Rising up in the bed, and supporting myself upon my elbow, I looked round in quest of Aunt Polly; but then I remembered that she had to be about the breakfast. Amy was sitting on the floor, endeavoring to arrange the clothes on a little toddler, her orphan brother, over whom she exercised a sort of maternal care. She, her two sisters, and infant brother, were the orphans of a woman who had once belonged to a brother of Mr. Peterkin. Their orphanage had not fallen upon them from the ghastly fingers of death, but from the far more cruel and cold mandate of human cupidity. A fair, even liberal price had been offered their owner for their mother, Dilsy, and such a speculation was not to be resigned upon the score of philanthropy. No, the man who would refuse nine hundred dollars for a negro woman, upon the plea that she had three young children and a helpless infant, from whom she must not be separated, would, in Kentucky, be pronounced insane; and I can assure you that, on this subject, the brave Kentuckians had good right to decide, according to their code, that Elijah Peterkin was _compos mentis_. "Amy," said I, as I rubbed my eyes, to dissipate the film and mists of sleep, "is it very late? have you heard the horn blow for the hands to come in from work?" "No, me hab not hearn it yet, but laws, Ann, me did tink you would neber talk no more." "But you see I am talking now," and I could not resist a smile; "have you been nursing me?" "No, indeed, Aunt Polly wouldn't let me come nigh yer bed, and she keep all de time washing your body and den rubbin' it wid a feader an' goose-greese. Oh, you did lay here so still, jist like somebody dead. Aunt Polly, she wouldn't let one ob us speak one word, sed it would 'sturb you; but I knowed you wasn't gwine to kere, so ebery time she went out, I jist laughed and talked as much as I want." "But did you not want me to get well, Amy?" "Why, sartin I did; but my laughin' want gwine to kill you, was it?" She looked up with a queer, roguish smile. "No, but it might have increased my fever." "Well, if you had died, I would hab got yer close, now you knows you promised 'em to me. So when I hearn Jake say you was dead, I run and got yer new calico dress, and dat ribbon what Miss Jane gib you, an' put dem in my box; den arter while Aunt Polly say you done kum back to life; so I neber say notin' more, I jist tuck de close and put dem back in yer box, and tink to myself, well, maybe I will git 'em some oder time." It amused me not a little to find that upon mere suspicion of my demise, this little negro had levied upon my wardrobe, which was scanty indeed; but so it is, be we ever so humble or poor, there is always some one to regard us with a covetous eye. My little paraphernalia was, to this half-savage child, a rich and wondrous possession.