contented, he was allowed to remain, with the understanding that Peter
should come for him in the afternoon.

_Sixteen_

Little Phil had grown very fond of old Peter, who seemed to lavish
upon the child all of his love and devotion for the dead generations
of the French family. The colonel had taught Phil to call the old man
"Uncle Peter," after the kindly Southern fashion of slavery days,
which, denying to negroes the forms of address applied to white
people, found in the affectionate terms of relationship--Mammy, Auntie
and Uncle--designations that recognised the respect due to age, and
yet lost, when applied to slaves, their conventional significance.
There was a strong, sympathy between the intelligent child and the
undeveloped old negro; they were more nearly on a mental level,
leaving out, of course, the factor of Peter's experience, than could
have been the case with one more generously endowed than Peter, who,
though by nature faithful, had never been unduly bright. Little Phil
became so attached to his old attendant that, between Peter and the
Treadwell ladies, the colonel's housekeeper had to give him very
little care.

On Sunday afternoons the colonel and Phil and Peter would sometimes
walk over to the cemetery. The family lot was now kept in perfect
order. The low fence around it had been repaired, and several leaning
headstones straightened up. But, guided by a sense of fitness, and
having before him the awful example for which Fetters was responsible,
the colonel had added no gaudy monument nor made any alterations which
would disturb the quiet beauty of the spot or its harmony with the
surroundings. In the Northern cemetery where his young wife was
buried, he had erected to her memory a stately mausoleum, in keeping
with similar memorials on every hand. But here, in this quiet
graveyard, where his ancestors slept their last sleep under the elms
and the willows, display would have been out of place. He had,
however, placed a wrought-iron bench underneath the trees, where he
would sit and read his paper, while little Phil questioned old Peter
about his grandfather and his great-grandfather, their prowess on the
hunting field, and the wars they fought in; and the old man