"Hallelujah, amen, bress de Lord. How is ye dis night, Mammy Grace?"
said a cheerful voice at the cabin-door.

"Ho! go 'long, Simon,--I knowed ye was comin'. Ye allus blows
yer trumpet 'fore yer gits here. Come in, help yerse'f to a
cha'r. Here, chile," addressing Tidy, "here's yer supper,--eat it now;
and don' ye neber let what I's telled ye slip out of yer 'membrance."

Which Tidy was not at all likely to do. She picked up the bread
which was thrown to her, and, munching it as she went along,
walked away to the pump to get a drink of water.

Children, when you rise in the morning and come down stairs to
the cheerful breakfast, or when you are called at noon and night,
to join the family circle again around a neatly-spread table,
did you ever think what a refining influence this single custom
has upon your life? The savage eats his meanly-prepared food
from the vessel in which it is cooked, each member of his household
dipping with his fingers, or some rude utensil, into the one dish.
He is scarcely raised above the cattle that eat their fodder at the crib,
or the dog that gnaws the bone thrown to him upon the ground.
And are the slaves any better off? They are neither allowed time,
convenience, or inducements to enjoy a practice, which is so
common with us, that we fail to number it among our privileges,
or to recognize its elevating tendency; and yet they are stigmatized
as a debased and brutish class. Can we expect them to be otherwise?
Who is accountable for this degradation? By what system have they
become so reduced? and have any suitable efforts ever been made
for their elevation?