F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 27
The old steps creak and complain as the young man ascends them,
holding nervously on at the blue hand-rail, and reaching in due time
the stoop, the strength of which he successively tests with his
right foot, and stands contemplating the snuffy door. A knocker
painted in villanous green-a lion-headed knocker, of grave
deportment, looking as savage as lion can well do in this chivalrous
atmosphere, looks admonitiously at him. "Well!" he sighs as he
raises it, "there's no knowing what sort of a reception I may get."
He has raised the monster's head and given three gentle taps.
Suddenly a frisking and whispering, shutting of doors and tripping
of feet, is heard within; and after a lapse of several minutes the
door swings carefully open, and the dilapidated figure of an old
negro woman, lean, shrunken, and black as Egyptian darkness--with
serious face and hanging lip, the picture of piety and starvation,
gruffly asks who he is and what he wants?
Having requested an interview with her mistress, this decrepit
specimen of human infirmity half closes the door against him and
doddles back. A slight whispering, and Mrs. Swiggs is heard to
say--"show him into the best parlor." And into the best parlor, and
into the august presence of Mrs. Swiggs is he ushered. The best
parlor is a little, dingy room, low of ceiling, and skirted with a
sombre-colored surbase, above which is papering, the original color
of which it would be difficult to discover. A listen carpet, much
faded and patched, spreads over the floor, the walls are hung with
several small engravings, much valued for their age and
associations, but so crooked as to give one the idea of the house
having withstood a storm at sea; and the furniture is made up of a
few venerable mahogany chairs, a small side-table, on which stands,
much disordered, several well-worn books and papers, two
patch-covered foot-stools, a straightbacked rocking-chair, in which
the august woman rocks her straighter self, and a great tin cage,
from between the bars of which an intelligent parrot chatters--"my