I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:

     "Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep' you?--boat get aground?"

     "Yes'm--she--"

     "Don't say yes'm--say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?"

     I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up--from down towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on--or--Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:

     "It warn't the grounding--that didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head."

     "Good gracious! anybody hurt?"

     "No'm. Killed a nigger."