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Updated: June 20, 2025
Rondeau and Leffie returned to the house, leaving buried a letter, the reading of which would have changed the tenor of their master’s feelings. For a knowledge of its contents as well of its author, we must go back for a time to Frankfort whence it came, promising that Mr. Middleton will follow us in a few days.
"No, marster, never; ’strue’s I live," said Rondeau, who left the room and went in quest of Leffie. But he did not dare to repeat the scene of the morning, for Aunt Dilsey was present, bending over a large tub of boiling suds, and he felt sure that any misdemeanor on his part would call forth a more affectionate shower bath than he cared about receiving.
Leffie knew her mother didn’t mean more than half what she said, but she chose to keep silent, hoping each morning that the close of the day would bring the long absent Rondeau. Thus, between scolding and fretting, cooking and sweating, Aunt Dilsey passed the time until the day arrived on which, as she said, "they’d come if they ever did." Mrs.
"I hain’t got nothin’ else, Miss Leffie Lacey, if you please," said Rondeau, snapping his fingers in her face, and giving Aunt Dilsey’s elbow a slight jostle, just enough to spill the oil, with which she was filling a lamp. "Rondeau, I ’clar’ for’t," said Aunt Dilsey, setting down her oil can. "If marster don’t crack your head, my old man Claib shall, if he ever gits up agin.
Lacey finished reading the letter she said to Leffie, who was still standing near, "Rondeau is well, and will be home in a few days." "When’s the new miss a comin’?" asked Aunt Dilsey. "Not at all," was Mrs. Lacey’s reply. "Glad on’t," said Dilsey, "for now Jack can spit as fur and as big spits as he wants to."
On the morning when Julia was snugly esconced in the summer house, Rondeau returned from the post office in great tribulation. "What’s up now?" asked Leffie, whom Rondeau drew aside, with a dolefully grave face. "Nothing’s up," answered Rondeau, "but the letter has got to come up! I ain’t going to feel like I was a whipped dog any longer.
Leffie was nearly convulsed with laughter, for she had tried the experiment, and found that the distance round her mother’s arm was just the distance round her own slender waist. "Do tell!" said Aunt Dilsey, stopping from her work and wiping the drops of perspiration from her shining forehead. "Do tell! It feels drefful sleek on me, but my old man Claib says it’s too tight."
At last Aunt Dilsey, the head cook and mother of Leffie, interposed, and seizing the soup ladle as the first thing near her, she laid about her right and left, dealing no very gentle blows at the well-oiled hair of Rondeau, who was glad to beat a retreat from the kitchen, amid the loud laughter of the blacks who had witnessed the scene.
How long Aunt Dilsey might have gone expounding Scripture is not known, for Rondeau interrupted her by saying, "Don’t scold so, old lady. Marster ain’t a-goin’ to care for I’ve got him something this time better than victuals or drink." "What is it?" said Leffie, coming forward. "Have you got him a letter from Kentuck?"
Unlike this was the reception which the intelligence met with from Dr. Lacey’s negroes. "What that ar you sayin’," asked Aunt Dilsey of Rondeau, who was communicating the important news to Leffie. "You’d better ask," replied Rondeau. "Who do you suppose Marster George is goin’ to fetch here to crack our heads for us?" "Dun know—Miss Mabel, maybe," said Aunt Dilsey.
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