'Christ was born in Bethlehem,Christ was born in Bethlehem,And in a manger laid.'
'Christ was born in Bethlehem,Christ was born in Bethlehem,And in a manger laid.'
'Christ was born in Bethlehem,Christ was born in Bethlehem,And in a manger laid.'
'Christ was born in Bethlehem,
Christ was born in Bethlehem,
And in a manger laid.'
Take car, dar!—dat ar needle scratch yer little fingers!—poor little fingers! Ah, be still, now!—play wid yer pretty tings, and see what yer pa'll bring ye!"
"Oh, dear me!—well!" said the woman on the bed, "I shall give up!"
"Bress de Lord, no, missis!" said Tiff, laying down thestocking, and holding the child to him with one hand, while the other was busy in patting and arranging the bedclothes. "No use in givin' up! Why, Lord bress you, missis, we'll be all up right agin in a few days. Work has been kinder pressin', lately, and chil'ns clothes an't quite so 'speckable; but den I's doin' heaps o' mendin'. See dat ar!" said he, holding up a slip of red flannel, resplendent with a black patch, "dat ar hole won't go no furder—and it does well enough for Teddy to wear rollin' round de do', and such like times, to save his bettermost. And de way I's put de yarn in dese yer stockings an't slow. Den I's laid out to take a stitch in Teddy's shoes; and dat ar hole in de kiverlet, dat ar'll be stopped 'fore morning. Oh, let me alone!—he! he! he!—Ye didn't keep Tiff for nothing, missis—ho, ho, ho!" And the black face seemed really to become unctuous with the oil of gladness, as Tiff proceeded in his work of consolation.
"Oh, Tiff, Tiff! you're a good creature! But you don't know. Here I've been lying alone day after day, and he off, nobody knows where! And when he comes, it'll be only a day, and he's off; and all he does don't amount to anything—all miserable rubbish brought home and traded off for other rubbish. Oh, what a fool I was for being married! Oh, dear! girls little know what marriage is! I thought it was so dreadful to be an old maid, and a pretty thing to get married! But, oh, the pain, and worry, and sickness, and suffering, I've gone through!—always wandering from place to place, never settled; one thing going after another, worrying, watching, weary,—and all for nothing, for I am worn out, and I shall die!"
"Oh, Lord, no!" said Tiff, earnestly. "Lor, Tiff'll make ye some tea, and give it to ye, ye poor lamb! It's drefful hard, so 'tis; but times'll mend, and massa'll come round and be more settled, like, and Teddy will grow up and help his ma; and I'm sure dere isn't a pearter young un dan dis yer puppet!" said he, turning fondly to the trough where the little fat, red mass of incipient humanity was beginning to throw up two small fists, and to utter sundry small squeaks, to intimate his desire to come into notice.
"Lor, now," said he, adroitly depositing Teddy on the floor, and taking up the baby, whom he regarded fondly through hisgreat spectacles; "stretch away, my pretty! stretch away! ho-e-ho! Lor, if he hasn't got his mammy's eye, for all dis worl! Ah, brave! See him, missis!" said he, laying the little bundle on the bed by her. "Did ye ever see a peartier young un? He, he, he! Dar, now, his mammy should take him, so she should! and Tiff'll make mammy some tea, so he will!" And Tiff, in a moment, was on his knees, carefully laying together the ends of the burned sticks, and blowing a cloud of white ashes, which powdered his woolly head and red shawl like snow-flakes, while Teddy was busy in pulling the needles out of some knitting-work which hung in a bag by the fire.
Tiff, having started the fire by blowing, proceeded very carefully to adjust upon it a small, black porringer of water, singing, as he did so,—
"My way is dark and cloudy,So it is, so it is;My way is dark and cloudy,All de day."
"My way is dark and cloudy,So it is, so it is;My way is dark and cloudy,All de day."
"My way is dark and cloudy,So it is, so it is;My way is dark and cloudy,All de day."
"My way is dark and cloudy,
So it is, so it is;
My way is dark and cloudy,
All de day."
Then, rising from his work, he saw that the poor, weak mother had clasped the baby to her bosom, and was sobbing very quietly. Tiff, as he stood there, with his short, square, ungainly figure, his long arms hanging out from his side like bows, his back covered by the red shawl, looked much like a compassionate tortoise standing on its hind legs. He looked pitifully at the sight, took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, and lifted up his voice in another stave:—
"But we'll join de forty tousand, by and by,So we will, so we will.We'll join de forty tousand, upon de golden shore,And our sorrows will be gone forevermore, more, more."
"But we'll join de forty tousand, by and by,So we will, so we will.We'll join de forty tousand, upon de golden shore,And our sorrows will be gone forevermore, more, more."
"But we'll join de forty tousand, by and by,So we will, so we will.We'll join de forty tousand, upon de golden shore,And our sorrows will be gone forevermore, more, more."
"But we'll join de forty tousand, by and by,
So we will, so we will.
We'll join de forty tousand, upon de golden shore,
And our sorrows will be gone forevermore, more, more."
"Bress my soul, Mas'r Teddy! now us been haulin' out de needles from Miss Fanny's work! dat ar an't purty, now! Tiff'll be 'shamed of ye, and ye do like dat when yer ma's sick! Don't ye know ye must be good, else Tiff won't tell ye no stories! Dar, now, sit down on dis yere log; dat ar's just the nicest log! plenty o' moss on it yer can be a pickin' out! Now, yer sit still dar, and don't be interruptin' yer ma."
The urchin opened a wide, round pair of blue eyes upon Tiff, looking as if he were mesmerized, and sat, with a quiet,subdued air, upon his log, while Tiff went fumbling about in a box in the corner. After some rattling, he produced a pine-knot, as the daylight was fading fast in the room, and, driving it into a crack in another log which stood by the chimney corner, he proceeded busily to light it, muttering, as he did so,—
"Want to make it more cheerful like."
Then he knelt down and blew the coals under the little porringer, which, like pine-coals in general, always sulked and looked black when somebody was not blowing them. He blew vigorously, regardless of the clouds of ashes which encircled him, and which settled even on the tips of his eyelashes, and balanced themselves on the end of his nose.
"Bress de Lord, I's dreadful strong in my breff! Lord, dey might have used me in blacksmissin! I's kep dis yer chimney a gwine dis many a day. I wonder, now, what keeps Miss Fanny out so long."
And Tiff rose up with the greatest precaution, and glancing every moment towards the bed, and almost tipping himself over in his anxiety to walk softly, advanced to the rude door, which opened with a wooden latch and string, opened it carefully, and looked out. Looking out with him, we perceive that the little hut stands alone, in the heart of a dense pine forest, which shuts it in on every side.
Tiff held the door open a few moments to listen. No sound was heard but the shivering wind, swaying and surging in melancholy cadences through the long pine-leaves,—a lonesome, wailing, uncertain sound.
"Ah! dese yer pine-trees! dey always a talkin'!" said Tiff to himself, in a sort of soliloquy. "Whisper, whisper, whisper! De Lord knows what it's all about! dey never tells folks what dey wants to know. Hark! da is Foxy, as sure as I'm a livin' sinner! Ah! dar she is!" as a quick, loud bark reverberated. "Ah, ha! Foxy! you'll bring her along!" caressing a wolfish-looking, lean cur, who came bounding through the trees.
"Ah, yer good-for-nothing! what makes yer run so fast, and leave yer missus behind ye? Hark! what's dat!"
The clear voice came carolling gayly from out the pine-trees,
"If you get there before I do—I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
"If you get there before I do—I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
"If you get there before I do—I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
"If you get there before I do—
I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
Whereupon Tiff, kindling with enthusiasm, responded,—
"Look out for me—I'm coming too—I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
"Look out for me—I'm coming too—I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
"Look out for me—I'm coming too—I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
"Look out for me—I'm coming too—
I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
The response was followed by a gay laugh, as a childish voice shouted, from the woods,—
"Ha! Tiff, you there?"
And immediately a bold, bright, blue-eyed girl, of about eight years old, came rushing forward.
"Lors, Miss Fannie, so grad you's come! Yer ma's powerful weak dis yer arternoon!" And then, sinking his voice to a whisper, "Why, now, yer'd better b'leve her sperits isn't the best! Why, she's that bad, Miss Fannie, she actually been a cryin' when I put the baby in her arms. Railly, I'm consarned, and I wish yer pa 'ud come home. Did yer bring de medicine?"
"Ah, yes; here 'tis."
"Ah! so good! I was a makin' of her some tea, to set her up, like, and I'll put a little drop of dis yer in't. You gwin, now, and speak to yer ma, and I'll pick up a little light wood round here, and make up de fire. Massa Teddy'll be powerful glad to see yer. Hope you's got him something, too!"
The girl glided softly into the room, and stood over the bed where her mother was lying.
"Mother, I've come home," said she, gently.
The poor, frail creature in the bed seemed to be in one of those helpless hours of life's voyage, when all its waves and billows are breaking over the soul; and while the little new-comer was blindly rooting and striving at her breast, she had gathered the worn counterpane over her face, and the bed was shaken by her sobbings.
"Mother! mother! mother!" said the child, softly touching her.
"Go away! go away, child! Oh, I wish I had never been born! I wish you had never been born, nor Teddy, nor the baby! It's all nothing but trouble and sorrow! Fanny, don't you ever marry! Mind what I tell you!"
The child stood frightened by the bedside, while Tiff had softly deposited a handful of pine-wood near the fireplace, had taken off the porringer, and was busily stirring and concoctingsomething in an old cracked china mug. As he stirred, a strain of indignation seemed to cross his generally tranquil mind, for he often gave short sniffs and grunts, indicative of extreme disgust, and muttered to himself,—
"Dis yer comes of quality marrying these yer poor white folks! Never had no 'pinion on it, no way! Ah! do hear the poor lamb now! 'nough to break one's heart!"
By this time, the stirring and flavoring being finished to his taste, he came to the side of the bed, and began, in a coaxing tone,—
"Come, now, Miss Sue, come! You's all worn out! No wonder! dat ar great fellow tugging at you! Bless his dear little soul, he's gaining half a pound a week! Nough to pull down his ma entirely! Come, now; take a little sup of this—just a little sup! Warm you up, and put a bit of life in you; and den I 'spects to fry you a morsel of der chicken, 'cause a boy like dis yer can't be nursed on slops, dat I knows! Dere, dere, honey!" said he, gently removing the babe, and passing his arm under the pillow. "I's drefful strong in the back. My arm is long and strong, and I'll raise you up just as easy! Take a good sup on it, now, and wash dese troubles down. I reckon the good man above is looking down on us all, and bring us all round right, some time."
The invalid, who seemed exhausted by the burst of feeling to which she had been giving way, mechanically obeyed a voice to which she had always been accustomed, and drank eagerly, as if with feverish thirst; and when she had done, she suddenly threw her arms around the neck of her strange attendant.
"Oh, Tiff, Tiff! poor old black, faithful Tiff! What should I have done without you? So sick as I've been, and so weak, and so lonesome! But, Tiff, it's coming to an end pretty soon. I've seen, to-night, that I an't going to live long, and I've been crying to think the children have got to live. If I could only take them all into my arms, and all lie down in the grave together, I should be so glad! I never knew what God made me for! I've never been fit for anything, nor done anything!"
Tiff seemed so utterly overcome by this appeal, his great spectacles were fairly washed down in a flood of tears, and his broad, awkward frame shook with sobs.
"Law bless you, Miss Sue, don't be talking dat ar way! Why, if de Lordshouldcall you, Miss Sue, I can take care of the children. I can bring them up powerful, I tell ye! But youwon'tbe a-going; you'll get better! It's just the sperits is low; and, laws, why shouldn't dey be?"
Just at this moment a loud barking was heard outside the house, together with the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses' feet.
"Dar's massa, sure as I'm alive!" said he, hastily laying down the invalid, and arranging her pillows.
A rough voice called, "Hallo, Tiff! here with a light!"
Tiff caught the pine-knot, and ran to open the door. A strange-looking vehicle, of a most unexampled composite order, was standing before the door, drawn by a lean, one-eyed horse.
"Here, Tiff, help me out. I've got a lot of goods here. How's Sue?"
"Missis is powerful bad; been wanting to see you dis long time."
"Well, away, Tiff! take this out," indicating a long, rusty piece of stove-pipe.
"Lay this in the house; and here!" handing a cast-iron stove-door, with the latch broken.
"Law, Massa, what on earth is the use of dis yer?"
"Don't ask questions, Tiff; work away. Help me out with these boxes."
"What on arth now?" said Tiff to himself, as one rough case after another was disgorged from the vehicle, and landed in the small cabin. This being done, and orders being given to Tiff to look after the horse and equipage, the man walked into the house, with a jolly, slashing air.
