She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, "You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you!  Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up!  Children, it's your cousin Tom!—tell him howdy."

But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her.  So she run on:

"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away—or did you get your breakfast on the boat?"

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 n*****."

"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.  Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man.  And I think he died afterwards.  He was a Baptist.  Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well.  Yes, I remember now, he _did_ die.  Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn't save him.  Yes, it was mortification—that was it.  He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at.  Your uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn't you?—oldish man, with a—"