Her child, in charge of the largest flock of turkeys ever raised at Mount Vernon, has not returned home from his daily drive; but is three hours behind his usual time. Old Tige, the watch-hound, is not with the flock and its driver to-day; consequently, she is anxious as to his fate; yet she diligently plies her knitting needles till she falls into a troubled sleep. The harmony of the most harmonious of all places is about to be disturbed, and troubled dreams agitate the half-quiescent mind of the dreamer.

"What dat hit me on de nose ?" exclaimed Aunt Phillis, as she dropped her knitting and sprang to her feet.

"What dat hit me on de nose, I axes?" she repeated, with eyes restlessly rolling around on every object. "Sumpin gwine to happen dis day."

"Nothin' hit you on de nose, as I sees," said the venerable bodyservant, rousing from his slumber and scratching his head.

"I tells you sumpin did hit me on de nose," she repeated, "and sumpin gwine to happen on dis plantation dis day. I 'stinctly 'cognizes dat fac."

Billy laughed heartily at the expense of Aunt Phillis, and reaching after his hat, that had fallen from his hand, he hobbled across the road, and resumed his nap under the spreading shade trees.

Left alone to her reflections, she began "brewing" the most unpleasant thoughts over this affair of the nose; and flaky footfalls of dread began to haunt her very being. She became firmer and firmer in the belief that something did strike her on the nose; and though she appeared to be sensible that she lived in the "golden age" of African philosophy at Mount Vernon, yet she thought such a strange circumstance could not be otherwise intended by some mysterious monitor, than to warn her of some swiftly approaching calamity. She stood in her doorway, anxiously looking for the drove of turkeys to make its appearance over the hills, and then at Billy unconsciously snoring on the grass; and wondered how he could be so lost to all impression as to leave her alone and without counsel in that hour of trouble.

She beheld "the hands," in small squads, returning from their labor, and singing their ever-cheering songs of contentment. With confidence she looked to hear from some of the returning servants a narrative of some sad calamity that had occurred on the plantation

that day; but all came singing in joyous song, till every one had arrived at his respective quarters for the night. She now concluded that her child, the turkey driver, only eleven years of age, and his flock of more than one hundred, were in some terrible distress, perhaps wandered too far and lost the way home; and she, therefore, began to lose her resolution, and sink into "oceans of trouble." Seven o'clock on an evening in August came, and threatening clouds came with the hour, and foreshadowed a storm; but the child and his flock did not appear. Aunt Dolly, the superintendent of the poultry yard, had all the other fowls in their respective places for the night, and, like Aunt Phillis, stood silently looking for the flock, with many evil surmisings. She felt that the flock had been alarmingly belated: Phillis felt the same; they gloomingly looked each other in the face from a distance, and maintained their distance so long as they could do so, for each feared one would communicate evil to the other.

This was an hour of intense anxiety; for here were Washington himself and Miss Nelly Custis, who were very apt to be walking round at dusk, and asking questions that might be difficult to answer. And there were also certain "loquacious damsels" employed about the mansion, who were much dreaded as spies on the conduct of the native Africans and their immediate descendants. Dolly first began to shorten the distance between her and Aunt Phillis, and determined to hear the worst if possible, approached the latter personage, with footsteps indicating the most decided want ofelasticity. Coming near, at last, looking was abundant, but conversation scanty and evasive; for both feared that Thomas, the turkey driver, in search of new scenes of interest to his flock, had, this trip, ventured too far, and found, to his sorrow and undoing, certain scenes far too dangerously beautiful. Like the mariner lured to destruction by the melody of Siren voices on the Coast of Italy, they feared that the objects of their solicitude had drifted somewhere in the region of the "snare of the fowler," or the haunts of the unconquerable black fox. Thus they stood till grey twilight began to darken swiftly into sable night, and the shrill notes of the "Caty-Did," answering back to the "Caty-Did-Not," began to render night hideous to the ears on which sounds of sorrow had so recently fallen. To make things still more doleful, old Vulcan, the ancient historic hound, disturbed,

perhaps, by the melancholy stillness of departing day and advancing night, opened up from the kennel, and began to howl in prolonged strains of the most doleful E flat. Phillis and Dolly sank deeper and deeper into the surging ocean of trouble; but their eyes keenly sought, in the dimness of twilight, the narrow paths winding over the sombre hills, and fondly but fearfully dwelt upon the sight. Dire phantoms, multiform and fleet-footed, haunted their being; and the sweetest notes of the grating knitting needle in still summer eve, or the most sprightly notes of the sprightliest "CatyDid," would now have grated discordantly upon the tender nerves of the soul. The historic hound continued to howl and send up with renewed energy his deep-toned wailings, until the two old ladies, beside themselves with dread, by simultaneous thought and action, cast off their shoes, spit into them, and turned them bottom upwards on the ground, to break the spell, avert the threatened calamity, and silence the howling of the hound.

