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CHAPTER XXI Tiff's Preparations THE ANNOUNCEMENT of the expected camp-meeting produced a vast sensation at Canema, in other circles beside the hall. In the servants ' department, everybody was full of the matter, from Aunt Katy down to Tomtit. The women were thinking over their available finery; for these gatherings furnish the negroes with the same opportunity of display that Grace Church1 does to the Broadway belles. And so, before Old Tiff, who had brought the first intelligence to the plantation, had time to depart, Tomtit had trumpeted the news through all the cluster of negro-houses that skirted the right side of the mansion, proclaiming that "dere was gwine to be a camp-meeting, and tip-top work of grace, and Miss Nina was going to let all de niggers go." Old Tiff, therefore, found himself in a prominent position in a group of negro-women, among whom Rose, the cook, was conspicuous. "Law, Tiff, ye gwine? and gwine to take your chil'en? ha! ha! ha!" said she. "Why, Miss Fanny, dey'll tink Tiff's yer mammy! Ho! ho! ho!" "Yah! yah! Ho! ho! ho!" roared in a chorus of laughter on all sides, doing honor to Aunt Rosy's wit; and Tomtit, who hung upon the skirts of the crowd, threw up the fragment of a hat in the air, and kicked it in an abandon of joy, regardless of the neglected dinner-knives. Old Tiff, mindful of dignities, never failed to propitiate Rose, on his advents to the plantation, with the gift which the "wise man saith maketh friends;" and, on the present occasion, he had enriched her own peculiar stock of domestic fowl by the present of a pair of young partridge-chicks, a nest of which he had just captured, intending to bring them up by hand, as he did his children. By this discreet course, Tiff stood high where it was of most vital consequence that he should so stand; and many a choice morsel did Rose cook for him in secret, besides imparting to him 224 TIFF'S PREPARATIONS 225 most invaluablerecipes on the culture and raisingof suckingbabies. Old Hundred, like many other persons, felt that general attention lavished on any other celebrity was so much taken from his own merits, and, therefore, on the present occasion, sat regarding Tiff's evident popularity with a cynical eye. At last, coming up, like a wicked fellow as he was, he launched his javelin at Old Tiff, by observing to his wife, "I's 'stonished at you, Rose! You, cook to de Gordons, and making youself so cheap—so familiar with de poor white folks' niggers !" Had the slant fallen upon himself,- personally, Old Tiff would probably have given a jolly crow, and laughed as heartily as he generally did if he happened to be caught out in a rain-storm; but the reflection on his family connection fired him up like a torch, and his eyes flashed through his big spectacles like fire-light through windows . "You go 'long, talking 'bout what you don' know nothing 'bout! I like to know what you knows 'bout de old Virginny fam'lies? Dem's de real old stock! You Car'lina folks come from dem, stick and stock, every blest one of you! De Gordons is a nice family— an't nothing to say agin de Gordons—but whar was you raised, dat ye didn't hear 'bout de Peytons? Why, old Gen'al Peyton, didn't he use to ride with six black horses afore him, as if he'd been a king? Dere wan't one of dem horses dat hadn't a tail as long as my arm. You never see no such critters in your life!" "I han't, han't I?" said Old Hundred, now, in his turn, touched in a vital point. "Bless me, if I han't seen de Gordons riding out with der eight horses, any time o' day!" "Come, come, now, dere wasn't so many!" said Rose, who had her own reasons for staying on Tiff's side. "Nobody never rode with eight horses!" "Did too! You say much more, I'll make sixteen on 'em! 'Fore my blessed master, how dese yer old niggers will lie! Dey's always zaggerating der families. Makes de very har rise on my head, to hear dese yer old niggers talk, dey lie so!" said Old Hundred. "You tink folks dat take to lying is using...

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