CHLOE
To Helen had fallen the most difficult and trying part of the program:
training a cheap, country servant to the ways of civilization. Many
times did she think of Miss Louise's trained monkey as she labored with
Chloe, with whom she had to start all over every day.
A seven o'clock breakfast must be ready for Nan and Lucy, and the one
morning that she left it to Chloe the girls had to go off with nothing
more comforting on their little insides than cold bread and milk. That
was when the new maid had first arrived and Helen had not sounded the
depths of her incompetence and ignorance.
"What would you have done in your own home if you had had to have an
early breakfast for someone?" asked Helen, curious to know if the girl
knew how to do anything.
"I'd 'a' done what I done this mornin': let 'um fill up on what col'
victuals they was lef' on de she'f."
Helen endeavored to introduce Chloe to the mysteries of the fireless
cooker, which they had brought with them from camp, but the girl seemed
to think there was some kind of magic in a thing that cooked without
fire and would none of it.
"I ain't a-goin' ter tetch no sich hoodoo doin's as dat 'ere box," she
asserted. "It mus' hab a kinder debble in it ter keep it hot 'thout a
piece er dry wood or nothin'."
Helen was lifting out the pot full of steaming oatmeal that she had put
in the cooker the night before, determined that her sisters should not
have to go off again with such cold comfort.
"All right, you keep up the wood fire and I'll attend to the fireless
cooker," laughed Helen. "What makes the stove smoke? It was burning all
right yesterday."
"Smoking 'cause dat hoodoo debble done got in it," and Chloe rolled her
great eyes until nothing showed but the whites.
"Smoking because you've got the damper turned down," and Helen righted
the appliance. "Have you set the table?"
"Yassum!"
"Put everything on it just as I showed you yesterday?"
"Nom! I ain't put nothin' on it. I jes' sot the cheers up to it, but all
the gals is got ter do is jes' retch the things off'n the sidebo'd."
That meant that Helen must run and get the table set as quickly as
possible as it was three minutes to seven.
Chloe followed her meekly to the dining-room to do her bidding.
"Run back to the kitchen, Chloe, and look at the biscuit, and see if
they are burning," cried Helen as she rapidly placed the silver on the
table.
A few minutes later, having set the table she hastened to the kitchen.
An ominous odor greeted her.
"Chloe, did you look at the biscuit?"
"Yassum! They was gettin' ready to burn. I guess they is 'bout burned by
now."
"Oh, Chloe, why didn't you take them out?" and poor Helen thought maybe
she was going to weep with exasperation.
"You nebber tol' me ter do mo'n look at 'em. My maw an' Sis Tempy both
done caution me not to be too frisky 'bout doin' things 'til the white
folks tells me. Tempy says white folks laks ter boss 'bout ev'ything."
"Oh, for a trained monkey!" thought Helen. "I could at least give one a
good switching."
Chloe had only two characteristics to work on: one was perfect
good-nature, the other unbounded health and strength. Helen wondered
if she had enough material to go on to evolve even a passable servant.
Anyhow she meant to try. She determined to do the cooking herself for
a little while with Chloe as scullion, and also to have the girl do
the housework.
Of course Mrs. Carter was of absolutely no assistance. She held to her
purpose of semi-invalidism. The family would not listen to her when
she offered the only sane suggestion for the winter: that they should
oust the tenant and move back into their own pretty, comfortable,
well-furnished home; Douglas to make her début in Richmond society and
the other girls continue at school. As for money--why not just make
bills? They had perfectly good credit, and what was credit for but to
use? Dr. Wright had been so stern with her, and Douglas so severe and
unfilial, and they had intimated that she wanted to kill her dear
Robert, so she had just let them have their own way. She insisted she
had not the strength to cope with these changed conditions and took on
the habits of an invalid.
Helen, remembering how Susan, who was supposed to help with the cooking
at the camp, had been kept busy waiting on her mistress, feared Chloe
would be pressed into lady's maid service, too. Indeed Mrs. Carter
attempted it, but Chloe proved too rough for the job, and that poor
lady was forced to run the ribbons in her lingerie herself.
