The Dawson journal., 1885-01-08
PLANTATION SKETCHES.
Aunt Jimmy.

OLD Aunt jimmy.
She was aunt to everybody.
The whole neighborhood reveled
in the circle of her relationship,
and the number of her impromptu
neices and nephews was like un-
to the sands of the ocean.
Even the animals about the
plantation seemed to partake of
the general idea, and regarded 1
her with proprietary interest as
she passed to and fro on her vari-
Gus errands.
1t is even related that Kate, the
sedate family cat, in the first year
of her maternity-recognizing the
unwritten law that governed the
entire household-deposited in
one of Aunt Jinny's slippers, one
cool September night, six of the
finest and sleekest kittens that
ever serenaded the classic pre-
cincts Of Gopher Lake.
Aunt Jimmy would not have
done for the model of an artist,
being built on a too scant pattern.
She was thin, in fact very thin,
we'll developed as to bone, and of
sufficient height to obviate
the necessity of a ladd er in gath
ering figs or ounces. The
strongest point in her favor
was her love of music, and her
deep religious feeling. The con-
cord of sweet sounds was the
handspring of her existence, while
orthodox religion was the balance
wheel that kept the machinery of
life to perfect working order.
Her songs were generally self
evolved, the tokens of a genius
that despised all barriers, and
could guide to resonant rhythm
the most prosaic duties of house
hold life.
Aunt jimmy was our cook, and over
the huge stove gave full play to
her inventive music.
Many time, in the little room
l facetiously call my study, with
its decorations of musket car
ried in the dreamful days of '63,
and bric-abrac of invalided shoes,
broken pipes, and empty, alas!
empty TASKS, [ have dropped my
Faber to listen to her high-keyed
voice intoning some rare gems of
music, a fragment of her own wild
inspiration, the out-cropings Of a
musical mine that if properly de-
veloped might have given a sable
Patti to the wondering world
Over the stove her favorite song
seemed to be
BILE THAT CABBAGE DOWN.
''Bile that cabbage down,
Bile that cabbage down;
Look out gal. cuttin' de fowl,
Bile that cabbage down!
"Be that cabbage down,
Bile that cabbage down;
My shoes am creased wild gospel fat,
Bile dat cabbage down."
Sometimes she would give wider
range to her poetic and musical
fancy, and trespass on the entomo-
logical kingdom with:
"Fly, skeeter, high,
Fly skeeter, high,
gifts my foot on de skeeter's head
And make dat skeeter fly.
''Gt outen de way ole flea;
Git outen do way ole flea,
Eff l cotches you by de back OBJ de
neck
think you'll huff me be-"
The thorn in Aunt jimmy other
wise placid existence was her boy
Ike, who contained more deviltry
to the square inch than any other
colored youth ever had the pleas
ure Of meeting. He was a natur-
al-born thief, but, with an odd
discrimination, always confined
his depreciation to something in
the eatable line.
Expostulation was in vain, and
persimmon branches failed to
effect a cure.
Finally she came to me and
placed the culprit in my hands,
with a request that | should mete
out due punishment,
I had just been reading the
story of Tantalus, who was placed
in vat Of beer-the fall of the
tide never passing his goatee--
and [ concluded to try that species
of moral suasion on the refractory
Ike.
With much chain and many
locks | fastened him in large