"No, he won't be kind to nobody," she gasped. "You has gwyn been lost,
Miss Vessy. You is measured in. De good Lord try an' bress you! Hominy
ain't measured in yit. Hominy's kivered herseff wid cammermile, an'
drunk biled lizzer tea. Hominy's gone an' got Quaker."
"What's _Quaker_, Aunt Hominy?"
"Quaker," the old woman repeated, backing out and looking down,
"Quaker's what keeps him from a measurin' of me in!"
Then, as Vesta drew on her bonnet and shawl, having taken her coffee and
toast, the old servant, gliding back in the depths of Teackle Hall,
raised a wild African croon, as over the dead, giving her voice a
musical inflection like the jingle of Juba rhyme:
"Good-bye, Miss Vessy! Good-bye, Aunt Hominy's baby! Good-bye, dear
young missis! Good-bye, my darlin' chile, furever, furever, an' O
furever, little Vessy Custis, O chile, farewell!"
The tears raining upon her cheeks, her wild, wringing hands and upflung
arms and shape convulsed, Vesta remembered long, and thought, as she
left Teackle Hall with Virgie, that some African superstition had, by
the aid of dreams, drawn into a passing excitement the faithful
servant's brain.
At the corner of old Front Street, and extending almost out upon the
little Manokin bridge, stood Meshach Milburn's two-story house and
store, with a door upon both streets. Though planted low, in a hollow,
it stood forward like Milburn's challenging countenance, unsupported by
any neighbors.
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