him a free man, he had stayed
with her and devoted himself to her because he thought it wuz his duty,
and since her death he had been on a long journey, it seemed, she said,
as if he wuz hunting for something or other, though what she didn't
know. And he had promised her that some time in the future she should
come and live with him, and sez she, with her characterestic irreligion,
"If I had my choice to live with him or in heaven I wouldn't look at
heaven." The idee! We give her the fruit and flowers and asked her if
she had everything for her comfort, and she said:

"Yes, indeed! 'tain't much here like the ironfirmary I wuz sent to in
Chicago. I wuz jest as white as you are, Miss Molly, when I went there,
and them iggorent doctors jest turned my skin black as tar; I wuz so
mortified when I come to my senses and found what they'd done and I wuz
a nigger, I jest leaped out o' bed and rushed right out into the street,
I wuz so mortified. But 'twuzn't no use, I wuz a nigger, and so I've
been ever since."

And all the time she wuz tellin' this, Dotie's little white arms wuz
'round her neck and she was pattin' the black cheeks. And as she
finished she said lovingly, "Pheeny is nice! Pheeny is pretty! Pheeny
has got white teef!" And indeed they did glisten like ivory in the
blackness of her face as she held the baby clost to her heart with broad
smiles.

Well, we made quite a long call and cheered her up considerable by
listenin' to some more of her most eloquent and unlikely fabrications,
and then bid her good-bye. A man's gray kid glove lay on the table and a
little book, and she said Prince Arthur had forgot them.

Well, jest as we passed out of the long corridor, Dotie, who wuz looking
back, cried out, "There is Pheeny's Prince Arthur!" And refused to stir
another step till she went back to see him. She said Aunt Pheeny had
showed her his picture and that wuz the Prince that could do anything.
Aunt Pheeny I spoze had filled her mind full of stories of his
perfections, she said he'd gone back to git his glove and book, and she
would wait and see him.

I wuz in a hurry and wuz for goin' on, but Molly, sweet-natured thing,
said we might sit down on the bench for a few minutes and then Dotie
would be willing to go. So we sot down and Dotie begun to state with
much excitement her reasons for wanting to stay, sez she:

"Billy has been bolsting to me that he see a Prince to the Fair, a real
live meat Prince. He wuz bolst