356 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



makin' a dress like that?" or, " Give me that sack you've 

 got on, please ma'am." 



The request to sell articles of dress, or furniture, or to 

 make the former "on the machine," as if it were a very 

 trifling favor, is of common occurrence. 



No disrespect is intended; it is a relic of the by-gone 

 slave days, when the mistress cut out and made the dresses 

 for the slaves, gave them all that they had, and taught 

 them all that they knew. 



Verily, in the light of our own experience, we pity those 

 old-time plantation mistresses from the bottom of our heart. 

 Many of the odd, familiar ways that shock our Northern 

 notions are simply the remains of the old-time familiarity 

 that necessarily existed between those brought up from 

 their earliest childhood in daily and hourly contact, even 

 though they occupied the relative positions of mistress and 

 slave; the latter frequently was treated as an humble 

 friend, and proved not unworthy of the trust. 



What Northern servant would dream of entering her 

 mistress's room uninvited and unannounced, and, because 

 she had nothing else to do, it being evening, should throw 

 herself at full length on the floor, and go to sleep there for 

 an hour or two ? Yet this is an experience passed through 

 by the writer, who, though astonished and amused, knew 

 full well that not the least disrespect, but the contrary, 

 was the governing motive. 



" My ole missus liked it; we was both on us lonesome," 

 the unconscious culprit remarked. 



Again, one colored woman we know, a hard-working^ 

 respectable, sensible woman, recently remarked in good 

 faith : 



" I does wish you'd like to take my gal ; you knows such 

 heaps o' things, all of you ; and you could show her lots. 

 I'd like you to larn her to play on the pianny just like you 



