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Updated: June 26, 2025
After breakfast the house-servants were all called in to family worship, as usual; and when that had been attended to, Elsie uncovered a large basket which stood on a side-table, and with a face beaming with delight, distributed the Christmas gifts a nice new calico dress, or a bright-colored hand-kerchief to each, accompanied by a paper of confectionery.
Out of 320,000 workmen and 80,000 house-servants residing in Paris, there are 230,000 of the former and 46,000 of the latter a total of 276,000 who do not deposit in the savings banks. No one would dare pretend that these are 276,000 spendthrifts and ne'er-do-weels who expose themselves to misery voluntarily.
The old colored house-servants were compelled to hide their pipes, and rid themselves of the scent of tobacco, before they ventured to approach him.... They protested that they had not smoked, or seen a pipe; and he invariably proved the culprit guilty by following the scent, and leading them to the corn-cob pipes hid in some crack or cranny, which he made them take and throw instantly into the kitchen fire, without reforming their habits, or correcting the evil, which is likely to continue as long as tobacco will grow."
Other of the house-servants were visible from time to time. This, then, manifestly was not the breakfast of the menials. She glanced toward the cluster of tall plants. Through an interstice she was able to see all the persons seated at the other table. There first was the blue-eyed, golden-haired girl.
Perfect silence on the upper floor; only the solemn shadows of the night, as the moon rises higher and higher, and the plaintive cries of the night-birds alone betoken life. Through the windows the white-jacketed house-servants are rushing gayly to and from the dining-room. All the rooms are dimly lighted. The President's apartment is fragrant with blossoms, and the lace counterpane turned down.
One by one, wagon after wagon fell out of the line, and turned off to the right or left, until there were left only the Gunns' big carryall, in which sat Hetty, with her two house-servants, an old black man and his wife, who had been in her father's house so long, that their original patronymic had fallen entirely out of use, and they were known as "Cæsar Gunn" and "Nan Gunn" the town over.
We have a few records of worthy black servants who remind us of the faithful, loving house-servants of old Southern families. Such a one was Judge Sewall's man, Boston a freeman to a master who deserved faithful service, if ever master did. The entries in the Judge's diary, meagre as they are, somehow show fully to us that faithful life of service.
House-servants, who were at first particularly set against it, now generally prefer it. The laborers have collected the pieces of the gins which they destroyed on the flight of their masters, the ginning being obnoxious work, repaired them, and ginned the cotton on the promise of wages.
There was a sister, who regarded her brother Gustave as the embodiment of all that is perfect in youthful mankind; and there were a couple of old house-servants, a very stupid clumsy lad in the stables, and half a dozen old mongrel dogs, born and bred on the premises, who seemed to share the young lady's opinions.
As for me, it was my first meeting with slavery; except in the house-servants of Maryland, superficially a very different condition; and as I looked at the cowed, imbruted faces of the field-hands, my early training fell away like a cloak. The process was not logical; I was generalizing from a few instances, but I was convinced.
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