"You say very true, masser," rejoined the negro; "we are all gemplans now-a-days, and has plenty of blackberries. Well, as I was saying, we liked the sign a heap. But after Nelly Hilliard as was--we calls her Miss Ellen now--quit Wonderville school, where she learnt everything on the face of the yearth, she thought she would persecute painting at home, for she had a turn that way and wanted to keep her hand in. So she set to, and painted a new sign, and took it all out of her own head; and gove it to old Binkey and axplaned it to us. There's a thing on it that Miss Ellen calls a urn or wase--_that_ stands for beer--and then there's a sugarcane growing out of it--_that_ stands for molasses. And then there's a thick string of green leaves, with roots twisted amongst 'em--_that_ answers for ginger, for she told us that ginger grows like any other widgable, and has stalks and leaves, but the root is what we uses. Yet, somehow, folks doesn't seem to understand this sign as well as the old one. A great many thinks the wase be an old sugar-dish with a bit of a corn-stalk sticking out of it, and some passley and hossreddish plastered on the outside, and say they should never guess cakes and beer by it." "I should suppose not," said Lindsay. "But, Masser Neddy," pursued the old negro, "all this time, we have been calling Abram Hilliard 'Abram,' instead of saying squire. Only think of old Abram; he has been made a squire this good while, and marries people. After he move into him new house, he begun to get high, and took to putting on a clean shirt and shaving every day, which Rose says was a pretty tough job with him at first; but he parsewered. And he's apt to have fresh meat whenever it's to be got, and he won't eat stale pies: and so they have to do small bakings every day, instead of big ones twice a week. And sometimes he even go so far as to have geese took out of the flock, and killed and roasted, instead of saving 'em all for feathers. And he says that now he's clear of the world, he _will_ live as he likes, and have everything he wants, and be quite comfabull. And he made his old woman leave off wearing short gownds, and put on long gownds all the time, and quit calling him daddy, which Rose says went very hard with her for a while. The gals being young, were broke of it easy enough; and now they says pappy." "Pshaw!" ejaculated Lindsay, whose regret at the general change which seemed to have come over the Hilliard family now amounted nearly to vexation. "Now, Masser Neddy," continued Pharaoh, "we've got to the new house--there it stands, right afore you. An't you 'prised at it? I always am whenever I sees it. So please a jump off, and I'll take your hoss to the stable, and put him up, and tell the people at the barn that Masser Neddy's come; and you can go into the house and speak for you'mself."