tumbled and danced themselves down to a state of composure.
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"Well, now, I hopes you're done," said Aunt Chloe, who had been busy in pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; "and now, you Mose and you Pete, get into thar; for we's goin' to have the meetin'."
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"O mother, we don't wanter. We wants to sit up to meetin',meetin's is so curis. We likes 'em."
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"La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let 'em sit up," said Mas'r George, decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.
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Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to push the thing under, saying, as she did so, "Well, mebbe 't will do 'em some good."
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The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to consider the accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.
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"What we's to do for cheers, now,
I
declar I don't know," said Aunt Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom's, weekly, for an indefinite length of time, without any more "cheers," there seemed some encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.
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"Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last week," suggested Mose.
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"You go long! I'll boun' you pulled 'em out; some o' your shines," said Aunt Chloe.
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"Well, it'll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!" said Mose.
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"Den Uncle Peter mus'n't sit in it, cause he al'ays hitches when he gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t' other night," said Pete.
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"Good Lor! get him in it, then," said Mose, "and den he'd begin, 'Come saints and sinners, hear me tell,' and den down he'd go,"and Mose imitated precisely the nasal tones of the old man, tumbling on the floor, to illustrate the supposed catastrophe.
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"Come now, be decent, can't ye?" said Aunt Chloe; "an't yer shamed?"
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Mas'r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared decidedly that Mose was a "buster." So the maternal admonition seemed rather to fail of effect.
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