[Illustration: "HOW DEY DOES GROW!"--_Page 86._] "Well, Aunt Betsy," we would ask, "how is your rheumatism now?" "Lor', honey, I nuver spec's to git over dat. But some days I can hobble out an' feed de chickens; an' I can set at my window an' make the black child'en feed 'em, an' I love to think I'm some 'count to Miss Emma. An' Miss Emma's child'en can't do 'thout old 'Mammy Betsy,' for I takes care of all dar pet chickens. Me an' my ole man gittin' mighty ole now; but Miss Emma an' all her child'en so good to us we has pleasure in livin' yet." At last the shadows began to fall dark and chill upon this once bright and happy home. Old Aunt Betsy lived to see the four boys--her mistress's brave and noble sons--buckle their armor on and go forth to battle for the home they loved so well,--the youngest still so young that he loved his pet chickens, which were left to "Mammy Betsy's" special care; and when the sad news at length came that this favorite young master was killed, amid all the agony of grief no heart felt the great sorrow more sincerely than hers. Another and still another of these noble youths fell after deeds of heroic valor, their graves the battlefield, a place of burial fit for men so brave. Only one--the youngest--was brought home to find a resting-place beside the graves of his ancestors. The old man, their father, his mind shattered by grief, continued day after day, for several years, to sit in the vine-covered porch, gazing wistfully out, imagining sometimes that he saw in the distance the manly forms of his sons, returning home, mounted on their favorite horses, in the gray uniforms worn the day they went off. Then he, too, followed, where the "din of war, the clash of arms," is heard no more. To recall these scenes so blinds my eyes with tears that I cannot write of them. Some griefs leave the heart dumb. They have no language and are given no language, because no other heart could understand, nor could they be alleviated if shared. CHAPTER IX. It will have been observed from these reminiscences that the mistress of a Virginia plantation was more conspicuous, although not more important, than the master. In the house she was the mainspring, and to her came all the hundred or three hundred negroes with their various wants and constant applications for medicine and every conceivable requirement. Attending to these, with directing her household affairs and entertaining company, occupied busily every moment of her life. While all these devolved upon her, it sometimes seemed to me that the master had nothing to do but ride around his estate on the most delightful horse, receive reports from overseers, see that his pack of hounds was fed, and order "repairs about the mill"--the mill seemed always needing repairs!