"Look at the
Professor!"
"Look at everybody!" said I. And the artless little voice went on
again half quaveringly:
"But Aunty's all so childish-like on my account, you see,
I'm 'most afeared she'll be took down--an' 'at's what bothers
_me!_--
'Cause ef my good ole Aunty ever would git sick an' die,
I don't know what she'd do in Heaven--till _I_ come, by an' by:--
Far she's so ust to all my ways, an' ever'thing, you know,
An' no one there like me, to nurse, an' worry over so!--
'Cause all the little childerns there's so straight an' strong an'
fine,
They's nary angel 'bout the place with 'Curv'ture of the Spine!'"
The old Professor's face was in his handkerchief; so was my friend's
in his; and so was mine in mine, as even now my pen drops and I reach
for it again.
I half regret joining the mad party that had gathered an hour later in
the old law-office where these two graceless characters held almost
nightly revel, the instigators and conniving hosts of a reputed
banquet whose _menu's_ range confined itself to herrings, or "blind
robins," dried beef, and cheese, with crackers, gingerbread, and
sometimes pie; the whole washed down with anything but
"----Wines that heaven knows when
Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun,
And kept it through a hundred years of gloom
Still glowing in a heart of ruby.
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