SALINA BOWLES' MISSION.
With an honest purpose, whatever betide,
She stands like a pillar of native stone,
Firm and rough, with a cap of pride--
Till her trust is given, her mission done.
With characteristic reverence for ancient usages, Salina Bowles set
herself resolutely against all cooking-stoves, modern ranges and
inventions of that class. That exemplary female was often heard to
declare that no decent meal could ever be cooked by any of these
new-fangled contrivances. A hickory back log, and good oak-wood
answered her purpose quite well enough. Only give her plenty of them
and she'd cook a dinner with any woman on this side of sundown. From
these prejudices it happened that Salina, in order to prepare the late
dinner with which Mrs. Farnham usually taxed all her culinary genius,
had built a huge wood-fire, and was planting again even on the hearth
before it, when a folded paper flashed over her shoulder, and rushing
through the flames fell behind the back log.
Salina rose promptly upright, gave Mrs. Farnham a sharp look, and
stooped to pick up the comb that had been knocked loose from her hair.
When her eyes fell once again on the young man and his mother, she
began deliberately twisting up her hair, while the brief dialogue we
have recorded passed between them.
After they went out, Salina removed her tin oven from before the fire,
took up a huge pair of tongs and deliberately fished out Mr. Farnham's
will from behind the back-log. It had been a good deal blackened and
scorched at the edges in its passage through the flames, but the
writing was only slightly obliterated. Salina, who had no scruples
against reading a document so obtained, recognized the signature, and
gathered enough from the contents to be certain that it was an
important paper.
She thrust the will into her bosom with great deliberation, replaced
her tin oven on the hearth, and went on with her work as usual. Once
or twice she paused in her occupation, and seemed pondering over some
idea in her mind, but when the other servants came in she said nothing
of the subject of her thoughts. The moment dinner was over, which Mrs.
Farnham partook of alone. Salina put on her sun-bonnet and shawl,
merely saying that "she was going out a spell," and took a short cut
across the fields towards Judge Sharp's house, leaving the Old
Homestead on her right, determined not to visit that till after her
errand was accomplished.
The judge was a little surprised when Salina appeared before him with
a peremptory request that he would leave his women folks and give her
a few words with him alone.
He went into the library and closed the door, wondering in his mind
what could have brought that interesting female into his presence,
with her face so full of mysterious importance.
Salina folded her shawl close over her bosom while she drew forth the
will.
"Here, Judge, you may as well take charge of that concern, I reckon;
being a friend of the family, you'll know best what to do with it."
The Judge unfolded the paper and glanced at the first page. His eyes
began to fill with astonishment.
"Why, where on earth did you get this?" he said.
"I got it honestly, and that's enough; if it's all right I'll go."
"But tell me something more about it," persisted the judge.
"Least said soonest mended; I ain't a female traitor and spy, nor
nothing of that sort! what you've got you've got! It ain't of no
consequence where you got it, or how you got it, it's there, and
that's enough?"
"But, but"--
"I'm in a hurry, the dishes ain't washed up yet."
"Indeed Salina you must tell me!"
Salina folded her blanket-shawl tightly around her upright person.
"Judge Sharp, it's of no use--I'm flint."
With these words that strong-minded female turned, with her nose in
the air, and left the room, planting her footsteps with great
firmness, as if she meant by their very sound to impress the judge
with the strength of her determination.
"I hate the woman like rank poison," she said while wading through the
stubble behind uncle Nat's barn on her way home, "but her name is
Farnham, and it'd be mean as a nigger and meaner too for me to say a
word about that document; let Judge Sharp cipher out his own sums if
he wants to, I ain't a-going to help him--there!"
With this exclamation, the strong-minded woman returned home,
perfectly satisfied with her mission and herself.