Chloe's cleaning was even worse than her cooking if such a thing was
possible. She spread up the beds, leaving great wrinkles and bumps,
which proved to be top sheets and blankets that she had not thought fit
to pull up. When Helen remonstrated and made her take all the covers off
to air before making the beds she obeyed, but put the covers back on
regardless of sequence, with counterpanes next to the mattress and
sheets on top, with blankets anywhere that her fancy dictated. She swept
the dirt safely under the rugs; wiped up the floor with bath towels; and
the crowning glory of her achievement was sticking all the tooth-brushes
together.
Now when we remember that Helen herself had perhaps never made up a bed
in her whole life until about eight months before this time, we may
indeed have sympathy for her in her tribulations. Her days were full to
running over, beginning very early in the morning and ending only after
the family was fed at night. The cooking was not so difficult, as she
had a genius for it and consequently a liking. Chloe could wash dishes
after a fashion and clean the kitchen utensils, which was some comfort.
Mr. Carter always carried his wife's breakfast tray to her room and
waited on her like a devoted slave. He would even have run the ribbons
in had she trusted him. All he could do for her now was wait on her and
spoil her, and this he did to perfection. She was the same lovely little
creature he had married and he was not unreasonable enough to expect her
to be anything else. He did not think it strange that his little canary
could not turn herself into a raven and feed him when he was hungry.
His tenderness to his wife was so great that his daughters took their
keynote from him and their patience towards their mother was wonderful.
They vied with one another in their attentions to the parent that they
would not let themselves call selfish.
Helen cooked her little dainties; Nan kept her in light literature from
the circulating library in town; Lucy scoured the fields for mushrooms
that a late fall had made plentiful; Douglas always brought her the
choice fruit and flowers that her pupils showered on her; even Bobby did
his part by bringing her ripe persimmons that the frost had nipped just
enough to make delicious. Mr. Carter was often able to bring her in a
partridge or a young hare. On the whole life wasn't so bad. When one
felt perfectly well, semi-invalidism was a pretty pleasant state. As for
society: the count was a frequent visitor and the ladies from Grantly
most attentive. The Suttons had called, too, several times, and other
county families were finding the Carters out. It was easy to treat the
fact that they were living in the overseer's house as a kind of joke. Of
course, anyone could tell that they were not the kind of persons who
usually lived in overseers' houses.
Chloe was the thorn in the flesh, the fly in the ointment for Mrs.
Carter. Chloe could not be laughed away,--Chloe was no joke. Accustomed
to trained, highly-paid servants to do her bidding, this rough, uncouth
ourang-outang was more than the dainty little lady could stand.
The very first time Count de Lestis called, Mrs. Carter happened to be
alone in the house except for Chloe, Mr. Carter having gone to Preston
for much-needed nails and Helen having run up to Grantly to ask the
advice of Miss Ella on the best way to preserve some late pears. A knock
and Chloe promptly fell down the steps in her eagerness to get to the
door. She had been up in Douglas's and Helen's room attempting to make
up the bed to suit Miss Helen.
"Thank Gawd I fell down instidder up! If'n I had 'a' fell up I wouldn't
'a' got ma'ied dis year," and she picked herself up and dived at the
front door.
"Are Mr. and Mrs. Carter and the young ladies at home?" Mrs. Carter
heard in the count's fine baritone.
"Nawsir! The boss is done gone ter Preston ter fetch some nails ter try
ter bolster up this here ole shack, an' Miss Douglas is done gone ter
her teachin' job an' Miss Helen is done stepped up to see Miss
Ellanlouise 'bout 'zervin' some ole hard pears----"
"And how about Mrs. Carter?" in an amused voice.
"Oh, she is a-layin' on the sofy tryin' ter git sick."
"Is she ill?" solicitously.
"Naw! She is jes' plum lazy. She's too lazy ter chaw an' has ter have
all her victuals fixed soft like."
"Well, will you please take her this card?"
"That there ticket?"