"Hallo, bub!" said he, lifting the two-year-old above his head. "Hallo, Fan!" imprinting a kiss on the cheek of his girl. "Hallo, Sis!" coming up to the bed where the invalid lay, and stooping down over her. Her weak, wasted arms were thrown around his neck, and she said, with sudden animation,
"Oh, you've come at last! I thought I should die without seeing you!"
"Oh, you an't a-going to die, Sis! Why, what talk!" said he, chucking her under the chin. "Why, your cheeks are as red as roses!"
"Pa, see the baby!" said little Teddy, who, having climbed over the bed, opened the flannel bundle.
"Ah! Sis, I call that ar a tolerable fair stroke of business! Well, I tellyouwhat, I've done up a trade now that will set us up and no mistake. Besides which, I've got something now in my coat-pocket that would raise a dead cat to life, if she was lying at the bottom of a pond, with a stone round her neck! See here! 'Dr. Puffer's Elixir of the Water of Life!' warranted to cure janders, toothache, earache, scrofula, speptia, 'sumption, and everything else that ever I hearn of! A teaspoonful of that ar, morn and night, and in a week you'll be round agin, as pert as a cricket!"
It was astonishing to see the change which the entrance of this man had wrought on the invalid. All her apprehensions seemed to have vanished. She sat up on the bed, following his every movement with her eyes, and apparently placing full confidence in the new medicine, as if it were the first time that ever a universal remedy had been proposed to her. It must be noticed, however, that Tiff, who had returned, and was building the fire, indulged himself, now and then, when the back of the speaker was turned, by snuffing at him in a particularly contemptuous manner. The man was a thick-set and not ill-looking personage, who might have been forty or forty-five years of age. His eyes, of a clear, lively brown, his close-curling hair, his high forehead, and a certain devil-may-care frankness of expression, were traits not disagreeable, and which went some way to account for the partial eagerness with which the eye of the wife followed him.
The history of the pair is briefly told. He was the son of a small farmer of North Carolina. His father, having been so unfortunate as to obtain possession of a few negroes, the whole family became ever after inspired with an intense disgust for all kinds of labor; and John, the oldest son, adopted for himself the ancient and honorable profession of a loafer. To lie idle in the sun in front of some small grog-shop, to attend horse-races, cock-fights, and gander-pullings, to flout out occasionally in a new waistcoat, bought with money which came nobody knew how, were pleasures to him all-satisfactory. He was as guiltless of all knowledge of common-school learning asGovernor Berkley could desire, and far more clear of religious training than a Mahometan or a Hindoo.
In one of his rambling excursions through the country, he stopped a night at a worn-out and broken-down old plantation, where everything had run down, through many years of mismanagement and waste. There he stayed certain days, playing cards with the equally hopeful son of the place, and ended his performances by running away one night with the soft-hearted daughter, only fifteen years of age, and who was full as idle, careless, and untaught, as he.
The family, whom poverty could not teach to forget their pride, were greatly scandalized at the marriage; and, had there been anything left in the worn-out estate wherewith to portion her, the bride, nevertheless, would have been portionless. The sole piece of property that went out with her from the paternal mansion was one, who, having a mind and will of his own, could not be kept from following her. The girl's mother had come from a distant branch of one of the most celebrated families in Virginia, and Tiff had been her servant; and, with a heart forever swelling with the remembrances of the ancestral greatness of the Peytons, he followed his young mistress in her mésalliance with long-suffering devotion. He even bowed his neck so far as to acknowledge for his master a man whom he considered by position infinitely his inferior; for Tiff, though crooked and black, never seemed to cherish the slightest doubt that the whole force of the Peyton blood coursed through his veins, and that the Peyton honor was intrusted to his keeping. His mistress was a Peyton, her children were Peyton children, and even the little bundle of flannel in the gum-tree cradle was a Peyton; and as for him, he was Tiff Peyton, and this thought warmed and consoled him as he followed his poor mistress during all the steps of her downward course in the world. On her husband he looked with patronizing, civil contempt. He wished him well; he thought it proper to put the best face on all his actions; but, in a confidential hour, Tiff would sometimes raise his spectacles emphatically, and give it out, as his own private opinion, "dat dere could not be much 'spected from dat ar 'scription of people!"
In fact, the roving and unsettled nature of John Cripps'savocations and locations might have justified the old fellow's contempt. His industrial career might be defined as comprising a little of everything, and a great deal of nothing. He had begun, successively, to learn two or three trades; had half made a horse-shoe, and spoiled one or two carpenter's planes; had tried his hand at stage-driving; had raised fighting-cocks, and kept dogs for hunting negroes. But he invariably retreated from every one of his avocations, in his own opinion a much-abused man. The last device that had entered his head was suggested by the success of a shrewd Yankee peddler, who, having a lot of damaged and unsalable material to dispose of, talked him into the belief that he possessed yet an undeveloped talent for trade; and poor John Cripps, guiltless of multiplication or addition table, and who kept his cock-fighting accounts on his fingers and by making chalk-marks behind the doors, actually was made to believe that he had at last received his true vocation.
In fact, there was something in the constant restlessness of this mode of life that suited his roving turn; and, though he was constantly buying what he could not sell, and losing on all that he did sell, yet somehow he kept up an illusion that he was doing something, because stray coins now and then passed through his pockets, and because the circle of small taverns in which he could drink and loaf was considerably larger. There was one resource which never failed him when all other streams went dry; and that was the unceasing ingenuity and fidelity of the bondman Tiff.
Tiff, in fact, appeared to be one of those comfortable old creatures, who retain such a good understanding with all created nature that food never is denied them. Fish would always bite on Tiff's hook when they wouldn't on anybody's else; so that he was wont confidently to call the nearest stream "Tiff's pork-barrel." Hens always laid eggs for Tiff, and cackled to him confidentially where they were deposited. Turkeys gobbled and strutted for him, and led forth for him broods of downy little ones. All sorts of wild game, squirrels, rabbits, coons, and possums, appeared to come with pleasure and put themselves into his traps and springes; so that, where another man might starve, Tiff would look round him withunctuous satisfaction, contemplating all nature as his larder, where his provisions were wearing fur coats, and walking about on four legs, only for safe keeping till he got ready to eat them. So that Cripps never came home without anticipation of something savory, even although he had drank up his last quarter of a dollar at the tavern. This suited Cripps. He thought Tiff was doing his duty, and occasionally brought him home some unsalable bit of rubbish, by way of testimonial of the sense he entertained of his worth. The spectacles in which Tiff gloried came to him in this manner; and, although it might have been made to appear that the glasses were only plain window-glass, Tiff was happily ignorant that they were not the best of convex lenses, and still happier in the fact that his strong, unimpaired eyesight made any glasses at all entirely unnecessary. It was only an aristocratic weakness in Tiff. Spectacles he somehow considered the mark of a gentleman, and an appropriate symbol for one who had "been fetched up in the very fustest families of Old Virginny."
