Neither Major nor Mrs. Waldron ever interfered with Miss Carrie's
management; so the family sat down to the meal, leaving the little
girl in the schoolroom.
Dumps and Tot, however, were very indignant, and ate but little
dinner; and, as soon as their mamma excused them, they ran right to
the nursery to tell Mammy about it. They found her overhauling a trunk
of old clothes, with a view of giving them out to such of the little
negroes as they would fit; but she dropped everything after Dumps had
stated the case, and at once began to expatiate on the tyranny of
teachers in general, and of Miss Carrie in particular.
"I know'd how 'twould be," she said, "wen marster fotch her hyear; she
got too much white in her eye to suit me, er shettin' my chile up, an'
er starvin' uv her; I an't got no 'pinion uv po' white folks, nohow."
"Is Miss Carrie po' white folks, Mammy?" asked Dumps, in horror, for
she had been taught by Mammy and Aunt Milly both that the lowest
classes of persons in the world were "po' white folks" and "free
niggers."
"She ain't no rich white folks," answered Mammy, evasively; "caze efn
she wuz, she wouldn't be teachin' school fur er livin'; an' den ergin,
efn she's so mighty rich, whar's her niggers? I neber seed 'em. An',
let erlone dat, I ain't neber hyeard uv 'em yit;" for Mammy could not
conceive of a person's being rich without niggers.
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