have no means of knowing this, or of telling whether he was the prodigy
of intellect that he was declared to be. Naomi could no more be taken in
proof of the one assertion than of the other. When she came to us, it
was agreed that she should go to school; but she overruled her mother in
this as in everything else, and never went. Except Sunday-school
lessons, she had no other instruction than that her mistress gave her in
the evenings, when a heavy day's play and the natural influences of the
hour conspired with original causes to render her powerless before words
of one syllable.

The first week of her services she was obedient and faithful to her
duties; but, relaxing in the atmosphere of a house which seems to
demoralize all menials, she shortly fell into disorderly ways of lying
in wait for callers out of doors, and, when people rang, of running up
the front steps, and letting them in from the outside. As the season
expanded, and the fine weather became confirmed, she modified even this
form of service, and spent her time in the fields, appearing at the
house only when nature importunately craved molasses....

In her untamable disobedience, Naomi alone betrayed her sylvan blood,
for she was in all other respects negro and not Indian. But it was of
her aboriginal ancestry that Mrs. Johnson chiefly boasted,--when not
engaged in argument to maintain the superiority of the African race. She
loved to descant upon it as the cause and explanation of her own
arrogant habit of feeling; and she seemed indeed to have inherited
something of the Indian's hauteur along with the Ethiop's supple cunning
and abundant amiability. She gave many instances in which her pride had
met and overcome the insolence of employers, and the kindly old creature
was by no means singular in her pride of being reputed proud.