He deemed them more particularly appropriate, as, in addition to his manifold outward duties, he likewise assumed, as the reader has seen, some feminine accomplishments. Tiff could darn a stocking with anybody in the country; he could cut out children's dresses and aprons; he could patch, and he could seam; all which he did with infinite self-satisfaction.
Notwithstanding the many crooks and crosses in his lot, Tiff was, on the whole, a cheery fellow. He had an oily, rollicking fulness of nature, an exuberance of physical satisfaction in existence, that the greatest weight of adversity could only tone down to becoming sobriety. He was on the happiest terms of fellowship with himself; helikedhimself, he believed in himself; and, when nobody else would do it, he would pat himself on his own shoulder, and say, "Tiff, you're a jolly dog, a fine fellow, and I like you!" He was seldom without a running strain of soliloquy with himself, intermingled with joyous bursts of song, and quiet intervals of laughter. On pleasant days Tiff laughed a great deal. He laughed when his beans came up, he laughed when the sun came out after a storm, he laughed for fifty things that you never think of laughing at; and it agreed with him—he throve upon it. In times of trouble andperplexity, Tiff talked to himself, and found a counsellor who always kept secrets. On the present occasion it was not without some inward discontent that he took a survey of the remains of one of his best-fatted chickens, which he had been intending to serve up, piecemeal, for his mistress. So he relieved his mind by a little confidential colloquy with himself.
"Dis yer," he said to himself, with a contemptuous inclination toward the newly-arrived, "will be for eating like a judgment, I 'pose. Wish, now, I had killed de old gobbler! Good enough for him—raal tough, he is. Dis yer, now, was my primest chicken, and dar she'll jist sit and see him eat it! Laws, dese yer women! Why, dey does get so sot on husbands! Pity they couldn't have something like to be sot on! It jist riles me to see him gobbling down everything, and she a-looking on! Well, here goes," said he, depositing the frying-pan over the coals, in which the chicken was soon fizzling. Drawing out the table, Tiff prepared it for supper. Soon coffee was steaming over the fire, and corn-dodgers baking in the ashes. Meanwhile, John Cripps was busy explaining to his wife the celebrated wares that had so much raised his spirits.
"Well, now, you see, Sue, this yer time I've been up to Raleigh; and I met a fellow there, coming from New York, or New Orleans, or some of them northern states."
"New Orleans isn't a northern state," humbly interposed his wife, "is it?"
"Well, New something! Who the devil cares? Don't you be interrupting me, you Suse!"
Could Cripps have seen the vengeful look which Tiff gave him over the spectacles at this moment, he might have trembled for his supper. But, innocent of this, he proceeded with his story.
"You see, this yer fellow had a case of bonnets just the height of the fashion. They come from Paris, the capital of Europe; and he sold them to me for a mere song. Ah, you ought to see 'em! I'm going to get 'em out. Tiff, hold the candle, here." And Tiff held the burning torch with an air of grim scepticism and disgust, while Cripps hammered and wrenched the top boards off, and displayed to view a portentous array of bonnets, apparently of every obsolete style and fashion of the last fifty years.
"Dem's fust rate for scare-crows, anyhow!" muttered Tiff.
"Now, what," said Cripps,—"Sue, what do you think I gave for these?"
"I don't know," said she, faintly.
"Well, I gave fifteen dollars for the whole box! And there an't one of these," said he, displaying the most singular specimen on his hand, "that isn't worth from two to five dollars. I shall clear, at least, fifty dollars on that box."
Tiff, at this moment, turned to his frying-pan, and bent over it, soliloquizing as he did so,—
"Any way, I's found out one ting,—where de women gets dem roosts of bonnets dey wars at camp-meetings. Laws, dey's enough to spile a work of grace, dem ar! If I was to meet one of dem ar of a dark night in a grave-yard, I should tink I was sent for—not the pleasantest way of sending, neither. Poor missis!—looking mighty faint!—Don't wonder!—'Nough to scarr a weakly woman into fits!"
"Here, Tiff, help me to open this box. Hold the light, here. Darned if it don't come off hard! Here's a lot of shoes and boots I got of the same man. Some on 'em's mates, and some an't; but, then, I took the lot cheap. Folks don't always warr both shoes alike. Might like to warr an odd one, sometimes, ef it's cheap. Now, this yer parr of boots is lady's gaiters, all complete, 'cept there's a hole in the lining down by the toe; body ought to be careful about putting it on, else the foot will slip between the outside and the lining. Anybody that bears that in mind—just as nice a pair of gaiters as they'd want! Bargain, there, for somebody—complete one, too. Then I've got two or three old bureau-drawers that I got cheap at auction; and I reckon some on 'em will fit the old frame that I got last year. Got 'em for a mere song."
"Bless you, massa, dat ar old bureau I took for de chicken-coop! Turkeys' chickens hops in lively."
"Oh, well, scrub it up—'twill answer just as well. Fit the drawers in. And now, old woman, we will sit down to supper," said he, planting himself at the table, and beginning a vigorous onslaught on the fried chicken, without invitation to any other person present to assist him.
"Missis can't sit up at the table," said Tiff. "She's donebeen sick ever since de baby was born." And Tiff approached the bed with a nice morsel of chicken which he had providently preserved on a plate, and which he now reverently presented on a board, as a waiter, covered with newspaper.
"Now, do eat, missis; you can't live on looking, no ways you can fix it. Do eat while Tiff gets on de baby's nightgown."
To please her old friend, the woman made a feint of eating, but, while Tiff's back was turned to the fire, busied herself with distributing it to the children, who had stood hungrily regarding her, as children will regard what is put on to a sick mother's plate.
"It does me good to see them eat," she said, apologetically once, when Tiff, turning round, detected her in the act.
"Ah, missis, may be! butyou'vegot to eat fortwo, now. What dey eat an't going to dis yer little man, here. Mind dat ar."
