when he straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the
lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to
climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He
didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners--everybody was
always good-mannered where he was. Everybody loved to have him around,
too; he was sunshine most always--I mean he made it seem like good
weather. When he turned into a cloud-bank it was awful dark for half a
minute, and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for
a week.

When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got
up out of their chairs and give them good day, and didn't set down
again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard
where the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to
him, and he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was
mixed, and then they bowed and said, "Our duty to you, sir, and
madam"; and _they_ bowed the least bit in the world and said thank
you, and so they drank, all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful
of water on the sugar and the mite of whisky or apple-brandy in the
bottom of their tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to
the old people too.

Bob was the oldest and Tom next--tall, beautiful men with very broad
shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They
dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and
wore broad Panama hats.

Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud
and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn't stirred up; but
when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks,
like her father. She was beautiful.

So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was
gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty.

Each person had their own nigger to wait on them--Buck too. My nigger
had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having anybody do
anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time.

This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be
more--three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.

The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers.
Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or
fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such
junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics