One morning Lou came running into the house almost breathless, with the excited words that old mammy was dying in her cabin. They all of them hastened to her bedside, and when she saw the old man kneeling upon the floor, she put forth her mummied hand and left it rest upon his head.
"I"s gwine tell de Lawd erbout de folks down yere," were her last words, and from the woods they brought wild flowers and among them she slept, black sentiment of a hallowed past--a past of slavery, but of love. More than treasured heirlooms, of rusty swords which, once bright, had flashed in gallant hands; more than tress of hair, tipped with gold and ribbon-bound; more than old love-letters, books or fading picture of serenest face--more than all else does the old black mother bind us to the sunny days of yore. Beneath a tree, where at evening when the sun was low often had she sat watching the cows as home they came from the cane-breaks in the bottoms, they dug her grave; and from all about, from fern-fringed coves and k.n.o.bs where the scrub oak grew, the people came, old men and women to pay their respects to this bit of another age, going home--and the children, came wonderingly, curious, with pictures of witches in their fertile minds. The sermon was preached by an old negro nearing ninety. At the head of the grave he stood and cast his whitish eyes about, but nothing was there for him to see, for during many years he had groped about in darkness. Once the property and playmate of a favored child, he had been taught to read, and as the years pa.s.sed on, stubborn learning yielded to him, and along the hill-sides he walked with the old prophets, with their poetic words burning in his mind.
"Friends, close to me but somewhere off in the darkness," he said, "we have come here to put this poor old piece of human clay in the cradle that won"t be rocked until the last day. In the years gone by, many a time have we seen her, at the break of day, coming home from a bedside where she had watched and nursed all night. When our spirits were low for want of hope, she has sung us back into faith. When our blood leaped to throw aside lowly ways and take up with the ways of sin, she told us that she was going home to tell the Lord. No letter in the great Book fastened itself on her poor mind, but in her soul the spirit of that Book always had a home. My friends, here was a poor old creature who never in all her long life had anything to hope for except a word of grat.i.tude for a kindness done. Many a time I read the Bible to her, and though I made it the study of my long life, yet from what might seem the darkness of her mind, there would sometimes flash a new light and fall with bright explanation upon its pages." The old negro halted to wipe his brow and Jim whispered to Jasper: "Is that learning or ignorance inspired? I never heard many white men talk that way."
"I don"t know what it is," Jasper replied. "But that old man, I have hearn tell, went through a great school along with his young marster."
"It should not be in sorrow that we place her here," the preacher continued. "With the simple minded and therefore the virtuous, she accepted the gospel as a reality and not as a theory, and a gleaner in the harvest field of promise, she takes to the Master her old hands full of the wheat of faith, and her soul will enter upon its glorious reward.
Let us pray."
As they were returning from the grave a negro came up to Jasper and said that he wished for a moment to speak to him. "Doan you reccernize me?" he inquired, and Starbuck replied that he did not.
"W"y, sah, I"s de generman whut de white man had tied ter de tree."
"Oh, yes, and also the gentleman that fell in love with my old rooster."
"Yas, sah, de se"f same."
"And now what can I do for you--put another chicken in yo" way?"
"No, sah, dat ain"t whut I want. I wuz er cuttin" some wood dis mawnin"
ober at de Peters" place, an" I yere some talk dat don"t soun" like er flute. "Pear like dat white man has got some trouble in his head fur you."
"Yes, I know."
"An, frum whut I coul" gather he gwine gib it ter you; an" ef you wants me ter I"ll he"p you tie him ter er tree an" w"ar him out."
"No, that won"t do. But do you know whether or not he has got a app"intment from off yander at Nashville? Did you hear?"
"I doan think it quite got yere yit, but he keep on er lookin" down de road "spectin" it to come erlaung at any minit. Ef you want me ter, suh, I"ll keep er lookout while I"s er workin" roun" de place, an" knock him in de head de minit it do come."
"No, you musn"t do that. Is he expectin" some help?"
