of use: they gave this to Gabriella for her garden. She had
attached particularly to her person a little negress of about the
same age--her Milly, the color of a ripe gourd. So when in spring
the gardener began to make his garden, with her grandmother
sometimes standing over him, directing, Gabriella, taking her
little chair to the apple tree,--with some pretended needle-work
and a real switch,--would set Milly to work making hers. Nothing
that they put into the earth ever was heard of again, though they
would sometimes make the same garden over every day for a week. So
that more than once, forsaking seed, they pulled off the tops of
green things near by, planted these, and so had a perfect garden in
an hour.

Then Gabriella, seated under the apple tree, would order Milly to
water the flowers from the pump; and taking her switch and calling
Milly close, she would give her a sharp rap or two around the bare
legs (for that was expected), and tell her that if she didn't stop
being so trifling, she would sell her South to the plantations.
Whereupon Milly, injured more in heart than legs, and dropping the
watering-pot, would begin to bore her dirty fists into her eyes.
Then Gabriella would say repentantly:--

"No, I won't, Milly! And you needn't work any more to-day. And you
can have part of my garden if you want it."

Milly, smiling across the mud on her cheeks, would murmur:--

"You ain' goin' sell yo' Milly down South, is you, Miss Gabriella?"

"_I_ won't. But I'm not so sure about grandmother, Milly. You know