n'
trims de rose bushes an' pulls up de weeds and keeps de grass down
jes' lak I s'pose Mars Henry'd 'a' had it done ef he'd 'a' lived hyuh
in de ole home, stidder 'way off yandah in de Norf, whar he so busy
makin' money dat he done fergot all 'bout his own folks."

"What is your name?" asked the colonel, who had been looking closely
at the old man.

"Peter, suh--Peter French. Most er de niggers change' dey names after
de wah, but I kept de ole fambly name I wuz raise' by. It wuz good
'nuff fer me, suh; dey ain' none better."

"Oh, papa," said little Phil, unable to restrain himself longer, "he
must be some kin to us; he has the same name, and belongs to the same
family, and you know you called him 'Uncle.'"

The old Negro had dropped his hat, and was staring at the colonel and
the little boy, alternately, with dawning amazement, while a look of
recognition crept slowly into his rugged old face.

"Look a hyuh, suh," he said tremulously, "is it?--it can't be!--but
dere's de eyes, an' de nose, an' de shape er de head--why, it _must_
be my young Mars Henry!"

"Yes," said the colonel, extending his hand to the old man, who
grasped it with both his own and shook it up and down with
unconventional but very affectionate vigour, "and you are my boy
Peter; who took care of me when I was no bigger than Phil here!"

This meeting touched a tender chord in the colonel's nature, already
tuned to sympathy with the dead past of which Peter seemed the only
survival. The old man's unfeigned delight at their meeting; his
retention of the family name, a living witness of its former standing;
his respect for the dead; his "family pride," which to the
unsympathetic outsider might have seemed grotesque; were proofs of
loyalty that moved the colonel deeply. When he himself had been a
child of five or six, his father had given him Peter as his own boy.
Peter was really not many years older than the colonel, but prosperity
had preserved the one, while hard luck had aged the other prematurely.
Peter had taken care of him, and taught him to paddle in the shallow
water of the creek and to avoid the suck-holes; had taught him simple
woodcraft, how to fish, and how to hunt, first with bow and arrow, and
later with a shotgun. Through the golden haze of memory the colonel's
happy childhood came back to him with a sudden rush of emotion.

"Those were good times, Peter, when we were young," he sighed
regretfully, "good times! I have seen none h