he calm, lovely late-summer day.
Hyndsville at its best was a big, green, sprawling old town, a
quaint, unpainted, leisurely, flowery, bird-haunted place, with
glorious trees, and do-as-they-please, independent gardens. Nobody
ever seemed to be in a hurry, and at first we used to wonder how
they ever got anything done, or kept pace with the moving world; yet
they did. Only, they did it without haste and without noise. And
they were _always_ polite. Though they should take your substance,
your reputation, or even, perhaps, your life, they would do it like
ladies and gentlemen.

We paused a while, just inside the big brick-pillared gate, and
looked up the oak-arched garden path toward our house. Of course one
can't expect an old fortress of a brick house that's been neglected
for more than three quarters of a century to look spick and span
inside of a brief fortnight, but already Hynds House was sitting up,
so to speak, and taking notice.

Life had begun to flow back into it. Mary Magdalen had brought a dog
with her--a yellow dog of unknown ancestry, of shamefaced demeanor,
a ropy tail, splay feet, and a rolling eye; named, she and heaven
alone knew why, Beautiful Dog.

He shunned Alicia and me because we were white people: Beautiful Dog
was intuitively aware that colored people's dogs must meet white
people with suspicion, aloofness, and reserve. When we fatuously
sought to make friends with him, he tucked his tail between his
legs, and shivered as if we made goose-flesh come out on his spine;
and once when I took him by his rope collar he fell down and
shrieked. But just let Mary Magdalen roll out an unctious, "Whah is
yuh, Beaut'ful Dawg?" and his ears and tail went up, he curveted,
and made uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear
to ear.

Doctor Geddes's Mandy had brought over the black kittens and their
mother. Mary Magdalen made sure of their staying at home by the
simple process of buttering their paws. In South Carolina, when you
want a cat to stay in your house, you butter its paws and let it
lick the butter off leisurely, the while you whisper in its left
ear: "_Stay in my house for keeps, cat!_" The cat will ever
thereafter play Ruth to your Naomi.

Our cat was Mrs. Belinda Black, and her children were Potty Black
and Sir Thomas More Black, this last being a creature of noble mien
and a meditative turn of mind.

"Homage and praise to Bast, the cat-headed, the wise one, the great
go