Part 41 (1/2)

”Hush your mouth! you huzzy!” cried her master, ”you shall take what I give you.”

”Well, sir, if yon dont git me what I want, I'll git it 'fore de year's out. If I can't git full pay for my c.r.a.p one way, I will another.”

He raised his hand to strike her.

”I don't keer if you does whip, me. I'm gwine to have my rights if I cun git 'em.”

This peculiar shopping ended, the whole company returned home in ill humor. ”I told you so,” said Vina, ”I knowed he wasn't gwine to pay you all for yer c.r.a.ps. He didn't have no money promised him in town, no how. That's the reason I wouldn't go. I wasn't gwine to foller him off to town for money, when I knowed he wasn't gwine to give it.”

Vina had not been many months on the island before her mistress began to wish for her presence on the home place. She was an excellent nurse in sickness, and for many years she had been called in to wait upon any of the white family that chanced to be ill; and so faithful and competent was she, that when Vina was in the sick-room the mother felt no uneasiness. Among the slaves her field was wider, for there, unless in extraordinary cases, she was both doctor and nurse.

At last Mrs. McKiernan told her husband that they must get Vina back, or they never should raise any more children. ”The trouble with them commenced,” said she, ”when Vina and her family first ran off, and since that time there has been nothing but bad luck with both the women and children. There's Delphia might have been alive now if it hadn't been for those fools of doctors.”

”Well, Vina,” said the master, when she had been more than two years on the island, ”how would you like to go back to the low place?”

”I don't keer 'bout gwine back, sir.”

”But your mistress says she would like to have you back. Several of the women will be sick soon, and she wants you there.”

”I don't want nuthin' to do with 'em, sir; you done sent me off yer out o' spite, and now the sick ones may take care, o' their selves. I ain't gwine to be runnin' after 'em.”

”Well, if you don't go now, you may not get a chance when you do want to go.”

”I don't keer nuthin' 'bout it, sir; I don't want to go thar, never.”

After a few weeks, however, she packed up the few cooking utensils which she had there with two or three other articles of furniture, and went home to the cabin which Peter had built for her so many years before. Still she was dark and gloomy--her heart had lost its light; and though she did not quite despair, yet her chance of meeting her beloved husband seemed to lessen day by day. But now there was much sickness on the place; and in sympathy with the suffering of her sisters, she found transient forgetfulness of her own griefs.

Delphia, to whom reference was made by Mrs. McKiernan, died a few days after Vina ran off; and her story, though it reveals a course of cruelty too base even for savages, shows but another phase of slavery.

Smith, the overseer, at that time, was severe, as has before been stated, only towards children, or those women who were afraid of him. ”He knowed,” says Vina, ”the people mostly would fight him if he tried to beat 'em, and so he managed to do without much beatin'. But them whar's feared of him fared mons's hard--'pears like he never knows when to stop, if he gits mad at one o' them kind.”

Smith had a great deal of company on Sundays; and as the overseers are furnished by their employers with corn and bacon, for their families, as well as flour, coffee, and sugar, so many guests were quite expensive to Mr. McKiernan.

One Sunday afternoon, he walked down to the quarter, and saw two horses. .h.i.tched at the overseer's gate.

”Whose horses are these?” asked he of a group of women that stood near.

Delphia chanced to reply.

”Smith has a heap of company, don't he?” said the master.

”Yes, Sir,” said Delphia, ”last Sunday thar was six horses. .h.i.tched to his fence, and every one of 'em was carried off, and fed.”

Some evil-minded tale-bearer took the first opportunity to report this conversation to the overseer; and he was enraged.

A few days after, the master plainly expressed his opinion to Mr.

Smith respecting the number of his guests, adding that he knew it was so, for he saw them there himself.

”You did not see them,” said Smith, ”you were not in sight when they were here. Some n.i.g.g.e.r has told you; and it is no other than that lying, tattling wench, Delphia.”