to be resisted.

"He's so near white, anyway," she said to herself, "dat it's a pity not
to finish him."

So off she hobbled with a tin cup full of whitewash and a small brush to
adorn the little birch-tree, leaving her cabin in the charge of Holly
Thomas.

Holly, whose whole name was Hollywood Cemetery Thomas, was a little
black girl, between two and five years old. Sometimes she seemed nearly
five, and sometimes not more than two. Her parents intended christening
her Minerva, but hearing the name of the well-known Hollywood Cemetery
in Richmond, they thought it so pretty that they gave it to their little
daughter, without the slightest idea, however, that it was the name of a
grave-yard.

Holly had come over to pay a morning visit to Aunt Matilda, and she had
brought her only child, a wooden doll, which she was trying to teach to
walk, by dragging it head foremost by a long string tied around its
neck.

"Now den, you Holly, you stay h'yar and mind de house while I's gone,"
said Aunt Matilda, as she departed.

"All yite," said the little darkey, and she sat down on the floor to
prepare her child for a coat of whitewash; but she had not yet succeeded
in convincing the doll of the importance of the operation when her
attention was aroused by a dog just outside of the door.