Cripps apparently bestowed very small attention on anything except the important business before him, which he prosecuted with such devotion that very soon coffee, chicken, and dodgers, had all disappeared. Even the bones were sucked dry, and the gravy wiped from the dish.
"Ah, that's what I call comfortable!" said he, lying back in his chair. "Tiff, pull my boots off! and hand out that ar demijohn. Sue, I hope you've made a comfortable meal," he said, incidentally, standing with his back to her, compounding his potation of whiskey and water; which having drank, he called up Teddy, and offered him the sugar at the bottom of the glass. But Teddy, being forewarned by a meaning glance through Tiff's spectacles, responded, very politely,—
"No, I thank you, pa. I don't love it."
"Come here, then, and take it off like a man. It's good for you," said John Cripps.
The mother's eyes followed the child wishfully; and she said, faintly, "Don't John!—don't!" And Tiff ended the controversy by taking the glass unceremoniously out of his master's hand.
"Laws bless you, massa, can't be bodered with dese yer young ones dis yer time of night! Time dey's all in bed, and disheswashed up. Here, Tedd," seizing the child, and loosening the buttons of his slip behind, and drawing out a rough trundle-bed, "you crawl in dere, and curl up in your nest; and don't you forget your prars, honey, else maybe you'll never wake up again."
Cripps had now filled a pipe with tobacco of the most villainous character, with which incense he was perfuming the little apartment.
"Laws, massa, dat ar smoke an't good for missis," said Tiff. "She done been sick to her stomach all day."
"Oh, let him smoke! I like to have him enjoy himself," said the indulgent wife. "But, Fanny, you had better go to bed, dear. Come here and kiss me, child; good-night,—good-night!"
The mother held on to her long, and looked at her wishfully; and when she had turned to go, she drew her back, and kissed her again, and said, "Good-night, dear child, good-night!"
Fanny climbed up a ladder in one corner of the room, through a square hole, to the loft above.
"I say," said Cripps, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and looking at Tiff, who was busy washing the dishes, "I say it's kind of peculiar that gal keeps sick so. Seemed to have good constitution when I married her. I'm thinking," said he, without noticing the gathering wrath in Tiff's face, "I'm a-thinking whether steamin' wouldn't do her good. Now, I got a most dreadful cold when I was up at Raleigh—thought I should have given up; and there was a steam-doctor there. Had a little kind of machine, with kettle and pipes, and he put me in a bed, put in the pipes, and set it a-going. I thought, my soul, I should have been floated off; but it carried off the cold, complete. I'm thinking if something of that kind wouldn't be good for Miss Cripps."
"Laws, massa, don't go for to trying it on her! She is never no better for dese yer things you do for her."
"Now," said Cripps, not appearing to notice the interruption, "these yer stove-pipes, and the tea-kettle,—I shouldn't wonder if we could get up a steam with them!"
"It's my private 'pinion, if you do, she'll be sailing out of the world," said Tiff. "What's one man's meat is anotherone's pisin, my old mis's used to say. Very best thing you can do for her is to let her alone. Dat ar is my 'pinion."
"John," said the little woman, after a few minutes, "I wish you'd come here, and sit on the bed."
There was something positive, and almost authoritative, in the manner in which this was said, which struck John as so unusual, that he came with a bewildered air, sat down, and gazed at her with his mouth wide open.
"I'm so glad you've come home, because I have had things that I've wanted to say to you! I've been lying here thinking about it, and I have been turning it over in my mind. I'm going to die soon, I know."
"Ah! bah! Don't be bothering a fellow with any of your hysterics!"
"John, John! it isn't hysterics! Look at me! Look at my hand! look at my face! I'm so weak, and sometimes I have such coughing spells, and every time it seems to me as if I should die. But it an't to trouble you that I talk. I don't care about myself, but I don't want the children to grow up and be like what we've been. You have a great many contrivances; do, pray, contrive to have them taught to read, and make something of them in the world."
"Bah! what's the use? I never learnt to read, and I'm as good a fellow as I want. Why, there's plenty of men round here making their money, every year, that can't read or write a word. Old Hubell, there, up on the Shad plantation, has hauled in money, hand over hand, and he always signs his mark. Got nine sons—can't a soul of them read or write, more than I. I tell you there's nothing ever comes of this yer larning. It's all a sell—a regular Yankee hoax! I've always got cheated by them damn reading, writing Yankees, whenever I've traded with 'em. What's the good, I want to know! You was teached how to read when you was young—much good it's ever done you!"
"Sure enough! Sick day and night, moving about from place to place, sick baby crying, and not knowing what to do for it no more than a child! Oh, I hope Fanny will learn something! It seems to me, if there was some school for my children to go to, or some church, or something—now,if there isany such place as heaven, I should like to have them get to it."
"Ah! bah! Don't bother about that! When we get keeled up, that will be the last of us! Come, come, don't plague a fellow any more with such talk! I'm tired, and I'm going to sleep." And the man, divesting himself of his overcoat, threw himself on the bed, and was soon snoring heavily in profound slumber.
Tiff, who had been trotting the baby by the fire, now came softly to the bedside, and sat down.
"Miss Sue," he said, "it's no 'count talking to him! I don't mean nothing dis'pectful, Miss Sue, but de fac is, dem dat isn'tborngentlemen can't be 'spected fur to see through dese yer things like us of de old families. Law, missis, don't you worry! Now, jest leave dis yer matter to old Tiff! Dere never wasn't anything Tiff couldn't do, if he tried. He! he! he! Miss Fanny, she done got de letters right smart; and I know I'll come it round mas'r, and make him buy de books for her. I'll tell you what's come into my head, to-day. There's a young lady come to de big plantation, up dere, who's been to New York getting edicated, and I's going for to ask her about dese yer things. And, about de chil'en's going to church, and dese yer things, why, preaching, you know, is mazin' unsartain round here; but I'll keep on de lookout, and do de best I can. Why, Lord, Miss Sue, I's bound for the land of Canaan, myself, the best way I ken; and I'm sartain I shan't go without taking the chil'en along with me. Ho! ho! ho! Dat's what I shan't! De chil'en will have to be with Tiff, and Tiff will have to be with the chil'en, wherever dey is! Dat's it! He! he! he!"
"Tiff," said the young woman, her large blue eyes looking at him, "I have heard of the Bible. Have you ever seen one, Tiff?"
