Once I came suddenly upon old Gump, the major-domo of the house servants, preparing to give a little pickaninny a thrashing, and I stopped to ask what he had done.

They were handsome blue-bronze creatures, bare to the waist, with tight black astrakhan curls and firmly sculptured legs and ankles; and all around them, like a swarm of gnats, danced countless jolly pickaninnies, naked as lizards, with the spindle legs and globular stomachs of children fed only on cereals.

Under her careful hand it was always neat and clean; in summer the little yard was gay with bright-colored flowers, and woe to the heedless pickaninny who should stray into her yard and pluck a rose or a verbena!

They were handsome blue-bronze creatures, bare to the waist, with tight black astrakhan curls and firmly sculptured legs and ankles; and all around them, like a swarm of gnats, danced countless jolly pickaninnies, naked as lizards, with the spindle legs and globular stomachs of children fed only on cereals.

I provided a school and church for these loving, dusky children, and it was pathetic and cheering to see them all, from the tiny pickaninnies to the tottering gray heads, going regularly with their primers and Bibles, trying to learn to read and write.