In Old Plantation Days

ent cut him like a knife. Then the young scapegraces who had the story only from their mothers' lips spared his dotage. Even to young eyes, the respect which hedges about the form of eighty obscures many of the imperfections that are apparent at twenty-eight, and Parker was nearing eighty. The truth of it is that Parker, armed with the authority which his master thought the due of the plantation exhorter, was wont to use his power with rather too free a rein. He was so earnest for the spiritual welfare of his fellow- servants that his watchful ministrations became a nuisance and a bore. Even Aunt Doshy, who was famous for her devotion to all that pertained to the church, hadbeen heard to state that "Brothah Pahkah was a moughty powahful 'zortah, but he sholy was monst'ous biggity." This from a member of his flock old enough to be his mother, quite summed up the plantation's estimate of this black disciple. There was many a time when it would have gone hard with Brother Parker among the young bucks on the Mordaunt plantation but that there/ was scarcely one of them but could remember a. time when Parker had come to his cabin to console some sick one, help a seeker, comfort the dying or close the eyes of one already dead, and it clothed him about with a sacredness, which, however much inclined, they dared not invade. "Ain't it enough," Mandy's Jim used to say, "fu' Brothah Pahkah to 'tend to his business down at meetin' widout spookin' 'roun' all de cabins ...