"Oh, yes, honey, dar was a big Bible that your ma brought in the family when she married; but dat ar was tore up to make wadding for de guns, one thing or another, and dey never got no more. But I's been very 'serving, and kept my ears open in a camp-meeting, and such places, and I's learnt right smart of de things that's in it."
"Now, Tiff, can you say anything?" said she, fixing her large, troubled eyes on him.
"Well, honey, dere's one thing the man said at de last camp-meeting. He preached 'bout it, and I couldn't make out a word he said, 'cause I an't smart about preaching like I be about most things. But he said dis yer so often that I couldn't help 'member it. Says he, it was dish yer way: 'Come unto me, all ye labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'"
"Rest, rest, rest!" said the woman, thoughtfully, and drawing a long sigh. "Oh, how much I want it! Did he saythatwas in the Bible?"
"Yes, he said so; and I spects, by all he said, it's de good man above dat says it. It always makes me feel better to think on it. It 'peared like it was jist what I was wanting to hear."
"And I, too!" she said, turning her head wearily, and closing her eyes. "Tiff," she said, opening them, "where I'm going, may be I shall meet the one who said that, and I'll ask him about it. Don't talk to me more, now. I'm getting sleepy. I thought I was better a little while after he came home, but I'm more tired yet. Put the baby in my arms—I like the feeling of it. There, there; now give me rest—pleasedo!" and she sank into a deep and quiet slumber.
Tiff softly covered the fire, and sat down by the bed, watching the flickering shadows as they danced upward on the wall, listening to the heavy sighs of the pine-trees, and the hard breathing of the sleeping man. Sometimes he nodded sleepily, and then, recovering, rose, and took a turn to awaken himself. A shadowy sense of fear fell upon him; not that he apprehended anything, for he regarded the words of his mistress only as the forebodings of a wearied invalid. The idea that she could actually die, and go anywhere, without him to take care of her, seemed never to have occurred to him. About midnight, as if a spirit had laid its hand upon him, his eyes flew wide open with a sudden start. Her thin, cold hand was lying on his; her eyes, large and blue, shone with a singular and spiritual radiance.
"Tiff," she gasped, speaking with difficulty, "I've seen the one that saidthat, and it's all true, too! and I've seen all why I've suffered so much. He—He—He is going to take me! Tell the children about Him!" There was a fluttering sigh, a slight shiver, and the lids fell over the eyes forever.
Death is always sudden. However gradual may be its approaches, it is, in its effects upon the survivor, always sudden at last. Tiff thought, at first, that his mistress was in a fainting-fit, and tried every means to restore her. It was affecting to see him chafing the thin, white, pearly hands, in his large, rough, black paws; raising the head upon his arm, and calling in a thousand tones of fond endearment, pouring out a perfect torrent of loving devotion on the cold, unheeding ear. But, then, spite of all he could do, the face settled itself, and the hands would not be warmed; the thought of death struck him suddenly, and, throwing himself on the floor by the bed, he wept with an exceeding loud and bitter cry. Something in his heart revolted against awakening that man who lay heavily breathing by her side. He would not admit to himself, at this moment, that this man had any right in her, or that the sorrow was any part of his sorrow. But the cry awoke Cripps, who sat up bewildered in bed, clearing the hair from his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Tiff, what the durned are you howling about?"
Tiff got up in a moment, and, swallowing down his grief and his tears, pointed indignantly to the still figure on the bed.
"Dar! dar! Wouldn't b'lieve her last night! Now what you think of dat ar? See how you look now! Good Shepherd hearn you abusing de poor lamb, and he's done took her whar you'll never see her again!"
Cripps had, like coarse, animal men generally, a stupid and senseless horror of death;—he recoiled from the lifeless form, and sprang from the bed with an expression of horror.
"Well, now, who would have thought it?" he said. "That I should be in bed with a corpse! I hadn't the least idea!"
"No, dat's plain enough, you didn't! You'll believe it now,won't you? Poor little lamb, lying here suffering all alone! I tell you, when folks have been sick so long, deyhasto die to make folks believe anything ails 'em!"
"Well, really," said Cripps, "this is really—why, it an't comfortable! darned if it is! Why, I'm sorry about the gal! I meant to steam her up, or done something with her. What's we to do now?"
"Pretty likely you don't know! Folks like you, dat never tends to nothing good, is always flustered when de Master knocks at de do'!Iknows what to do, though. I's boun' to get up de crittur, and go up to de old plantation, and bring down a woman and do something for her, kind of decent. You mind the chil'en till I come back."
Tiff took down and drew on over his outer garment a coarse, light, woollen coat, with very long skirts and large buttons, in which he always arrayed himself in cases of special solemnity. Stopping at the door before he went out, he looked over Cripps from head to foot, with an air of patronizing and half-pitiful contempt, and delivered himself as follows:
"Now, mas'r, I's gwine up, and will be back quick as possible; and now do pray be decent, and let dat ar whiskey alone for one day in your life, and 'member death, judgment, and 'ternity. Just act, now, as if you'd got astreakof something in you, such as a man ought for to have who is married to one of de very fustest families in old Virginny. 'Flect, now, on your latter end; may be will do your poor old soul some good; and don't you go for to waking up the chil'en before I gets back. They'll learn de trouble soon enough."
Cripps listened to this oration with a stupid, bewildered stare, gazing first at the bed, and then at the old man, who was soon making all the speed he could towards Canema.
Nina was not habitually an early riser, but on this morning she had awaked with the first peep of dawn, and, finding herself unable to go to sleep again, she had dressed herself, and gone down to the garden.
She was walking up and down in one of the alleys, thinking over the perplexities of her own affairs, when her ear was caught by the wild and singular notes of one of those tunes commonly used among the slaves as dirges. The words "She ar dead andgone to heaven" seemed to come floating down upon her; and, though the voice was cracked and strained, there was a sort of wildness and pathos in it, which made a singular impression in the perfect stillness of everything around her. She soon observed a singular-looking vehicle appearing in the avenue.
This wagon, which was no other than the establishment of Cripps, drew Nina's attention, and she went to the hedge to look at it. Tiff's watchful eye immediately fell upon her, and, driving up to where she was standing, he climbed out upon the ground, and, lifting his hat, made her a profound obeisance, and "hoped de young lady was bery well, dis morning."
"Yes, quite well, thank you, Uncle," said Nina, regarding him curiously.
"We's in 'fliction to our house!" said Tiff, solemnly. "Dere's been a midnight cry dere, and poor Miss Sue (dat's my young missis), she's done gone home."
