home. It has plunged me into the bosom of domestic life, and I find things there exceedingly amusing. Things commonplace to others are very novel and interesting to me, from my long residence in hotels, and perfect ignorance of how the pot was kept boiling from which my dinners came.
But before you enter the house, take a look at the outside, and let me localize myself in your imagination. Bosky Dell is a compact little place of ten acres, covered mostly with a dense grove, and cut into two unequal parts by a brawling, rocky stream. The house—a little cottage, draped with vines, and porched—sits on a slope, with an orchard on one side, a tiny lawn bordered with flowers on another, the shade of the grove darkening the windows of a third, and on the fourth a kitchen-garden with strawberry-beds and grape-trellises. It is a pretty little place, and full of cosy corners. My favorite one I must describe.
It is a porch on the south side of the house, between two projections. Consequently both ends of it are closed; one, by the parlor wall, in which there is a window,—and the other, by the kitchen window and wall. It is quite shut in from winds, and the sun beams pleasantly upon it, these chilly March days. There is just room enough for my couch, Kate's rocking-chair, and a little table. Here we sit all the morning,—Kate sewing, I reading, or watching the sailing clouds, the swelling tree-buds in the grove, and the crocus-sprinkled grass, which is growing greener every day.
Thus, while busy with me, Kate can still have an eye to her kitchen, and we both enjoy the queer doings and sayings of our "culled help," Saide. She became Kate's servant under an inducement which I will give in her own words.
"Massy! Miss Catline, when I does a pusson a good turn, seems like I wants to keep on doin' 'em good turns. I didn't do so dreffle much for you, but I jes got one chance to help you a bit, and seems like I couldn't be satisfactioned to let you alone no more."—A novel reason to hear given, but a true one in philosophy.
This "chance" was when my sister was attacked with cholera once, in the first panic caused by it, of late years. All her friends had fled to the country, and she was quite alone in a boarding-house. I was at college. She would have been left to die alone, so great was the fear of the disease, if Saide, who was cook in the establishment, had not boiled over with indignation, and addressed her selfish mistress in this fashion:—
"That ar' young lady's not to have no care, nohow, took of her, a'n't she? She's to he lef' there a-sufferin' all alone that-a-way, is she? I guess so too! Hnh! Now I'se gwine to nuss her, and I don't keer if you don't know nothin' about culining, you must get yer own dinnas and breakwusses and suppas. That's the plain English of it—leastways till she's well ag'in." She devoted herself night and day to Kate for several weeks, and then accompanied her to this house, as a matter of course. She is a privileged personage. She often pops her head out of the kitchen window to favor us with her remarks. As they always make us laugh, she won't take reproofs upon that subject. Kate says her impertinence is intolerable, but suffers it rather than resort to severity with her old benefactress. I enjoy it.
She manages to turn her humor to account in various ways. I heard her exclaim,—
"Laws-a-me! Dere goes de best French-chayny gold-edged tureen all to smash! Pieces not big enough to save! Laws now, do let me study how to tell de folks, so's to set 'em larfin'. Dere's great 'casion to find suthin' as 'll do it, 'cause dey thinks a heap o' dis yere ole chayny. Mr. Charley now,— he's easy set off; but Miss Catline,—she takes suthin' purty 'cute! Laws, I has to fly roun' to git dat studied out!"
Kate overheard this;—how could she scold?
Saide can never think unless she is "flyin' roun'"; and whenever there is a
