Glen's Creek neighborhood ventured into his den, finding it much
pleasanter to do so after the handsome, dark-haired boy came to live
with him; for about that frank, outspoken boy there was then something
very attractive to the little girls, while their mothers pitied him,
wondering why he had been permitted to come there, and watching for the
change in him, which was sure to ensue.

Not all at once did Hugh conform to the customs of his uncle's
household, and at first there often came over him a longing for
something different, a yearning for the refinements of his early home
among the Northern hills, and a wish to infuse into Chloe, the colored
housekeeper, some of his mother's neatness. But a few attempts at reform
had taught him how futile was the effort, Aunt Chloe always meeting him
with the argument:

"'Taint no use, Mr. Hugh. A nigger's a nigger; and I spec' ef you're to
talk to me till you was hoarse 'bout your Yankee ways of scrubbin', and
sweepin', and moppin' with a broom, I shouldn't be an atomer
white-folksey than I is now. Besides Mas'r John, wouldn't bar no finery;
he's only happy when the truck is mighty nigh a foot thick, and his
things is lyin' round loose and handy."

To a certain extent this was true, for John Stanley would have felt
sadly out of place in any spot where, as Chloe said, "his things were
not lying round loose and handy," and as habit is everything, so Hugh
soon grew accustomed to his surroundings, and became as careless of his
external appearance as his uncle could desire. Only once had there come
to him an awakening--a faint conception of the happiness there might
arise from constant association with the pure and refined, such as his
uncle had labored to make him believe did not exist. He was thinking of