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Gordon Lee persistently refused to eat anything his wife cooked for him, depending upon the food that Aunt Kizzy or other neighbors brought in. To Amanda the humiliation of this was acute. She used every strategy to conciliate him, and at last succeeded by bringing home some pig's feet. His appetite got the better of his resentment, and he disposed of four with evident relish.
She wanted to ask Mr. Folke a question. The lesson that afternoon was upon the peacemakers; and Mr. Folke asked the children what ways they knew of being a peacemaker? The answer somehow was not very ready. "Isn't it to stop people from quarrelling?" one child asked. "How can you do that, Kizzy?" Kizzy seemed doubtful. "I could ask them to stop," she said. "Well, suppose you did.
And what would they have been without it?" "I don't know. But I know what she was with it. And I believe if there are any saints in glory, Aunt Kizzy is one of them." "She is dead, then?" "Yes, went all right, singing and rejoicing until the last, 'Troubles over, troubles over, and den my troubles will be over.
By this time the whites of Gordon Lee's eyes were largely in evidence, and he raised himself fearfully on his elbow. "Aunt Kizzy," he whispered hoarsely, "how am I gwine to fin' out who 't is done conjured me?" "By de sign ob seben," she answered mysteriously. "I's gwine home an' work hit out, den I come back an' tell yer.
Why, Luly, I didn't say you did so; I was talking about Violetta. "Oh, but it is just like me," said the honest little girl; "I have done all those things, Miss Kizzy every one of them; but I didn't think it would make everybody hate me. I want to be loved, Miss Kizzy; but you don't know how dreadful hard it is for a little girl to 'keep still."
"Gordon Lee Surrender Jones," she exclaimed indignantly, "has that there meddlin' ol' Aunt Kizzy been here again?" Gordon Lee's eyes blinked, and his thick, sullen under lip dropped half an inch lower.
Yes I do, Luly; and you needn't "keep still," as you call it, but you mustn't meddle with what don't belong to you. I see how it is: you are a very active little girl, and want something to do all the time. "Oh, that's so nice," said Luly. "Don't get a bench will you? Don't make me set up straight. Don't make me fold up my hands and keep my toes still, will you, Miss Kizzy?"
"Aunt Kizzy 'low' I ain't sayin' she's right; I's jes tellin' you what she 'low' Aunt Kizzy 'low' dat, 'cordin' to de symtems, she say', an' I ain't sayin' I b'lieve her, but she say' hit looks to her lak I's sufferin' f'om a hoodoo." "A hoodoo!" Amanda's scorn was unbounded. "Ef it don't beat my time how some of you niggers hang on to them ol' notions.
We had on our place a dear, old saint, named Aunt Kizzy. She was a happy soul. She had seen hard times, but was what I call a living epistle. I've heard her tell how her only child had been sold from her, when the man who bought herself did not want to buy her child. Poor little fellow! he was only two years old. I asked her one day how she felt when her child was taken away.
From an attack of rheumatism a year ago he had developed an amazing number of complaints, all of which finally fell under the head of the dread hoodoo. Aunt Kizzy, the object of Amanda's special scorn, he held in great reverence. She had been a familiar figure in his mother's chimney-corner when he was a boy, and to doubt her knowledge of charms and conjuring was to him nothing short of heresy.
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