"Who is your mistress?"
"Well, her namewasSeymour 'fore she married, and her ma come from de Virginny Peytons,—great family, dem Peytons! She was so misfortunate as to get married, as gals will, sometimes," said Tiff, speaking in a confidential tone. "The man wan't no 'count, and she's had a drefful hard way to travel, poor thing! and dere she's a lying at last stretched out dead, and not a woman nor nobody to do de least thing; and please, missis, Tiff comed for to see if de young lady wouldn't send a woman for to do for her—getting her ready for a funeral."
"And who are you, pray?"
"Please, missis, I's Tiff Peyton, I is. I's raised in Virginny, on de great Peyton place, and I's gin to Miss Sue's mother; and when Miss Sue married dis yer man, dey was all 'fended, and wouldn't speak to her; but I tuck up for her, 'cause what's de use of makin' a bad thing worse? I's a 'pinion, and telled 'em, dat he oughter be 'couraged to behave hisself, seein' the thing was done, and couldn't be helped. But no, dey wouldn't; so I jest tells 'em, says I, 'You may do jis you please, but old Tiff's a gwine with her,' says I. 'I'll follow Miss Sue to de grave's mouth,' says I; and ye see I has done it."
"Well done of you! I like you better for it," said Nina. "You just drive up to the kitchen, there, and tell Rose to give you some breakfast, while I go up to Aunt Nesbit."
"No, thank you, Miss Nina, I's noways hungry. 'Pears like, when a body's like as I be, swallerin' down, and all de old times risin' in der throat all de time, dey can't eat; dey gets filled all up to der eyes with feelin's. Lord, Miss Nina, I hope ye won't never know what 'tis to stand outside de gate, when de best friend you've got's gone in; it's hard, dat ar is!" And Tiff pulled out a decayed-looking handkerchief, and applied it under his spectacles.
"Well, wait a minute, Tiff." And Nina ran into the house, while Tiff gazed mournfully after her.
"Well, Lor; just de way Miss Sue used to run—trip, trip, trip!—little feet like mice! Lord's will be done!"
"Oh, Milly!" said Nina, meeting Milly in the entry, "here you are. Here's a poor fellow waiting out by the hedge, his mistress dead all alone in the house, with children,—no woman to do for them. Can't you go down? you could do so well! You know how better than any one else in the house."
"Why, that must be poor old Tiff!" said Milly; "faithful old creature! So that poor woman's gone, at last? the better for her, poor soul! Well, I'll ask Miss Loo if I may go—or you ask her, Miss Nina."
A quick, imperative tap on her door startled Aunt Nesbit, who was standing at her toilet, finishing her morning's dressing operations.
Mrs. Nesbit was a particularly systematic early riser. Nobody knew why; only folks who have nothing to do are often the most particular to have the longest possible time to do it in.
"Aunt," said Nina, "there's a poor fellow, out here, whose mistress is just dead, all alone in the house, and wants to get some woman to go there to help. Can't you spare Milly?"
"Milly was going to clear-starch my caps, this morning," said Aunt Nesbit. "I have arranged everything with reference to it, for a week past."
"Well, aunt, can't she do it to-morrow, or next day, just as well?"
"To-morrow she is going to rip up that black dress, and washit. I am always systematic, and have everything arranged beforehand. Should like very much to do anything I could, if it wasn't for that. Why can't you send Aunt Katy?"
"Why, aunt, you know we are to have company to dinner, and Aunt Katy is the only one who knows where anything is, or how to serve things out to the cook. Besides, she's so hard and cross to poor people, I don't think she would go. I don't see, I'm sure, in such a case as this, why you couldn't put your starching off. Milly is such a kind, motherly, experienced person, and they are in affliction."
"Oh, these low families don't mind such things much," said Aunt Nesbit, fitting on her cap, quietly; "they never have much feeling. There's no use doing for them—they are miserable poor creatures."
"Aunt Nesbit, do, now, as a favor to me! I don't often ask favors," said Nina. "Dolet Milly go! she's just the one wanted. Do, now, say yes!" And Nina pressed nearer, and actually seemed to overpower her slow-feeling, torpid relative, with the vehemence that sparkled in her eyes.
"Well, I don't care, if"—
"There, Milly, she says yes!" said she, springing out the door. "She says you may. Now, hurry; get things ready. I'll run and have Aunt Katy put up biscuits and things for the children; and you get all that you know you will want, and be off quick, and I'll have the pony got up, and come on behind you."
The excitement produced by the arrival of Tiff, and the fitting out of Milly to the cottage, had produced a most favorable diversion in Nina's mind from her own especial perplexities.
Active and buoyant, she threw herself at once into whatever happened to come uppermost on the tide of events. So, having seen the wagon dispatched, she sat down to breakfast in high spirits.
"Aunt Nesbit, I declare I was so interested in that old man! I intend to have the pony, after breakfast, and ride over there."
"I thought you were expecting company."
"Well, that's one reason, now, why I'd like to be off. Do I want to sit all primmed up, smiling and smirking, and running to the window to see if my gracious lord is coming? No, I won't do that, to please any of them. If I happen to fancy to be out riding, Iwillbe out riding."
"I think," said Aunt Nesbit, "that the hovels of these miserable creatures are no proper place for a young lady of your position in life."
"My position in life! I don't see what that has to do with it. My position in life enables me to do anything I please—a liberty which I take pretty generally. And, then, really, I couldn't help feeling rather sadly about it, because that Old Tiff, there (I believe that's his name), told me that the woman had been of a good Virginia family. Very likely she may have been just such another wild girl as I am, and thought as little about bad times, and of dying, as I do. So I couldn't help feeling sad for her. It really came over me when I was walking in the garden. Such a beautiful morning as it was—the birds all singing, and the dew all glittering and shining on the flowers! Why, aunt, the flowers really seemed alive; it seemed as thoughI could hear them breathing, and hear their hearts beating like mine. And, all of a sudden, I heard the most wild, mournful singing, over in the woods. It wasn't anything very beautiful, you know, but it was so wild, and strange! 'She is dead and gone to heaven!—she is dead and gone to heaven!' And pretty soon I saw the funniest old wagon—I don't know what to call it—and this queer old black man in it, with an old white hat and surtout on, and a pair of great, funny-looking spectacles on his nose. I went to the fence to see who he was; and he came up and spoke to me, made the most respectful bow—you ought to have seen it! And then, poor fellow, he told me how his mistress was lying dead, with the children around her, and nobody in the house! The poor old creature, he actually cried, and I felt so for him! He seemed to be proud of his dead mistress, in spite of her poverty."
