The turf was green, despite the passing of many feet, and
where a slight depression held water, a few ducks, Carolina bred, were
quacking and paddling about; now and then these were counted with great
interest, for they had a trick of taking to the woods with others of
their kind, and relapsing to savagery,--truly distressing to the
domestic poultry prospects of the station. The doors of the Mivane cabin
were all ajar,--the one at the rear opening into a shed-room, unfloored,
which gave a vista into more sheds, merely roofed spaces, inclosed at
either end. A loom was in the shed-room, and at it was seated on the
bench in front, as a lady sits at an organ, the mistress of the house,
fair but faded, in a cap and a short gown and red quilted petticoat,
giving some instruction, touching an intricate weave, to a negro woman,
neatly arrayed in homespun, with a gayly turbaned head, evidently an
expert herself, from the bland and smiling manner and many
self-sufficient and capable nods with which she perceived and
appropriated the knotty points of the discourse.
In the outer shed, Caesar, clad like the Indians and the pioneers in
buckskin, was mending the plough-gear, and talking with great loquacity
to another negro, of the type known then and later as "the new nigger,"
the target of the plantation jokes, because of his "greenness," being of
a fresh importation.
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