Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-12-18
MACE.
'Nacel 20 Nacel Yo' git dat pan, en- go
git me some chips fer dish yer fab, boy"
Silence

"Yo heah me, niggahi"
No answer.
''Yo' take yo' hans outen dat dough,
boy, en- go git me dem chips 10 l bus yer
wide. Yo' heah me talkin' to yerp
This with growing asperity, and Aunt
Patsey began TO wipe her hands on her
apron, and glance about inquiringly for a
handy bit of shingle. Mace was learned in
times and seasons. He knew the exact
point to which obedience might be deferred,
and the important moment when it became
the better part of valor. Slouching sulkily
over to the big stove, he pulled out from
under it the battered, rusty old milk-pan
that served as chip basket, and crawled re-
luctantly away, licking his little pink
lined black paws that we're yellow and
sticky with cake dough. His heart was
filed with the impotent wrath of baked
desire, and as he dragged his heels along
the ground toward the wood-pile, he mum
bled anathemas to himself upon his ma
ternal parent, in which the only articulate
statement that appeared conveyed the i'm
preston that he considered her to have
reached a point of meanness that no "ol'
WALLER hound" of the most abject descrip-
ton could ever hope to rival. He felt it
was very hard to be sent for chips just
when Miss Jane had given him the cake
bowl to scrape A melancholy intimacy
with his mothers eccentricities made him
reasonably sure that she would have dashed
hot water into the bowl before his return,
and have spoiled all those delectable mouth
| fuls he was thriftily reserving for the last
Miss James kitchen was pleasant place
at Christmas time. 1t was connected with
the house by a long covered passageway;
| it was long and low, with brick floor, and
dim mysterious shadows amid the rafters,
where punches of herbs and strings of red
peppers hu &, and above which yawned
the lofty pointed roof, black with the
smoke of the baked meats of many genera
tions of Throckmortons. Time had soft
ened the tint of the whitewashed walls to a
dull and pleasing yellow, interspersed here
and there with red CLEAN of an exposed
brick where Aunt Patsey was wont to
sharpen the kitchen knives-shirral shirral
back and forth A tall dresser glittered
with tin, and in the cool dark pool of the
brass bound cedar bucket swan a crook
handled drinking gourd. The deep win
dows looked out on or ,en slope shaded
with China-trees, which cast vibrant, lace
leaved shadows in spring, loaded the air
with intolerable sweetness at blossom time,
furnished Mace with ammunition for his
pop-guu with their hard green bullets in
summer and in winter duced into intox-
ication with their ripened fruit those erst-
while prohibitionists the robins. At the
foot of the slope was the woodpile where
Mace went for chips. Besides the stove
there was a great open fireplace with a
crane where soup pots dubbed, potatoes
roasted, and where at this moment Dutch
oven stood on the hearth, in which the
Christmas cake was baking, and whose top
Mace himself had heaped with live Goals.
For weeks the kitchen had been suffused
with warm, spicy odors, arising from the
cakes and comfits Miss Jane and Aunt Pat
sey were preparing for the usual Christ
mas gathering of the Throckmorton clan,
and the return of the boys from school
Mace had made up his mind not to be
naughty once during the entire holidays.
In anticipation of the infinite delights of
having Marse Torn and Marse Chawley
home again, he had sat up night after
night in the leaping freight of Aunt Pat
sey's cabin, busilv fashioning for their ben
eft red bird trap, which was to be tri-
umph of art, but which had a most dis
heartening way of falling to pieces just as
it reached completion. He had given his
small help in the cooking too, watching over
the currants drying in the sun, and with a
clean apron tied under his chin, and his
hands diligently secured with brown soap,
had sliced citron for the great cake. AS a
reward of merit, many bits of pastry and
sugar, and the privilege of scraping the
cake bowl, had fallen to his share. An ex-
cess of cake dough, however, is not con-
ducive to virtue, and the African sunniness
of his temper was suffering eclipse. He
was fast reaching that point where his
mother was wont to darkly confde to her
pots and pans, but loud enough for him to
hear, that dat boy wuz des sufferin' fer a
good KILN beatin', and wuts mo-, he wuz
gwine ter get it." And would add warn
ingly, "Yo' better mind, Nacel I'm gwine
ter have a switch off'n der tree fer you TO
night" Then the dark clouds would set
tie down and overshadow him; there would
be thunder and lightning and a rain of
tears from little crumpled, sobbing heap
| of darky in some dim corner of the kitchen;
from which he would finally emerge bright
er than ever, going willingly for chips,
slapping his small bare feet on the damp
earth, banging the old tin pan against his
legs, and sweetly singing, with sharp
pauses and deep accentuations, one of his
favorite songs:
''Er never-wuz yet-er boy-or man,
Err pot-or er kettle-er dish-or err pan
Te-rattlel Te-rattlel
Che-bang. Che-bang"
The Specification of which was dark to all
save himself. But today no melody cheered
his lonely way to the wood-pile. He
slammed the pan down on the chips, and
sat down himself on the old knotted log
which no one could split, but which he him
self was given to hacking hopefully and flu
tiiely at intervals during special exposi-
tions Of industry and usefulness.
Ger ain gwine ter git ne chips" he
mumbled, Grossly, kicking his heels about
Gum tiah'd er gittin' chips; er gifts chips
bout forty 'leven times ev'y single day, en-
er ain goin' ter git mare mother so dahl En-
NAV kin beat clean twell she gifts tied, en-
den er ain gwine to git mare mott er chip"
He asserted this with the reckless en-
phasis of present impunity; but as he med
itated upon the reasonable certainty of the
defied infection, his heart swelled with Bit
ter and impotent wrath.
Ger dom care. Maw's meaner'n er oil
yaller dawg. She's er OF brin'le mule.
She's er OF one-legged elerfunt"-with inn
passioned elimination of invectivS.
Just at this moment there was a rustic
in the wood-pile. 1t might be a wren; it
might even be a ground squirrel Mace
had theory that by an exquisite excess of
caution and deliberation he would one day
wound and capture one of these denizens
of the wood-pile. He fell on his knees,
and peered carefully into the dark sweet
scented depths of the rough-heaped logs.
Then he felt silently about for a big chip,
} poised it with elaborate pains, and flung il
strenuously. There was a whisk of q
striped tail, and an instant later only sol
itary little negro occupied the wood-pile.
The next object that caught his attention