im. An' dis chile
is a rale quality chile, he is,--I never seed a baby wid sech fine hair
fer his age, ner sech blue eyes, ner sech a grip, ner sech a heft. W'y,
dat chile mus' weigh 'bout twenty-fo' poun's, an' he not but six mont's
ole. Does dat gal w'at does de nussin' w'iles I'm gone ten' ter dis
chile right, Mis' 'Livy?"

"She does fairly well, Mammy Jane, but I could hardly expect her to love
the baby as you do. There's no one like you, Mammy Jane."

"'Deed dere ain't, honey; you is talkin' de gospel truf now! None er
dese yer young folks ain' got de trainin' my ole mist'ess give me. Dese
yer new-fangle' schools don' l'arn 'em nothin' ter compare wid it. I'm
jes' gwine ter give dat gal a piece er my min', befo' I go, so she'll
ten' ter dis chile right."

The nurse came in shortly afterwards, a neat-looking brown girl, dressed
in a clean calico gown, with a nurse's cap and apron.

"Look a-here, gal," said Mammy Jane sternly, "I wants you ter understan'
dat you got ter take good keer er dis chile; fer I nussed his mammy
dere, an' his gran'mammy befo' 'im, an' you is got a priv'lege dat mos'
lackly you don' 'preciate. I wants you to 'member, in yo' incomin's an'
outgoin's, dat I got my eye on you, an' am gwine ter see dat you does
yo' wo'k right."

"Do you need me for anything, ma'am?" asked the young nurse, who had
stood before Mrs. Carteret, giving Mammy Jane a mere passing glance, and
listening impassively to her harangue. The nurse belonged to the
younger generation of colored people. She had graduated from the mission
school, and had received some instruction in Dr. Miller's class for
nurses. Standing, like most young people of her race, on the border line
between two irreconcilable states of life, she had neither the
picturesqueness of the slave, nor the unconscious dignity of those of
whom freedom has been the immemorial birthright; she was in what might
be called the chip-on-the-shoulder stage, through which races as well as
individuals must pass in climbing the ladder of life,--not an
interesting, at least not an agreeable stage, but an inevitable one, and
for that reason entitled to a paragraph in a story of Southern life,
which, with its as yet imperfect blending of old with new, of race with
race, of slavery with freedom, is like no other life under the sun.

Had this old woman, who had no authority over her, been a little more
polite, or a little less offensive, the nurse might have returned her a