louisa picquet, the octoroon: or inside views of - Negro Artist

Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon 9
A.--"No. After we went to Mobile, I went to Mr. Bachelor's, after I was at Mr.
English's, and Mr. Cook was boarding there. I was a little girl, not fourteen
years old. One day Mr. Cook told me I must come to his room that night, and
take care of him. He said he was sick, and he want me and another slave girl to
come to his room and take care of him. In the afternoon he went to his room,
and said he was sick. I was afraid to go there that night, and I told Mrs.
Bachelor what Mr. Cook said to me. Then she whispered with her sister, Mrs.
Simpson, and then told me I need not go. She said she would go up and see Mr.
Cook, and have some one else go and take care of him. Then I went up after
Mrs. Bachelor, not to let him see me, and listen to the door. Mrs. Bachelor went
in and ask him how he done. She said, `I heard you was sick, and thought I
would come up and see if there was any thing serious. He groaned, and seemed
to get worse than ever--told how bad he felt about his head, and one thing
an'other. Then her reply was, that she would have some water put on to bathe
his feet and some mustard, and have one of the boys come up and take care of
him. She went right on in that way, without his asking, and smooth it off in that
way, so as not to let on that she thought any thing, at the same time clearing me.
"Then he thanked her very kindly. So she went down, and had the water sent up.
Then, pretty soon, he sent down by the boy, to tell me to bring up some more
mustard. Then Mr. Bachelor, she understood it, and she took up the mustard
herself. Then the boy stay with him all night, and just about daylight he come
down. When he come down he come to the room (you see, I slept in Mrs.
Bachelor's room)--he call me and says, 'Your massa, Henry, says you must take
him up a fresh pitcher of water;' and Mrs. Bachelor told him to go and take it up
himself; that I was busy.
Page 11
Q.--"Were you hired to Mrs. Bachelor then?"
A.--"I don't know. I was workin' there; it might have been in part for his board,
for aught I know. Mrs. Bachelor kept boarding-house. She was Scotch; came
from Scotland."
Q.--"Well, what happened next?"
A.--"I didn't go up till breakfast-time. At breakfast-time I had to take his
breakfast up to his room, on a waiter. He had not got up yet--I take the waiter up
to the bed. Well, him thinking that all the boarders gone down, talk rather louder
24.03.2006