Marley rose early the next morning, and waked Aunt Silvy by firing his rifle into her cabin. Then he saw the shoat and venison put in the wagon, and a barrel of spring-water, crowded with darting fishes. After breakfast, he dressed-up in his best clothes, and stuck two cotton-blooms--one white, the other red--in his button-hole. He did not wear these for ornaments, as the cotton-blossom, which opens white and then quickly turns crimson, is as large and coarse as a hollyhock, which it somewhat resembles; but among the planters it is considered an honor to display the first cotton-blooms.
He was early on the barbecue ground, located near a fine clear spring, about which were hung a score of gourd dippers. He found the campers already humming like a hive. There were coaches and buggies and lumber-wagons, and scores upon scores of tethered horses and mules, which had brought people to the scene; and other carriages and riding-horses were momently dashing in. Whole families came on horseback,--not infrequently three riders to a mule or horse. Streams of negroes were pouring in, usually on foot. There were well-dressed gentlemen and gay ladies, and a fair sprinkling of shabby people; and Marley wondered where they all came from. In a short time after his arrival, he caught sight of Aunt Silvy; he knew her by the faded pink satin bonnet which she had worn ever since he could remember. She had Sukey on her shoulder, and was tugging up the hill from the spring. Boston had failed to bring over "pacing Jinny" for his wife to ride, so the faithful negro had brought Sukey all the way on her shoulder. Marley was quite touched when he realized this, and he made up his mind that he'd take Sukey back behind him, if Mandy Bradshaw should giggle her head off about it. Why should he care for her mocking more than for the comfort of Aunt Silvy, his life-long friend? He went over, and offered to escort Sukey around to see the sights, but she preferred to stay with Aunt Silvy; so he felt free to wander where he pleased. And he pleased to wander everywhere, and to see everything. He was greatly interested in all the proceedings,--the spreading of the long, long tables under the oaks and beeches; the unloading of the wagons; the clatter of dishes; the great boiling kettles down by the spring, where negroes were dressing shoats and sheep and great beeves--every animal being left whole, but split to the back-bone.