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Many of the aristocratic women of the master class, to keep from the burdensome task of caring for their own children, and to assure themselves a life of leisure would delegate to one of the negro slave women the care of their own children. Many of the upper class white children were cared for by these faithful black "Mammies" fed by the milk from their breasts.
And I have seen him join merrily in the country dances too, to the clapping of hands of the company. That was before Dolly and I were let upon the floor. We sat with the other children, our mammies at our sides, in the narrow gallery with the tiny rail that ran around the ball-room, where the sweet odour of the green myrtleberry candles mixed with that of the powder and perfume of the dancers.
When they passed the head of the column, and saw the men walk with their eyes bent in bitter gloom upon the ground, and the women, some carrying, some leading little children, and weeping as they went, and the poor bairns, some frolicking, some weeping because "their mammies" wept, Gerard tried hard to say a word of comfort, but choked and could utter nothing to the mourners; but gasped, "Come on, Denys, I cannot mock such sorrow with little words of comfort."
Visitors at Mount Vernon saw many faces there, but only a few were white faces, the rest were those of black slaves. On each farm stood a village of wooden huts, where turbaned mammies crooned and piccaninnies gamboled in the sunshine. The cooks, the house servants, the coachmen, the stable boys, almost all the manual workers were slaves.
For instance, when riding you will frequently come on a two or three days' old baby snugly hidden in a bunch of long grass while the mother has gone to water. When calves get a little older you may find at mid-day, out on the prairie, some mile or two from water, a bunch of maybe forty calves. Their mammies have gone to drink; but not all of them! No, never all of them at the same time.
De missy wuz Parley Moon and dey had one son an fouh daughters. All us chillun an mammy live in a log cabin dat wuz lauge enuf foh us an we sleep in good beds, tall ones an' low ones dat went undaneath, trundles dey call 'em, and de covahs wuz comfohtable. De mammies did de cookin. We et cohn bread, beans, soup, cabbage an' some othah vegtubles, an a little meat an fish, not much.
At last he is free to go ashore in wonderland a medley of Colon and Cristobal, Panama and the Canal Zone of 1907; Spiggoty policemen like monkeys chattering bad Spanish, and big, smiling Canal Zone policemen in khaki, with the air of soldiers; Jamaica negroes with conical heads and brown Barbados negroes with Cockney accents; English engineers in lordly pugrees, and tourists from New England who seem servants of their own tortoise-shell spectacles; comfortable ebon mammies with silver bangles and kerchiefs of stabbing scarlet, dressed in starched pink-and-blue gingham, vending guavas and green Toboga Island pineapples.
Oliver tried to lift her, and as he tugged at her, the father sat and watched with a smile, then leant down and picked her up while the two mammies gasped with mingled astonishment and fear. "I tell you, she's pretty heavy," said the little boy. "Indeed, she is," said the father, gaily. Mr. Hampden would have taken his son home with him, but the latter declined the invitation.
Mammy, and other Mammies, moved proudly about, each a sort of oracle to the friends of her household. They kept sharp eyes on things returnable plates, platters, knives, spoons, and tablecloths in any doubtful case, arising from the fact of similarity in pattern, they were the court of last resort.
In the very last pew, on the aisle, sat an eager old colored woman one of those typical "mammies" now so seldom seen in an old-fashioned bonnet and shawl. She was of a bulbous figure, and her dark face shone with perspiration and delight as she stared at the coming bride and groom. The old woman bobbed up, making an old-time genuflection.
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