Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 168, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1912 — NEVER FELT LONESOME [ARTICLE]

NEVER FELT LONESOME

AUNT CYNTHXaHAD MANY WAY® OF PASSING THE TIME. t 5 - • ' zy .. s'- HSaSBpBBmf V ; y-.-f.y :■* ~ rafTCTa Her Five “Chlllen” AH Where ShV Could Watch Them, and Yellow Ike Bhowlng Up for Hl* Meals With Regularity. A young woman who never had visited the south recently spent some weeks there. She was driving along a country road when she passed a ramshackle cabin, afid was hailed by an ancient colored woman, with garments hanging in rags upon her with, ered frame. “Mornln’, missy!” the old mammy called- out. “Es you got any ole_ clo’es or hats or shoes or medicine you don’t keer much about, will you please, ma’am, give ’em to Aunt Cynthy?” The N#v York girl looked about with growing pity. “How do you get along?” she asked. “Oh, I gits along all right I plcka a few berries an’ I dries a tew apples ans I raises a few chickens. Ain’t any nigger in dls county got as maajr, friends ’mongst de white people as Aunt Cynthy. Dey sholy is good to me.” "Do you live here all alone?” “Wal, no, not what you kin call alone by myself eggzackly. You see, I got five chlllen.” The girl cast * glance around the desolate place, and the old woman followed and read the Searching look. “Dey'a in de graveyard," she explained. “Dey’s all dead, but de graveyard’s bein’ my do’, right wfaar l kin keep watchin’.” : “Where’s your husband?" Aunt Cypthy gave her head a coquettish toss. “He done run off to do war fifty years ago,” she answered. "And never came back?” .v “Sholy he dene come back. Yas’m, he done been back mos’ as long as he been gone. Bat he brung another wife wld him an’ I tole him fiat dey can’t live in Cynthy’s house. Ho run up a kind o’ shack, an’ mighty soon ho druv dat other ’oman away, an’ now he got his number fo\” “And you’ve been alone all this time?” - “Wal’m, not precisely what you kin; call alone. You see, while my ole man was run off to de war I done gpt married to Yellow Ike, an’ he’s mos* all de time settln’ ’round somewhere so’s I kin call him. Dar he come now, wld. a mouth open reafiy for dinner. When you gives out ole duds, you won’t forgit Aunt Cynthy, will you, honey?”