Ole Mammy's Torment

easiest way possible, and everything was left undone that he could by any means avoid. Mammy scolded when she came home at night and found bo

hem slip through the fence soon after Sheba had left the house. "An' they ain't anything wussah than young turkeys for runnin' off. 'Peahs

door of the church. Nearly every afternoon found them sitting there in a solemn row, waiting for the shadows to grow long across the grass, for it was the

his eyes that a faithful dog has for its master. Sometimes he sat down on the steps beside

nd them, but their natures were as near akin as the acorn and the oak. In John Jay the man saw his own childhood with all its unanswered questions and dumb, groping ambit

to spend the day with him and help watch the toll-gate, while Mars' Nat was in town. T

s lap, and lazily smoothing its long soft ears. He felt very important when a wagon rattled up and the toll was dropped into his fingers. He wished that everybody he knew would ride by and find him sitting there in charge;

en," he called, eagerly.

in charge, are you? Wher

answered John Jay, proudly. "I'm keepin

nning gleam in his little eyes. "T

one foot over his knee, and began to ask questio

ur name's Hick

ay Hickman," a

pocket. "I know all about you. Your mammy used to cook for my wife, and yo

ou, Mistah Boden," w

er of her's-Billy! old Uncle

uch a misery in his back all the time that he say he j

e of flattering interest. The man bec

ed out through a hole in my pocket somewhere. I didn't find it out until I got within sight of the place; then, thinks I to myself, 'oh, it won't make any difference. Nat and I are old friends; h

n the porch and stood beside him. He bowed to the man politely. "I

the change, and gave the horses a cut with h

n Jay seemed unable to quit talking about the occurrence. Half an hour later he broke out again: "He thought 'cause I was jus' a li

phasis and such a queer little smile that John Jay

ah did," h

and every one has its toll-gate. There is the road to learning. I gave up everything to get through that gate, even my health. One cannot be anything or

n'," answered John Jay, carelessly, who often understood Geo

on now, where you try to slip out

barrassed silence. If the Reverend George said it was so, it mu

ng. I know a poor old woman who keeps the road smooth for somebody. She works early and late, in hot weather and cold, to earn food and shelter and clothes for somebody; and that somebody eats her bread, and wears out the clothes

ippings of his life had never stung him so deeply as George's quiet words. He was used to being scolded for his laziness. He never pa

o the barn. A pair of puppies came frisking out ready for a romp, and an old Maltese cat, stretched out in the sun, stood up and arched its bac

ks of the barn in wide shining streaks, with little motes of dust dancing up and down in the golden light, but John Jay did not see them. A shadow darkened the doorway. He did not see that, for his face was

sneak out of the work again. I'll tote the wood and watah 'thout waitin' to be a

laughing, although he was touched

want to make a man of you, John Jay. Let me tell you some things about your grandmother

mole-hills. There in the hay, with the shining dust of the sunbeams falling athwart the old barn floor, the boy lay and listened. Thoughts that he had no words for, ambitions that he could not express, yet that filled him with vague longing, se

he had never heard of such things as tears; but those he had shed must have made his eyesight clearer. As he slid down from the hay and walked along beside George, he noticed for the first time how

e minor chords that his fingers instinctively reached for, to an old hymn that smoothed away the pathetic pucker of the boy's forehead. Then he pulled out the stops and began a loud burst of martial music, so glad a

ll fair with the fading glow of the summer sun. John Jay looked too, feeling at the same time the touch of a caress

nd the yard had been piled up neatly, and the paths were freshly swept. All that evening John Jay's eyes foll

ildren were out playing. She hung up her sun-bonnet, and dropped wearily down into a chair. Then, rememberin

asket. The clothes were lying on the bed where she had put them. As she gathered them in her ar

out and lo

nly the most awkward of fingers could have made. The white buttons on Bud's shirt-waist had been sewed on with black thread, and a spot of blood told where some

tryin' to a body's patience sometimes, an' he's made a mess of this mendin', for suah, but I reckon he means all right. He's not so onthinkin' an' onthankful aftah all." She laid t