we had been able still to keep, he handed us out, saying in his bright way, "Welcome to Burleigh No. 2."
He could not make his servants as comfortable as he wished, and this was a source of regret to him. Many of them were hired in good homes, near enough to come to him if they were in trouble; but some of them he preferred not to hire out, as they were not strong, and these, he said, were too much crowded for their health. They did not complain of this specially, and they seemed really to enjoy the novelty of town life.
Mammy Maria, who had left two husbands in Mississippi, came out in the new country as "Miss Dabney," and attracted, as she informed her "white children," as much admiration as any of the young girls, and had offers of marriage too. But she meant to enjoy her liberty, she said, and should not think of marrying any of them.
In that small cottage in Macon the rooms were little more than closets, and we were much thrown together. We were strangers too in Georgia, although we had some very good friends there; then the times were sad. We never felt the family ties stronger than we did in that year in Macon, in a house that was built for the humblest class of factory people. It was near the railroad station, and in the midst of the factories, and we had to stop talking at the train hours and when the factory whistles blew.
But the dear father had no plantation to attend to, and not much to feel interest in besides his little fireside and his absent children. So he sat with us, and he grew interested in everything that we said and did, and we talked to him as freely as if he had been another sister. At night he left the door of his sleeping cabinet open, and we left ours open. We had never been so intimate with him before. One cannot be in a large house, with rooms on different floors. He joined in all our talks, as we sisters lay in bed in our room and he in his room, and shared all our jokes. Ever since our mother's death he had been in the habit of singing in the middle of the night. We found out that it was because he was lonely, with no one to talk to.
