whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money._ --Pudd'nhead
Wilson's Calendar

_Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be
a young June bug than an old bird of paradise._ --Pudd'nhead
Wilson's Calendar


It is necessary now to hunt up Roxy.

At the time she was set free and went away chambermaiding, she was
thirty-five. She got a berth as second chambermaid on a Cincinnati boat
in the New Orleans trade, the _Grand Mogul_. A couple of trips made her
wonted and easygoing at the work, and infatuated her with the stir and
adventure and independence of steamboat life. Then she was promoted and
become head chambermaid. She was a favorite with the officers, and
exceedingly proud of their joking and friendly way with her.

During eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and
the winters on a Vicksburg packet. But now for two months, she had had
rheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the washtub alone. So she
resigned. But she was well fixed--rich, as she would have described it;
for she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every month
in New Orleans as a provision for her old age. She said in the start
that she had "put shoes on one bar'footed nigger to tromple on her with,"
and that one mistake like that was enough; she would be independent of
the human race thenceforth forevermore if hard work and economy could
accomplish it. When the boat touched the levee at New Orleans she bade
good-by to her comrades on the _Grand Mogul_ and moved her kit ashore.