Mammy Tittleback and Her Family: A True Story of Seventeen Cats by Helen Hunt Jackson

There was another character who had been in the Jameson family a good many years, about whom I must tell you, because he will come in presently in connection with this history of the cats. In fact, he has more to do with the next part of the history than even Johnny and Rosy have. This is an old colored man who takes care of Grandma Jameson's farm for her. He is as good an old man as "Uncle Tom" was, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and I'm sure he must be as black. He lives in a little house in a grove of chestnut and oak trees, just across the meadow from Grandma Jameson's; and, summer and winter, rain or shine, he is to be seen every morning at daylight coming up the lane ready for his day's work. His name is Jerry; he is well known all over Burnet, and he is one of the old men that nobody ever passes by without speaking. "Hullo, Jerry!" "How de do, Jerry?" "Is that you, Jerry?" are to be heard on all sides as Jerry goes through the street.

There is a mule, too, that Jerry drives, which is almost as well known as Jerry. There is a horse also on the farm; but the horse is so fat he can't go as fast as the mule does. So the mule and the horse have gradually changed places in their duties; the horse does the farm work and the mule goes to town on errands; and there is no more familiar sight in all the town of Burnet than the Jameson Rockaway drawn by the mule Nelly, with old Jerry sitting sidewise on the low front seat, driving. There isn't a week in the year that Jerry doesn't go down to the railway station at least once, and sometimes several times, in this way, to bring some of Grandma Jameson's children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews or friends to come and make her a visit. Her house is one of the houses that never seems to be so full it can't hold more. You know there are some such houses; the more people come, the merrier, and there is always room made somehow for everybody to sleep at night.