They trembled, and huge drops of perspiration started from the brow, for fear that Washington, the "white ladies," or some "loquacious damsel" serving at the mansion, might come out, ask questions, and discover the want of tone at the poultry-yard and in certain other localities. The weightiest considerations were suspended on the events of that hour. Old Vulcan had almost ceased to howl; the shoes, having performed their task of duty, found their respective feet again-but, O stars! what will Marse say? was the oft-repeated and unanswerable question. Washington is great, and good and kind, thought they; and yet, by some want of caution, his interests are about to suffer; for the kind and careful words of the turkey driver's commission have probably been forgotten or disregarded. They now looked through falling tears only for the sunshine of hope; but O, what horror mingled with hope, shifted the scene, as Thomas sprang over the kitchen-garden fence, and stood before them, like a spectre, haggard, speechless and turkeyless!

Aunt Phillis seized him and rudely hauled him into her cottage; Aunt Dolly followed, and, at the same moment, old Tige, the watch-hound, rushed up against the suddenly closed door, and uttered two or three yells of the most decided character.

Doily soon learned that the whole flock of turkeys had been lost, and not been seen by their driver since twelve or one o'clock. She

hurried away and quickly closed the door of the turkey house, that it might appear that the flock was all in and safely gone to roost, should any person come "spyin' round" in that direction. On her way back to Phillis's cottage, she saw Washington come round from the eastern portico of the mansion, where he was walking, and look up and down the roads leading to the entrance gates. Perhaps the unseasonable yells of his favorite old hound brought him out to see if some stranger was approaching the gates; but, discovering nothing unusual, and nothing "out of tune," he soon returned to his family group on the pavement. In all his eventful "peregrinations through life," it is not likely that Washington was ever so unwelcome a visitor at any place, as when he visited the western front of his mansion on that evening.

"Lor! Marse might ax me sumpin', and den what?" mused Aunt Dolly, as she hastened from his presence toward the now unhappy home of Aunt Phillis, and she passed also several servants tumbled on the grass, whose presence at that particular time was not much less objectionable to her than that of the chief a moment previous. Phillis and Dolly, being native Africans, or their immediate descendants, were now in great perplexity, for fear some of the "Virginia niggers," or the "white ladies" at the mansion, might snuff the wind, and smell a tangible mice, before they could summon their counsellors and determine on some course of proceeding suited to the emergency. Being a weighty matter, and no every day occurrence, it demanded an immediate summon for all the united wisdom of the Mount, and matters, too, were somewhat critical on account of a certain degree of jealousy that existed between the "Virginia niggers" and the native Africans; for it was well known in high circles that the former had "blowed" on the latter in certain times of scrape and difficulty.

Billy, the old huntsman and body-servant of the chief, was a "Virginia nigger," but he was faithful and trustworthy; kind to all, and drew no lines of distinction between the two classes. Phillis and Dolly, with poor little Thomas, the unlucky turkey driver, were, therefore, soon moving with silent tread, under cover of night, across the lawn in the direction of Billy's quarters, to lay the whole matter before him; a messenger was despatched to "Dogue Run" and "Muddy Hole" plantations, with a summons for Scomberry and Bristol, the philosophers resident there, and a spy sent into Wash

ington's camp, to reconnoitre the movements of that great general and his forces. The spy aforesaid was no less a personage than Mose, the cow-boy, who was commissioned to know nothing "whatsomebber," should he be captured by any of the "white folks," "blowin' niggers," or "loquacious damsels."

The sharp cow-boy cheerfully entered upon his hazardous duty, full of interest and sympathy for his noble but unfortunate young peer; deeply sorry in the meantime, that he had dropped over the garden fence in a condition so speechless and turkeyless; and other trusty servants, possessed of the unpleasant secret, for fear of being interrogated before it was time, had made circuitous tracks for Billy's quarter, or departed for some part or parts unknown to vulgar gaze.

The spy soon returned, having penetrated Washington's camp to its very centre; and, seated at the council fire of the great colored sachem of Mount Vernon, he announced his reconnoissance successful; that Washington and the white ladies had "gone in," and all was quiet along the lines. The sage forms seated around the council fire of their chief rejoiced that no odor of mice had been snuffed, and that "the cat was still safely bagged," to be admitted to daylight, at such a time and in such a manner only, as the council now in extraordinary session might direct. Billy commanded that the cow-boy be seated, with "fly-trap" closed, until called upon to speak or act; and, having the whole affair at his disposal, he quickly sent out ambassadors from his court to summon to his aid such great men as he appeared to need on this important occasion. Aunt Betty, the cook, was the first "wise persin" summoned to Billy's headquarters. She was put in possession of certain facts, and detailed to take charge of certain "loquacious damsels" serving at the headquarters of Washington, and to see to making things so dull and toneless about her as to induce them to "go to bed" a little earlier than usual.

"Tom's been 'sperimentin' in long dribes, and lost de turkeys," said Mose, the messenger sent for Betty, whispering a little too loud. It happened that Myrtilla, one of these damsels aforesaid, was present when Mose whispered to Betty, and strained her ears to catch the words, and would have caught them, had not Old Vulcan, ever present for good or evil, plunged his head into a pan of pot liquor, and loudly lapped away at the liquid with his long tongue.