It set me to wondering how
it was that the consequences in my day seemed inappreciable. I do not
understand it now. Some of Mammy's stories would have been bonanzas to a
police reporter of today; others would have bred emulation in Edgar Poe.
And yet I do not recall any subsequent terrors.
An account of the execution of some pirates, which she had witnessed when a
"gal," was popular. She had a rhyme which condensed the details. The
condemned were Spaniards:
Pepe hung, Qulo fell,
Felix died and went to ----
Mammy always gave the rhyme with awful emphasis.
She had had an experience before coming into our family, by purchase, which
gave her easy precedence over all the mammies of all our friends. To be
sure, it was an experience which the other mammies, as "good membahs of de
chutch," regarded as unholy; one which they congratulated themselves would
never lie on their consciences, and of which poor Mammy was to die
unshriven in their minds; for she never became a "sister," so far as I ever
learned.
But to us this experience was fruitful of many happy hours. Mammy had been
tire-woman to Mrs.
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