Imagine Mrs. Carter's mortification, when the grinning Chloe came
running into the sitting-room with the count's card crushed in her eager
hand, to discover that the wretched girl was in her stocking feet;
capless, with her wrapped plaits sticking out all over her head like
quills upon the fretful porcupine; her apron on hind part before.
"Chloe! Where is your cap?" exclaimed that elegant lady.
"Well, lawsamussy! I done forgot about it. It do make my haid eatch so
I done pulled it off."
"And your shoes?"
"I's savin' them fer big meetin' nex' year."
"And why do you wear your apron in the back? Put it on right this
minute."
"Well, Ole Miss, my dress was siled an' my ap'on was clean, so I jes'
slid it 'roun' behinst so it wouldn't git siled, too."
Nothing but the fact that the count was cooling his heels on the front
porch kept Mrs. Carter from weeping outright. Old Miss, indeed! All she
could do was feebly tell Chloe to ask the gentleman in.
If Count de Lestis had been ushered in by a butler in livery he could
not have entered in a more ceremonious manner. He bowed low over the
fair lady's hand, kissing her finger-tips lightly. Even the spectacle of
Chloe's walking off, with her clean apron on hind part before and her
shoeless condition disclosing large holes in the heels of her stockings,
did not upset his gravity. He, too, realized that Chloe was no joke.
Afterwards Chloe said to Helen:
"That sho' is a pretty man what comed ter see you alls. I ain't knowin'
yit what made him stoop over an' smell yo' ma's hand. Cose she mus'
smell pow'ful good with never put'n her hands in nothin' mo' than her
own victuals." Helen was weak with laughter.
"What fer they call him a count, Miss Helen? Is it 'cause he spen' all
his time a-countin' out money? They do say he is pow'ful good an' kin'
ter the niggers. Some say he likes niggers better'n what he does white
folks, but I says that is plum foolish. Anyhow, he talks mighty sweet to
'em an' don't never call 'em low down triflin' black rascals whin they
gits kinder lop-sided with liquor, like some of the county gents does
whin hands gits so fur gone they can't git in the craps. He done started
a night school over at Weston what his secondary is teachin'."
"I didn't know he had a secretary," exclaimed Helen, "but it certainly
is kind of him to try and help the poor colored people. I wish you could
go to night school, Chloe."
"Lawd, Gawd, no! Miss Helen! I ain't got no call to larn."
"Can't you read at all, Chloe?"
"Well, I kin read whin they is picters ter go by. I done been ter school
mos' six months countin' the diffunt years what I started, but my ma,
she say my haid was too hard an' she 'fraid it might git cracked open
if'n teacher tried to put any mo' in it. She say some folks is got sof'
haids what kin stretch an' they ain't so ap' ter bus' open, haids kinder
like hog bladders what you kin keep on a-blowin' up."
"Wouldn't you like me to teach you to read, Chloe?" asked Helen, feeling
rather ashamed that this foreigner should come to Virginia and take more
interest in the education of the negroes than she should ever have done.
"I believe I could teach you without breaking your head open."
"Anything you says do I'll do, but I tell you now I ain't got no mo'
notion er readin' than a tarrapin. A tarrapin kin git his haid out'n the
shell an' you might git a little larnin' in it, but my haid is groun'
what you gotter break up with a grubbin' hoe."
"I am willing to try. Let's begin now! First we will learn how to spell
things right here in the kitchen and then you can soon be reading
recipes," said Helen kindly. "Now we are making biscuit, so we will
begin with that. First take two cups of flour," and she wrote on the
whitewashed wall of the kitchen: "2 cups of flour."
Chloe was delighted with this kind of school, very different from her
former experiences where she was made to sit for hours on a hard bench
saying the same thing over and over with no conception of what it was
all about. Now "2 cups of flour" had some sense in it, so had "2 spoons
of baking powder." "Lard the size of an egg" was a brilliant remark;
"1 spoon of salt" had a gleam of intelligence, too; "1 cup of milk" was
filled with gumption. In less than a week the girl could read and write
the recipe for biscuit and was eagerly waiting for her beloved Miss
Helen to advance her to cake.