"He wuz er talkin" erbout some men, sah. You ain"t got no cullud ladies ober at yo" house now, is you?"
"No, an" I don"t want any mo" for none could take the place of old mammy."
"No, sah, I reckons not, but I wuz jest er thinkin" dat ef you had any dar I would drap ober a visitin". I"s allus sorter s"ciety struck atter I goes ter er funul. It"s den dat I kin fetch "em wid my talk. It"s easy ter out-talk er lady atter er funul. I"s had "em take down er ole glove an" empty dar money in my han"."
"What"s your name?"
"Da calls me Ham, suh."
"Well, Ham, I reckon thar"s a good deal of the scoundrel about you."
"Ain"t it funny suh, dat I"s yered dat befo"? Yas, suh; but scounnul or not, I"ll keep er sharp lookout on dat man Peters an" come an" tell you ef suthin" happen."
Lou was tearful and depressed over the death of the old woman, whom she had loved, who indeed was as a gentle grandmother to her, and going home from the burial had but little to say; and Tom, respecting what to him was a strange grief, walked along in silence. And for the most part Jim was silent, too, but Mrs. Mayfield was aroused by what she had seen and heard. "Every day this rugged world up here presents something new, Mr.
Reverend. Instead of becoming more able to compare it with other places I have known, it is further and further removed as time pa.s.ses. Of course I had read books and heard songs, but never before coming here did I believe that in real slavery had there existed poetry."
"They tell me, ma"m, that the greatest poetry has come out of the dark,"
he replied, walking with his eyes cast down.
"Then even as a Southerner you don"t believe that slavery was right."
"No, ma"m, for slavery must dwarf the soul and the Book teaches that the Ethiopian had a soul to save."
"But some of the slaves must have been kindly treated."
"Yes, ma"m, but the true way to be kind to ignorance is to enlighten it."
"The old man who preached had known enlightenment and yet he holds no bitterness against the people who kept his race in the dark."
"Ma"m, as a general thing the negro is not revengeful. Sometimes he is a beast and he commits terrible crimes, but he is often like an animal--a dog. Kindness makes him forget an injury. With his strong animal nature his affection is warm, and sometimes when he forgets revenge he has also forgotten grat.i.tude."
He fell into silence and they walked slowly along, now far behind the others. She strove to lead him back into a discussion, but he would not talk, and when they reached the house, she sat down alone, and he stood out at the fence, looking up and down the road. A man came along and asked him how much longer he expected to remain in the neighborhood, and glancing round at the house, at the woman who sat near the door, he replied: "Don"t think I"m going to stay much longer. Have you had any news from over my way?"
"None except they are anxious for you to come on back."
"Well, you may tell them that they may expect me soon."
That night the household went early to bed, with the exception of Old Jasper who, with a candle, sat at his table, not reading the story paper, but attempting to write.
CHAPTER XV.
THE GIRL AND THE CHURN.
The next morning Lou was churning out in the yard and near her Mrs.
Mayfield sat, sewing. The scene was inspiring. Off to the right flowed the blue creek, and everywhere were the hills, softly purple in the distance.
"Things look so lonesome since poor mammy died," said the girl.
"But her pa.s.sing away was beautiful," the city woman made reply, sewing, thinking, glancing up with a sigh and then permitting her gaze to wander off among the hills. "You were very fond of her, weren"t you?"
"Yes. Her black face was one of the first I ever saw. She nursed father and me, too; and she was like a mother. I--I wish you would stay here a long time, Mrs. Mayfield."
"I don"t like to think of returning to what people almost senselessly call the world. This is the world as G.o.d made it. And amid these heart-throbs of genuine nature I am beginning to live anew."
"But you"d get tired of it if you had to milk a cow that can pop her tail like a whip," and after churning vigorously for a time, she inquired: "Did you have trouble away off yonder where so many folks live?"
"Yes, my married life ended in misery."
Lou ceased to churn and for a time stood musing. "Did you" husband tell you a lie?"
"He lived a lie, my dear."