Part 19 (1/2)
shaking her tartan turban with a portentous groan, her chin almost sc.r.a.ping the hearth, as she stooped to blow into the crater of fiery coals.
Mabel was too well versed in the customs of the race and cla.s.s to take alarm at the mysterious invocation. She watched the old woman's movements in a sort of pensive amus.e.m.e.nt at the recollection of an incident of her childhood, brought vividly to her mind by the servant's air and exclamation.
She was playing in the yard one day, when ”Mammy” emerged from her cottage-door, and came toward her, with a batch of sweet cakes she had just baked for her nursling.
In crossing the gravel walk leading to the ”house,” she struck her toe against the brick facing of this, and the cakes flew in all directions.
”Good Lord! my poor toe and my poor chile's cakes!” was her vehement interjection; and as she bent to gather up the cookies, she grunted out the same adjuration, coupled with ”my poor ole back!”--a negress' stock subject of complaint, let her be but twenty years old and as strong as an ox.
”Mammy!” said the privileged child, reprovingly, ”I thought you were too good a Christian to break the commandments in that way. You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain.”
”Gracious! Sugar-pie! how you talk! Ef I don't call 'pon Him in time of trouble, who can I ask to help me?” was the confident reply.
With no thought of any more formidable cause of outcry than a cramp in the much-quoted spine, Mabel dreamed on sketchily and indolently, enjoying the sight of the once-familiar process of building a wood-fire, until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued through the interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper began to sing the low, drowsy tune, more suggestive of home-cheer and fireside comfort than the shrill, monotonous chirp of the famous cricket on the hearth.
The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons rested were next swept clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail, and the architect of the edifice stepped back with a satisfied nod.
”I have often wished for a glimpse of one of your beautiful fires, Mammy, since I have been in Albany,” said Mabel, kindly. ”Our rooms and halls are all heated by furnaces. An open fireplace would be a novelty to Northerners, and such a roaring, blazing pile of hard wood as that, be considered an unpardonable extravagance.”
”Humph! I never did have no 'pinion of them people.” Phillis tossed her turban and c.o.c.ked her prominent chin. ”It's all make money, and save!
save! If I was 'lowed to go with you, I'll be bound I'd see you have sech things as you've been 'customed to. The new folks, them what comed from nothin' and nowhar, and made every dollar they can call their own with their own hands, don't know how to feel for and look after real ladies.”
”You are wrong about that, if you mean that I have not every comfort I could ask. My house is warm in the bitterest weather, and far more handsomely furnished than this. And I have many kind friends. I like the Northern people, and so would you, if you knew them well.”
”They send dreadful poor samples down this way, then,” muttered Phillis, significantly. ”And, some as pertends to be somebody is n.o.body, or wuss, ef the truth was known. Don't talk to me 'bout 'em, Miss Mabel, darling!
'Twas a mighty black day for us when one on 'em fust laid eyes upon Mars' Winston. You've hearn, ain't you, that my house is to be tore down, and I'm to go into the quarters 'long with the field hands and sich like common trash? So long as our skins is all the same color, some folks can't see no difference in us.”
”I had not heard it. I am sorry.”
Mabel spoke earnestly, for ”Mammy's house,” a neat frame cottage a story-and-a-half high, embowered in locust-trees, and with a thrifty, although aged garden--honeysuckle clambering all over the front, was to her one of the dearest pictures of her early days. She could see herself, now--the motherless babe whom Aunt Rachel and Mammy had never let feel her orphanage--sitting on the door-step, bedecking her doll with the odorous pink-and-white blossoms in summer time, and in autumn with the light-red berries.
”Why is that done?” she asked.
”I spiles the prospect, honey!” fiercely--ironical. ”Northern folks has tender eyes, and I hurts 'em--me and my poor little house what ole marster built for me when Mars' Winston was a baby, and your blessed ma couldn't be easy 'thout I was near her--WE spiles the prospect! So, it must be knocked down and carted away for rubbish to build pig-pens, I 'spose, and me sent off to live 'mong low-lived n.i.g.g.e.rs, sech as I've always held myself above. She ain't never put it into Mars' Winston's head to cut down the trees that shets off the ”prospect” of the colored people's burying-ground from her winder. There's some things she'd as lief not see. I oughtn't to mind this so much, I know, for I ain't got long for to stay here nohow, but I did hope to die in my nest!” sobbing behind her ap.r.o.n.
”I am very sorry--more grieved than you can think!” repeated Mabel. ”If I could help you in any way, I would. But I cannot!”
”Bless your heart! Don't I know that, dear! Here, you ain't got no more power nor me. But I WAS a-thinkin' that maybe you wouldn't think me too old for a nuss when you come to want one, and could manage to take me with you when you went home. I'se a heap of wear in me yit, and there ain't nothing 'bout babies I don't understand.”
Mabel colored painfully.
”If I had my way”--she began--then altered her plan of reply. ”I could not enter into such an arrangement without consulting Mr. Dorrance, Mammy, and I am afraid he would not think as favorably of it as you and I do. He has been brought up with different ideas, you see.”
”Um-HUM!”
An interjection capable of as many and as varied meanings in the mouth of a colored woman of her stamp as was little Jean Baptiste's ”altro!”
It signified now--”I comprehend a great deal more than you want me to perceive--you poor, downtrodden angel!”
”Um-HUM. I always did say he was his sister's own brother--for all they don't look a bit alike. What's born into a man never comes out!”
”Mr. Dorrance is my husband, Mammy! I shall not let you speak disrespectfully of him. He does what he believes to be right and just,”
returned Mabel, sternly.