The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors. Speed Nell

asked Helen, curious to know if the girl knew how to do anything.

      “I’d ’a’ done what I done this mornin’: let ’um fill up on what col’ victuals they was lef’ on de she’f.”

      Helen endeavored to introduce Chloe to the mysteries of the fireless cooker, which they had brought with them from camp, but the girl seemed to think there was some kind of magic in a thing that cooked without fire and would none of it.

      “I ain’t a-goin’ ter tetch no sich hoodoo doin’s as dat ’ere box,” she asserted. “It mus’ hab a kinder debble in it ter keep it hot ’thout a piece er dry wood or nothin’.”

      Helen was lifting out the pot full of steaming oatmeal that she had put in the cooker the night before, determined that her sisters should not have to go off again with such cold comfort.

      “All right, you keep up the wood fire and I’ll attend to the fireless cooker,” laughed Helen. “What makes the stove smoke? It was burning all right yesterday.”

      “Smoking ’cause dat hoodoo debble done got in it,” and Chloe rolled her great eyes until nothing showed but the whites.

      “Smoking because you’ve got the damper turned down,” and Helen righted the appliance. “Have you set the table?”

      “Yassum!”

      “Put everything on it just as I showed you yesterday?”

      “Nom! I ain’t put nothin’ on it. I jes’ sot the cheers up to it, but all the gals is got ter do is jes’ retch the things off’n the sidebo’d.”

      That meant that Helen must run and get the table set as quickly as possible as it was three minutes to seven.

      Chloe followed her meekly to the dining-room to do her bidding.

      “Run back to the kitchen, Chloe, and look at the biscuit, and see if they are burning,” cried Helen as she rapidly placed the silver on the table.

      A few minutes later, having set the table she hastened to the kitchen. An ominous odor greeted her.

      “Chloe, did you look at the biscuit?”

      “Yassum! They was gettin’ ready to burn. I guess they is ’bout burned by now.”

      “Oh, Chloe, why didn’t you take them out?” and poor Helen thought maybe she was going to weep with exasperation.

      “You nebber tol’ me ter do mo’n look at ’em. My maw an’ Sis Tempy both done caution me not to be too frisky ’bout doin’ things ’til the white folks tells me. Tempy says white folks laks ter boss ’bout ev’ything.”

      “Oh, for a trained monkey!” thought Helen. “I could at least give one a good switching.”

      Chloe had only two characteristics to work on: one was perfect good-nature, the other unbounded health and strength. Helen wondered if she had enough material to go on to evolve even a passable servant. Anyhow she meant to try. She determined to do the cooking herself for a little while with Chloe as scullion, and also to have the girl do the housework.

      Of course Mrs. Carter was of absolutely no assistance. She held to her purpose of semi-invalidism. The family would not listen to her when she offered the only sane suggestion for the winter: that they should oust the tenant and move back into their own pretty, comfortable, well-furnished home; Douglas to make her début in Richmond society and the other girls continue at school. As for money – why not just make bills? They had perfectly good credit, and what was credit for but to use? Dr. Wright had been so stern with her, and Douglas so severe and unfilial, and they had intimated that she wanted to kill her dear Robert, so she had just let them have their own way. She insisted she had not the strength to cope with these changed conditions and took on the habits of an invalid.

      Helen, remembering how Susan, who was supposed to help with the cooking at the camp, had been kept busy waiting on her mistress, feared Chloe would be pressed into lady’s maid service, too. Indeed Mrs. Carter attempted it, but Chloe proved too rough for the job, and that poor lady was forced to run the ribbons in her lingerie herself.