Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York IllustratedRobinson, Solon
General
Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated
Robinson, Solon
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
She proceeded to give a most minute description of "the black woman,"
how she looked, and talked, and dressed.
Who could it be? I run over in my mind all of my African female
acquaintances--not large--but not one of them answered the description
given by Mrs. McTravers.
I was about proceeding up stairs, when she said, "ye'll surely go and
see the sick lady." I had a slight internal intimation that I was nearly
losing my patience.
"Mrs. McTravers, what is it about a sick lady? You have not told me a
word about anybody, sick or well, except a negro woman, and you have not
told me what she wanted."
"And sure, then, I thought you knew all about it. The wench said you
knew the lady."
"I know a good many, but how can I tell which one of my acquaintances
this may be?"
"Why sure, then I thought you would know when I told you where she
lived."
"In the name of common sense, Mrs. McTravers, if you know who the sick
woman is, or where she lives, or what she wants, why don't you tell me?"
"Wasn't I going to, only you put me into such a flusteration? There,
sure, that'll tell you all about it."
And she handed me a piece of paper, on which was written, in a very
delicate lady hand, though evidently nervous, "Madame De Vrai, 53
W--street."
I am sure I must have looked like a living specimen of confusion worse
confounded. The name I had never heard before. The street was an unknown
locality. I only knew it was a street on the west side of the city,
somewhere, and whether it had such a number as "53," was entirely too
much for my arithmetic. I determined not to go. Still there was a
mystery, that natural curiosity prompted me to solve. Who could it be?
"Did the black woman say that I was acquainted with the lady?"
"She did that, and that you had been very kind to her. God bless you for
that same, for being so to a stranger and a foreigner too at that. The
black woman said you was a blessed good man to the poor lady, and a
father to her childer, dead and alive."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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