DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68288#0164
ill MEMORIES OF A SCULPTOR’S WIFE
iron them, for a week’s wash in those days was much more
of an undertaking than it is now.
I remember another time, when we were having a
family party of fifteen or twenty, on the side lawn, and the
cry had gone forth an hour or two before supper that Aunt
Sarah was off on a spree, and we had all worked, cutting
ham, fixing salads, carrying things back and forth, for she
was a general and took charge of everything when she was
sober. We were all eating the products of our afternoon’s
work, and just beginning to have a good time, when some-
body said, ‘ Look 1 ’ And there was Aunt Sarah leaning over
the fence, her two elbows resting comfortably upon the
pickets, and her bonnet, which she wore only at such times,
and which the boys called her ‘jag bonnet,’ because of the
bedraggled feather which had a way of turning around
and dancing down into her eyes. There she stood, with
the most divine expression on her face. ‘My Lawdl’ she
called to us, ‘but ain’t yo’all having a good time!’
And Harriet, whose ‘ face was black,’ so she sometimes
reminded us — whose ‘face was black, but whose heart
was white’ — who lived with us eighteen faithful years,
the devoted slave of my mother and her children, and who,
after an absence of many, many years, came back un-
expectedly into our lives. She married, and after my mo-
ther’s death, for certainly thirty years we lost sight of her.
Then one day my sister, who had gone back to Washing-
ton to live, noticed, upon Pennsylvania Avenue, a woman
standing gazing into a shop window. She was little, and
old, and black, but erect and spry and wore big goggles.
Almost before she realized what she was doing, she
touched her upon the arm.
‘ Is that you, Harriet ? ’ she asked.
iron them, for a week’s wash in those days was much more
of an undertaking than it is now.
I remember another time, when we were having a
family party of fifteen or twenty, on the side lawn, and the
cry had gone forth an hour or two before supper that Aunt
Sarah was off on a spree, and we had all worked, cutting
ham, fixing salads, carrying things back and forth, for she
was a general and took charge of everything when she was
sober. We were all eating the products of our afternoon’s
work, and just beginning to have a good time, when some-
body said, ‘ Look 1 ’ And there was Aunt Sarah leaning over
the fence, her two elbows resting comfortably upon the
pickets, and her bonnet, which she wore only at such times,
and which the boys called her ‘jag bonnet,’ because of the
bedraggled feather which had a way of turning around
and dancing down into her eyes. There she stood, with
the most divine expression on her face. ‘My Lawdl’ she
called to us, ‘but ain’t yo’all having a good time!’
And Harriet, whose ‘ face was black,’ so she sometimes
reminded us — whose ‘face was black, but whose heart
was white’ — who lived with us eighteen faithful years,
the devoted slave of my mother and her children, and who,
after an absence of many, many years, came back un-
expectedly into our lives. She married, and after my mo-
ther’s death, for certainly thirty years we lost sight of her.
Then one day my sister, who had gone back to Washing-
ton to live, noticed, upon Pennsylvania Avenue, a woman
standing gazing into a shop window. She was little, and
old, and black, but erect and spry and wore big goggles.
Almost before she realized what she was doing, she
touched her upon the arm.
‘ Is that you, Harriet ? ’ she asked.