The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1897-07-10

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ment to her greeting.
Just in time for tea, she says, lead
ing the way into the shaded guest cham
Der, that wells and hats may be removed.
we always have tea between 10 and IL,
because we breakfast early on account of
the hands. There is a foreman, Of course,
but if Mr. C. is not up early, nothing
goes exactly right.
II came straight from the pantry to
meet you, she adds, with glance at her
apron and the -four on it frankly in evil
dence. 81 always work my light bread
myself, and the sponge had just risen, but
the girls will take care of you till my re-
turn"
The girls prove Of varying ages, all
the way from the granddaughter, who is
also spending the day, to the spinster
sister-in-law and the visiting cousin. There
is always visiting young person, some
times two or three of them of both sexes,
in a Southern country house, and there is
generally good-sized contingent of women
folks, relatives or relatives-in-law and not
in fact, whom the head of the house takes
under his protection for one reason or
another. In this particular household
there are four such. One is frankly de-
voted to four footed beasts, and thereby
gets close to the masters heart, going to
no end OF trouble to raise his puppies for
him and tide them over the ticklish time
when first taken away from the mother,
miles distant. Another helps with the
flowers and takes critical interest in the
plants that the head of the household likes
to experiment with.
Everything Dora has anything to do
with grows. She's my nght-hand girl,
he says, although we do have 'set-to'
sometimes about the quantity of water the
things require. She takes Boston, that
little coon there, in the afternoons and
waters them all regularly.
Boston, the nimble footed midget who
opened the gate, and who is lurking IN a
nearby recess 50 as to be within call,
smokers outright at hearing himself named
in public.
At later stage of talk, when the men
folk are gathered in some bare hoored,
bare walled room especially devoted to them
and their guns and fishing tackle, or such,
and the company has got warmed up,
socially speaking, mention may be made
of some youthful attache of the household
whose name, coupled with the prefix
Miss, suggests that the particular rela-
tionship in that direction is not close one.
Miss Hanckle is my wife's second
cousins daughter, explains the host.
Poor Hanckle was not much account,
you know; he's living somewhere, but
when his wife died the four girls were sim
ply left out of doors Their own immedi-
ate aunts or uncles could not take them,
but, Of course, it would never do for them
to go to strangers, and SO my wife and the
other cousins just put their heads together
and agreed to share the girls out among
them. We never had seen this one till
she came from the station, but there Il
look in her face like her mother, and we
took to her. hope she Il find a good,
steady husband some day. The four or
phans (they are as good as orphans) meet
at one or the other of the cousins houses
once year Blood is thicker than water.
You can see your women kinfolks turned
out in the world, you know.
The country may have just passed into
the hands of a new party Congress may
have been tampering with issues of grave
moment; the price of something or anything
may be up or down, but the talk after the
tea luncheon is over, when seats have been
placed in the main hall Gin the middle, to
avoid the glare at either end) is of small
matters pertinent to that particular house
hold and that particular neighborhood.
Public doings that the world is regarding
with breathless interest may receive passing
notice later.
The view through the widespread doors
at one end of the hall is of a sun lit cotton
field. trimmed far back on the horizon with
dark wall of woods Through the fast
ened back doors at the other end the path
to the vegetable garden gate is in sight,
the old-fashioned, covered-over well, with
chain and windlass, and various domestic
outbuildings beyond, with pickaninny or
two playing about the doors. There is no
screen for the back hall door, In this
primitive mode of life all unnecessaries are
dispensed with. 1t is considered no harm
for people to see the domestic wheels plainly
in motion, provided the wheels turn with
out squeaking. In the midst of converse
ton the visitor may see the cook scattering
corn or crumbs along board to decoy the
very spring broiler that will be cooked for
dinner
Through the open lattice of the garden
gate he may see the handmade gathering
beans from the arbor or cutting the okra
for gumbo, and later, much later, as he sits
toying with the fan supplied him, he may
know that the dinner hour is near by the
big basket Of green corn borne up the back
steps on the head of some black factotum
and the fresh picked heads of lettuce COM
ing through the garden gate. Again the
lively tinkle of forks on resisting surface,
in the direction of the diningroom and the
simultaneous absence from the circle ofthe
mistress cousin, or the master niece or
sister-in law or step-sister, famed in the
land for culinary expertness, tells that
kiss pudding or angel food or some
other sibilant fomation or fummery is be
ing prepared as a top-of after the more
substantial dishes OF the meal Plainly,
the sight of the wheels in motion gives zest
to the appetite even on summers day
Eventually some one of the women folks
looms in sight with an apron full of roses
from a shady corner of the garden, chairs
disappear from the further end of the hail.
Boston appears with an improvised fly bush
Of sweet myrtle and copious crash apron,
reaching from chin to knee, and the word
that dinner is served makes commotion in
the company.
1t is only an hour from sunset when
adieus are said, and the mules trot out of the
yard with contented freight There is a
watermelon or canteloupe grown from some
new seed, tucked away somewhere for some
one who stayed at home to taste. There
is loaf of the day baking slowed in a
basket under the seat for the neighbor
housekeeper to partake of and see if she
can rival it, and, before leaving, it has been