Part 10 (2/2)

And you would never guess what it was the old woman asked for.

”Well, Mars' Charles,” said she (she had been one of our old servants, and always called my father 'Mars' Charles'), ”to tell you de livin'

trufe, my soul an' body is a-yearnin' fur a han'sum chany set o' teef.”

”A set of teeth!” said father, surprised enough. ”And have you none left of your own?”

”I has gummed it fur a good many ye'rs,” said Aunt Anniky, with a sigh; ”but not wis.h.i.+n' ter be ongrateful ter my obligations, I owns ter havin'

five nateral teef. But dey is po' sogers; dey s.h.i.+rks battle. One ob dem's got a little somethin' in it as lively as a speared worm, an' I tell you when anything teches it, hot or cold, it jest makes me _dance_!

An' anudder is in my top jaw, an' ain't got no match fur it in de bottom one; an' one is broke off nearly to de root; an' de las' two is so yaller dat I's ashamed ter show 'em in company, an' so I lif's my turkey-tail ter my mouf every time I laughs or speaks.”

Father turned to mother with a musing air. ”The curious student of humanity,” he remarked, ”traces resemblances where they are not obviously conspicuous. Now, at the first blush, one would not think of any common ground of meeting for our Aunt Anniky and the Empress Josephine. Yet that fine French lady introduced the fas.h.i.+on of handkerchiefs by continually raising delicate lace _mouchoirs_ to her lips to hide her bad teeth. Aunt Anniky lifts her turkey-tail! It really seems that human beings should be cla.s.sed by _strata_, as if they were metals in the earth. Instead of dividing by nations, let us cla.s.s by quality. So we might find Turk, Jew, Christian, fas.h.i.+onable lady and washerwoman, master and slave, hanging together like cats on a clothes-line by some connecting cord of affinity--”

”In the mean time,” said my mother, mildly, ”Aunt Anniky is waiting to know if she is to have her teeth.”

”Oh, surely, surely!” cried father, coming out of the clouds with a start. ”I am going to the village to-morrow, Anniky, in the spring wagon. I will take you with me, and we will see what the dentist can do for you.”

”Bless yo' heart, Mars' Charles!” said the delighted Anniky; ”you're jest as good as yo' blood and yo' name, and mo' I _couldn't_ say.”

The morrow came, and with it Aunt Anniky, gorgeously arrayed in a flaming red calico, a bandanna handkerchief, and a string of carved yellow beads that glittered on her bosom like fresh b.u.t.tercups on a hill-slope.

I had pet.i.tioned to go with the party, for, as we lived on a plantation, a visit to the village was something of an event. A brisk drive soon brought us to the centre of ”the Square.” A glittering sign hung brazenly from a high window on its western side, bearing, in raised black letters, the name, ”Doctor Alonzo Babb.”

Dr. Babb was the dentist and the odd fish of our village. He beams in my memory as a big, round man, with hair and smiles all over his face, who talked incessantly, and said things to make your blood run cold.

”Do you see this ring?” he said, as he bustled about, polis.h.i.+ng his instruments and making his preparations for the sacrifice of Aunt Anniky. He held up his right hand, on the forefinger of which glistened a ring the size of a dog-collar. ”Now, what d'ye s'pose that's made of?”

”Bra.s.s,” suggested father, who was funny when not philosophical.

”_Bra.s.s!_” cried Dr. Babb, with a withering look; ”it's virgin gold, that ring is. And where d'ye s'pose I found the gold?”

My father ran his hands into his pockets in a retrospective sort of way.

”In the mouths of my patients, every grain of it,” said the dentist, with a perfectly diabolical smack of the lips. ”Old fillings--plugs, you know--that I saved, and had made up into this shape. Good deal of sentiment about such a ring as this.”

”Sentiment of a mixed nature, I should say,” murmured my father, with a grimace.

”Mixed--rather! A speck here, a speck there. Sometimes an eye, oftener a jaw, occasionally a front. More than a hundred men, I s'pose, have helped in the cause.”

”Law, doctor! you beats de birds, you does,” cries Aunt Anniky, whose head was as flat as the floor, where her reverence should have been.

”You know dey s.n.a.t.c.hes de wool from ebery bush to make deir nests.”

”Lots of company for me, that ring is,” said the doctor, ignoring the pertinent or impertinent interruption. ”Often as I sit in the twilight, I twirl it around and around, a-thinking of the wagon-loads of food it has masticated, the blood that has flowed over it, the groans that it has cost! Now, old lady, if you will sit just here.”

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