San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-03-12

WI" IOuuu Itt Otd Ucu'O cttttHJ Nv ~te
kitchen door.
had grown welded in sixty years of oc-
cupancy, and had procrastinated. always
willing but never ready, until they found
themselves, as the old man expressed it
with tears streaming down his cheeks,
literally tu'ned out in de road to die"
Mary found the old negro sitting in
the kitchen door, in state of tremulous
excitement and indignation, with a fringe
of sympathetic darkies around him. He
had no real apprehension of the poorhouse
suggestions ever being carried into
effect, for he knew very well that Miss
Mary would always stand between
him and such an awful calamity as that
What hurt him was that the suggestion
should have been made. That he.
Patrick Beverley for so he styled him
self. who had lived fright here pom de
home plantashun long wild de family"
for eighty years. should have had such
an insult put upon him-"jes' like he
were one common niggar, whar didn't
have no famb ly"-this was where the
iron entered; and Mary had much ado
to persuade him to desist from turning
and twisting it in the ranking wound it
had made long enough to arrive at any
clear understanding of what she wished
him to do
"Tm sorry you have to leave your old
home you've lived in SO many years, she
said gently, when she had made all the
arrangements to have them moved over
at once. "lt's hard for such old people
to have to make any change. You'll be
comfortable here with me. and you must
try and grow used to your new quarters
as soon as you can" ......
"Yes, honey. Lord bless yo' sweet facet
it's hard fur to tu'n out'n de room you
been shuttin yo' eyes pom every night
an openin 'em pom every mornin fur
gwine on sixty yer. But dar's things
whar's harder to bar en- dat. Use bin
Twin pom de Beve'ley state, man an boy,
close on er humid ed ye'rs, kase Use gwine
ter be eighty-seven ye'role eff live twell
dc second day in harvest. An amt
never had nothin tall said to me like
what dat strange white man-whar
never had no gent'man fur his daddy,
knows-took n said to me dis mornin.
You'll be mighty comf'table at de POI
house, ole man. seq he; dey has er good
room, an close, an fire an vittles plenti-
full, an nary lick O. work to do. You'll
think yersef in clover SEE he. An l
SEE, SEE |, No, sar. Use er Beve'ley man,
an | longs to de quality, does. De
Beve'leys amt got nothin tall to do wild
no po'house, nor no po'house doin's, nor
no po'house talk, nuther. An befo' I'll
go to dat place I'll die right pom de road
side-me an de ole CONAN too.
There was something almost ludi-
crous. if it had not been so infinitely pa
thetic, in the old servants pride and as
sertion Of dignity and position, and in
his readiness to die of want in ditch,
or on roadside, rather than suffer what
he considered social degradation.
There were tears in Mary's eyes, which
made the smile on her lips a trife tremu-
lous, as she patted the old mans feeble
arm and assured him that such igno-
miny should never be his portion while
there was a Beverley above ground to
protect him.
She watched, still with an April coun-
tenance, the little group-the old negro
walking slowly, leaning on his hickory
staff. and her two bold boys dancing
around him, full of eagerness about the
move and of desire to help in it.
She thought the whole matter settled
and done with when she had got the old
people established in their new quarters
with their household gods around them;
but it was not. Mr.. Anthony at their
very next meeting chose to introduce
the subject, and to express himself with
some force upon it.