The roses that Mistress Alice
had set out with her own white hands years ago climbed all over the
front of the house, twining around its tall pillars, and hanging down in
festoons from its stately eaves. Cuttings from the same hardy plant had
been trained along the fences, around the tree-trunks and over
trellises, until the place had come to be known all around the country
as "Rosehaven."
Sheba always had steady employment when the place was open, for the
young ladies of the family kept her flat-irons busy with their endless
tucks and ruffles. She found a good market, too, for all the eggs she
could induce her buff cochins to lay, and all the berries that she
could make John Jay pick.
This bright June morning she stood in the door with a basket of fresh
eggs in her hand, looking anxiously across the fields to the gables of
Rosehaven, and grumbling to herself.
"Heah I done promise Miss Hallie these fresh aigs for her bufday cake,
an' no way to get 'em to her. I'll nevah get all these clothes done up
by night if I stop my i'onin', an' John Jay's done lit out again! little
black rascal!" She lifted up her voice in another wavering call.
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