it at them; "you want some, don't you? Come, Aunt Chloe, bake them some
cakes."

And George and Tom moved to a comfortable seat in the chimney-corner,
while Aunte Chloe, after baking a goodly pile of cakes, took her baby
on her lap, and began alternately filling its mouth and her own, and
distributing to Mose and Pete, who seemed rather to prefer eating theirs
as they rolled about on the floor under the table, tickling each other,
and occasionally pulling the baby's toes.

"O! go long, will ye?" said the mother, giving now and then a kick, in
a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too
obstreperous. "Can't ye be decent when white folks comes to see ye?
Stop dat ar, now, will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I'll take ye down a
button-hole lower, when Mas'r George is gone!"

What meaning was couched under this terrible threat, it is difficult to
say; but certain it is that its awful indistinctness seemed to produce
very little impression on the young sinners addressed.

"La, now!" said Uncle Tom, "they are so full of tickle all the while,
they can't behave theirselves."

Here the boys emerged from under the table, and, with hands and faces
well plastered with molasses, began a vigorous kissing of the baby.

"Get along wid ye!" said the mother, pushing away their woolly heads.
"Ye'll all stick together, and never get clar, if ye do dat fashion.
Go long to de spring and wash yerselves!" she said, seconding her
exhortations by a slap, which resounded very formidably, but which