Part 34 (2/2)

Amy looked frightened, and when Eloise explained to her she did not seem as much impressed as the others. Her mind had grasped Jake and the old home, and could not then take in much more. Still, in a way she understood, and when Eloise said to her, ”Col. Crompton was really your father,--married to your mother,--and you were Amy Crompton, and not Harris,” she said, ”I am glad, and wish he knew. He used to taunt me with my low birth and call me a Cracker. When are we going home?”

Her mind had reverted at once to Crompton Place, now hers in reality, although she probably did not think of that.

”I am very glad, and congratulate you that Crompton Place is your home without a doubt,” Jack said to her. Then, turning to Eloise, he continued, in a low tone, ”I can't tell you how glad I am for you, provided you don't feel so high and mighty that you want to cast me off.”

”Oh, Jack,” Eloise replied, ”don't talk such nonsense. I am still of the Harris blood and part Cracker, and maybe quar. If you can stand that I think I can stand you.”

At this point there was the sound of hurrying feet outside, and a woman's voice was heard saying, ”Now, mind your manners, or you'll cotch it.” Then four woolly heads were thrust in at the door and with them was Mandy Ann.

”Hyar she comes wid de fo' twins,” Jake said, going forward to meet her.

”Mandy Ann,” he began, ”hyar's de lil chile Dory. Miss Amy they done call her. Would you know'd her?”

”Know'd her? I reckon so,--anywhar in de dark. Praise de Lawd, an' now let His servant 'part in peace, 'case my eyes has seen de lil chile oncet mo',” Mandy Ann exclaimed, going up to Amy and putting her hands on her shoulders.

”She's 'peatin' some o' de chant in de Pra'r Book. Mandy Ann is mighty pious, she is,” Jake said in a low tone, while Amy drew back a little, and looked timidly at the tall negress calling her lil chile Dory.

”Mandy Ann wasn't so big,” she said, turning to the twins, Alex and Aaron, Judy and Dory, who brought the past back more vividly when Mandy Ann was about their size.

A look of inquiry pa.s.sed from Mandy Ann to Jake, who touched his forehead, while Mandy whispered, ”Quar, like ole Miss an' all of 'em.

Oh, de pity of it! What happened her?” Then to Amy she said, with all the motherhood of her ten children in her voice, ”Doan' you 'member me, Mandy Ann, what use' to dress you in de mornin', an' comb yer har, an'

wa.s.s yer face?”

”Up, instead of down,” Amy said quickly, while everybody laughed instead of herself.

”To be shu',” Mandy Ann rejoined. ”I reckon I did sometimes wa.s.s up 'sted of down. I couldn't help it, 'case you's gen'rally pullin' an'

haulin' an' kickin' me to git away, but you 'members me, an' Judy, wid dis kind of face?”

She touched her eyes and nose and mouth to show where Judy's features were marked with ink, and then Amy laughed, and as if the mention of Judy took her back to the vernacular of her childhood, she said, ”Oh, yes, I done 'members Judy. Whar is she?”

This lapse of her mother into negro dialect was more dreadful to Eloise than anything which had gone before, but Mr. Mason, who read her concern in her face, said to her, ”It's all right, and shows she is taking up the tangled threads.”

No one present knew of Judy's sale at the Rummage, and no one could reply to the question, ”Whar is she?” Amy forgot it in a moment in her interest in the twins, whom Mandy presented one after another, saying, ”I've six mo' grow'd up, some on 'em, an' one is married, 'case I'se old,--I'se fifty-three, an' you's about forty.”

To this Amy paid no attention. She was still absorbed with the twins, who, Mandy Ann told her, had worn her white frock at their christening.

Mandy Ann had not yet heard of the finding of the marriage certificate, and when Jake told her she did not seem greatly surprised.

”I allus knew she was married, without a stifficut,” she said. ”I b'lieved it the fust time he come befo' lil Miss Dory was bawn.”

”Tell me about his coming,” Eloise said, and Mandy Ann, who liked nothing better than to talk, began at the beginning, and told every particular of the first visit, when Miss Dora wore the white gown she was married in and buried in, and the rose on her bosom. ”And you think this is it?” Eloise asked, holding carefully in a bit of paper the ashes of what had once been a rose.

”I 'clar for't, yes,” Mandy said, ”I seen her put it somewhar with the card he done gin me. You'se found it?”

Eloise nodded and held fast to the relics of a past which in this way was linking itself to the present. ”Tell us of the second time, when he took mother,” Eloise suggested, and here Mandy Ann was very eloquent, describing everything in detail, repeating much which Jake had told, telling of the ring,--a real stone, sent her from Savannah, and which she had given her daughter as it was too small for her now. From a drawer in the chamber above she brought a little white dress, stiff with starch and yellow and tender with time, which she said ”lil Miss Dory wore when she first saw her father.”

This Eloise seized at once, saying, ”You will let me have it as something which belonged to mother far back.”

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