Page:Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes.djvu/30

4 in a few years. Having taken Service in our family, she remained there until her death Some two decades afterwards. She was a faithful good woman and apparently contented and happy.

My nurse and foster mother was Mary Reed, or as I always called and knew her, Mammy Reed. She was of Welsh extraction, extremely pretty with a clear brunnete complexion and brilliant dark hazel eyes. Her hair was jet black, rather coarse and straight, her forehead somewhat low and a marked intelligence in her face, with features well proportioned, good mouth and teeth, in her person, scrupulous, neat and tidy in her dress. She had been married to a gardener by the name of Reed who died leaving her one son whom she lost a short time afterwards, all the relations or affections she had. And, on taking Charge of me, her whole affection and care was centered in Me and every care that a mother in her situation of life could bestow was given to me. I was of course her constant care and to her keeping I was almost entirely confided. Such was my attachment to her that with nobody else could I be content. She was proud of her boy, as she always called me, and continued to do so until the last time I saw her some 30 years afterwards.

Mammy Reed had many superstitions and some Idea that she was blessed with the gift of second sight and always profesied I would follow the sea and become an Admiral while she toted me about in her arms with my blue satin cap and embroidered cloak, now an heirloom in the family. Though of medium height, she was not very strong and with good nature & energy of her character never tired of the care of me. I was indeed truly her own boy and she was in due time entrusted with all that appertained to my care. After I was weaned, she still continued the care of me and, until I was old enough, I was part and parcel of herself. She subsequently married a man by the name of White, likewise a gardener, and had a large family by him; but she invariably asserted that she never did nor could she love one of them equal to her "Charley boy."

Always at my return home from school or sea and for many years she would come to get my clothes to wash out, and it was only in the way of gifts and presents she could be induced to take anything for her kindness & attentions. [She] always came to see me and although she might not have anything to say she sat looking at me, or, as she said, kind of feasting her eyes on me, & at times it was almost impossible for me to get rid of her. There was about her a peculiar piercing & I might say it almost amounted to fascination in her eyes, altho', she had at this latter time grown very stout, thick and stumpy, with very swarthy dark gipsy complexion and ruddy strong look, with those bright dark hazel eyes peering from her rounded and full face, here and there with tufts of hair on warts, and a considerable length of moustache on her upper lip, very dark and glossy—altogether a wild like look which gave her the appearance of a witch. Her courage was undaunted and I doubt if she knew what fear was, she never showed it. Her mode of living & location in a Shantie on the Harlem Common gave her, throughout that section of the suburbs of New York, the appellation of the