Part 22 (2/2)

Crompton.' If it had been anybody but Ruby Ann, I'd turned her from the room. I thought she had more sense,--upon my soul, I did! What did she get out of you?”

”Nothing much but some old clothes and shoes and a boot-jack; she thought a good deal of that,” Peter said, and with a sniff of contempt the Colonel replied, ”Old clothes and a boot-jack; and what is Mrs. Amy sending? Half the attic, I should think from the noise they make up there.”

Hesitating a moment Peter said, ”She is giving the fancy gowns she used to wear, with the tops of the waists and bottoms of the sleeves cut off.

She says they are hateful to her.”

The Colonel guessed what she meant, and replied, ”Quite right; Rummage and rag-bags good places for them; but I say, Peter, I won't have them strung up with warming-pans and quill wheels and my trousers. You must stop it. Do you hear?”

”I didn't know your trousers were going,” Peter suggested, and the Colonel answered curtly, ”Who said they were, you blockhead? They are not going unless Ruby gets them in the night. Upon my soul, she is equal to it. I think I shall put them under my pillow. It is Mrs. Amy's dresses I mean. What else is she going to send?”

”You remember the doll house you bought her when she was a little girl?”

Peter said.

”Good thunder, yes! Will she give that away?” the Colonel asked, with something in his tone which was more than surprise.

It hurt him that Amy should be willing to part with the doll house. She must be queerer than usual, and he thought of the Harris blood. Suddenly he remembered Mandy Ann and Judy, and asked if she was going to give them to the Rummage.

”She means to. Yes, sir. They go with the doll house, one as mistress, the other as maid. I heard her say so. They are downstairs now,” was Peter's reply.

The Colonel's countenance fell, and there was an awful twinge in his foot, but he didn't mind it. His thoughts flew back to the palmetto clearing, where he first saw the little girl and Judy. Then they travelled on to Savannah and the store where he bought Mandy Ann, and so on through the different phases of Amy's childhood, and he was surprised to find how unwilling he was to part with what had been so intimately a.s.sociated with years which, on the whole, had been happy, although at times a little stormy. And Amy was going to send them to a Rummage Sale!

”I may be a weak old fool, but I won't have them sold down there with quill wheels and warming-pans!” he thought.

But what could he do? They were Amy's, and if she had made up her mind to send them, it would take more than his opposition to prevent it. She was very gentle and yielding as a whole, but behind the gentleness and sweetness he knew there was a spirit he did not like to rouse. He must manage some other way. He had told Ruby he would neither give his clothes nor money to the farce, and he prided himself on never going back on his word. But he didn't tell her he wouldn't buy anything, and his face brightened as he said, very briskly, ”Peter!”

”Yes, sir,” was the prompt reply.

”Hold your tongue!”

”Yes, sir,” was Peter's still more prompt reply, and his master continued, ”I don't care a rap about those dresses, but I won't have Mandy Ann and the n.i.g.g.e.r baby and the doll house sold. I may be a hard old cur. I s'pose I am, but I have now and then a streak of,--I don't know what,--clinging to the years of Mrs. Amy's childhood. She turned the house upside down. She raised the very old Harry sometimes, but she got into our hearts somehow, didn't she?”

”Yes, a long ways,” was Peter's reply, as he waited for what was next to come, and looked curiously at the Colonel, who sat with his eyes closed, clutching the arms of his chair tightly, as if suffering from a fearful twinge.

But if he were, he did not think of it. His mind was again in the palmetto clearing, and he was standing by Dory's grave in the sand, and a little child was holding his hand, and looking at him with eyes which had in them something of the same expression which had once quickened his pulse, and made his heart beat with a thrill he fancied was love, but which had died almost as soon as it was born. As a result of that episode he had Amy, whom he did love, and because he loved her so much, he clung to the mementoes of her babyhood, when she had been a torment and a terror, and still a diversion in his monotonous life.

”Peter!” he said again. ”Hold your tongue, but get them somehow. Who is head of this tomfoolery?”

”Ruby Ann is about as big a head as there is, I guess. She and a woman from York State,” Peter replied, and the Colonel continued, ”Well, I s'pose those things will have to go to the sale, if Mrs. Amy says so, but I won't have them mixed with the quill wheels and boot-jacks and Widow Biggs's foot-stove and bra.s.s kettle, and I won't have a pack of idiots looking them over and buying them and saying they belonged to the Cromptons. Mandy Ann Crompton and Judy Crompton would sound fine,--both n.i.g.g.e.rs! No, sir! You are to go quietly to Ruby Ann and buy 'em! Do you hear? Buy 'em! You knew Mrs. Amy when she played with 'em. You want 'em, and you'll pay the price, no matter what it is. Lord Harry! I'll bet they'll put a big one on 'em, but no matter. I paid thirty dollars for the doll house and five for Mandy Ann. I don't s'pose Judy cost anything, but the child liked it best, and I believe I'd rather have it than both the others, because--”

He did not say why, but he gripped the arms of his chair tightly, while drops of sweat stood upon his forehead. He was in the clearing again with Dora living, instead of dead, and the moon was s.h.i.+ning on her face as she stood in the turn of the road and gave him the promise she had kept so faithfully. Judy belonged to that far-off time, and he'd keep her at any cost. He called himself a sentimental old fool after Peter left him, and wondered why his eyes grew misty and there was a lump in his throat as his thoughts kept going back to the South he wished he had never seen.

”Poor little Dora!” he said to himself; ”but for me she might have been alive and married to some respectable--No, by George!” he added suddenly, with a start which made his foot jump as he recalled the cla.s.s into which Dora would probably have married if he had not crossed her path. ”No, by George, I believe I'd rather she died in her youthful beauty, and was buried by Jake in the sand, than to see her the wife of some lout, and rubbing her gums with snuff.”

He was roused from his reverie by wheels crunching on the gravel walk up to a side door, and he heard Sarah's voice and Cindy's, the cook's, and finally Amy's giving directions, and felt sure some one had come for whatever was to go from the Crompton Place to the sale. Ruby had not intended sending so soon when she left the house, but chancing to meet a drayman who had just deposited a load in the salesrooms, she bade him go for whatever was ready, thinking, ”I'll strike while the iron is hot, and before Mrs. Amy has time to change her mind.”

There was no danger of that, at least as far as the dresses were concerned. Like everything connected with her stage life, they had been to her a kind of nightmare whenever she thought of them, and she was glad to be rid of them. Mandy Ann and Judy did give her a few pangs, and especially the latter, and as she wrapped it in tissue paper she held it for a moment pressed close to her, and began a song she had heard from the negroes as they sat around their light-wood fire after their day's work was done. It was a weird melody which Homer Smith had caught up and revised and modernized, with a change of words in some places, and made her sing, knowing it would bring thunders of applause. She heard the roar now, and saw the audience and the flowers falling around her, and with an expression of disgust she put Judy into Sarah's hands, and said, ”Take her away, and quick, too. She, or something, brings it back.”

Sarah took poor, discarded Judy, tied her in her chair in the old doll house, which was placed on top of the two trunks containing Amy's concert dresses, and then the drayman started up his horse, and the Colonel heard the wheels a second time coming past his window. With a great effort he succeeded in getting upon his well foot, and, dragging the other after him, hobbled on his crutches to the window in time to see the cart as it turned into the avenue. As far as he could see it he watched it as the doll house swung from side to side, and the drayman held it to keep it from falling off.

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