"Where do they live?" said Mrs. Nesbit.
"Why, he told me over in the pine woods, near the swamp."
"Oh," said Mrs. Nesbit, "I dare say it's that Cripps family, that's squatted in the pine woods. A most miserable set—all of them liars and thieves! If I had known who it was, I'm sure I shouldn't have let Milly go over. Such families oughtn't to be encouraged; there oughtn't a thing to be done for them; we shouldn't encourage them to stay in the neighborhood. They always will steal from off the plantations, and corrupt the negroes, and get drunk, and everything else that's bad. There's never a woman of decent character among them, that ever I heard of; and, if you were my daughter, I shouldn't let you go near them."
"Well, I'm not your daughter, thank fortune!" said Nina, whose graces always rapidly declined in controversies with her aunt, "and so I shall do as I please. And I don't know what you pious people talk so for; for Christ went with publicans and sinners, I'm sure."
"Well," said Aunt Nesbit, "the Bible says we mustn't cast pearls before swine; and, when you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll know more than you do now. Everybody knows that you can't do anything with these people. You can't give them Bibles nor tracts; for they can't read. I've tried it, sometimes, visiting them, and talking to them; but it didn't do themany good. I always thought there ought to be a law passed to make 'em all slaves, and then there would be somebody to take care of them."
"Well, I can't see," said Nina, "how it's their fault. There isn't any school where they could send their children, if they wanted to learn; and, then, if they want to work, there's nobody who wants to hire them. So, what can they do?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Aunt Nesbit, in that tone which generally means I don't care. "All I know is, that I want them to get away from the neighborhood. Giving to them is just like putting into a bag with holes. I'm sure I put myself to a great inconvenience on their account to-day; for, if there's anything I do hate, it is having things irregular. And to-day is the day for clear-starching the caps—and such a good, bright, sunny day!—and to-morrow, or any other day of the week, it may rain. Always puts me all out to have things that I've laid out to do put out of their regular order. I'd been willing enough to have sent over some old things; but why they must needs take Milly's time, just as if the funeral couldn't have got ready without her! These funerals are always miserable drunken times with them! And, then, who knows, she may catch the small-pox, or something or other. There's never any knowing what these people die of."
"They die of just such things as we do," said Nina. "They have that in common with us, at any rate."
"Yes; but there's no reason for risking our lives, as I know of—especially for such people—when it don't do any good."
"Why, aunt, what do you know against these folks? Have you ever known of their doing anything wicked?"
"Oh, I don't know that I know anything against this family in particular; but I know the whole race. These squatters—I've know them ever since I was a girl in Virginia. Everybody that knows anything knows exactly what they are. There isn't any help for them, unless, as I said before, they were made slaves; and then they could be kept decent. You may go to see them, if you like, butIdon't wantmyarrangements to be interfered with on their account."
Mrs. Nesbit was one of those quietly-persisting people, whose yielding is like the stretching of an India-rubber band, givingway only to a violent pull, and going back to the same place when the force is withdrawn. She seldom refused favors that were urged with any degree of importunity; not because her heart was touched, but simply because she seemed not to have force enough to refuse; and whatever she granted was always followed by a series of subdued lamentations over the necessity which had wrung them from her.
Nina's nature was so vehement and imperious, when excited, that it was a disagreeable fatigue to cross her. Mrs. Nesbit, therefore, made amends by bemoaning herself as we have seen. Nina started up, hastily, on seeing her pony brought round to the door; and, soon arrayed in her riding-dress, she was cantering through the pine woods in high spirits. The day was clear and beautiful. The floor of the woodland path was paved with a thick and cleanly carpet of the fallen pine-leaves. And Harry was in attendance with her, mounted on another horse, and riding but a very little behind; not so much so but what his mistress could, if she would, keep up a conversation with him.
"You know this Old Tiff, Harry?"
"Oh, yes, very well. A very good, excellent creature, and very much the superior of his master, in most respects."
"Well, he says his mistress came of a good family."
"I shouldn't wonder," said Harry. "She always had a delicate appearance, very different from people in their circumstances generally. The children, too, are remarkably pretty, well-behaved children; and it's a pity they couldn't be taught something, and not grow up and go on these miserable ways of these poor whites!"
"Why don't anybody ever teach them?" said Nina.
"Well, Miss Nina, you know how it is: everybody has his own work and business to attend to—there are no schools for them to go to—there's no work for them to do. In fact, there don't seem to be any place for them in society. Boys generally grow up to drink and swear. And, as for girls, they are of not much account. So it goes on from generation to generation."
"This is so strange, and so different from what it is in the northern states! Why, all the children go to school there—the very poorest people's children! Why, a great many of the first men, there, were poor children! Why can't there be some such thing here?"
"Oh, because people are settled in such a scattering way they can't have schools. All the land that's good for any thing is taken up for large estates. And, then, these poor folks that are scattered up and down in between, it's nobody's business to attend to them, and they can't attend to themselves; and so they grow up, and nobody knows how they live, and everybody seems to think it a pity they are in the world. I've seen those sometimes that would be glad to do something, if they could find anything to do. Planters don't want them on their places—they'd rather have their own servants. If one of them wants to be a blacksmith, or a carpenter, there's no encouragement. Most of the large estates have their own carpenters and blacksmiths. And there's nothing for them to do, unless it is keeping dogs to hunt negroes; or these little low stores where they sell whiskey, and take what's stolen from the plantations. Sometimes a smart one gets a place as overseer on a plantation. Why, I've heard of their coming so low as actually to sell their children to traders, to get a bit of bread."
"What miserable creatures! But do you suppose it can be possible that a woman of any respectable family can have married a man of this sort?"
"Well, I don't know, Miss Nina; that might be. You see, good families sometimes degenerate; and when they get too poor to send their children off to school, or keep any teachers for them, they run down very fast. This man is not bad-looking, and he really is a person who, if he had had any way opened to him, might have been a smart man, and made something of himself and family; and when he was young and better-looking, I shouldn't wonder if an uneducated girl, who had never been off a plantation, might have liked him; he was fully equal, I dare say, to her brothers. You see, Miss Nina, whenmoneygoes, in this part of the country, everything goes with it; and when a family is not rich enough to have everything in itself, it goes down very soon."
"At any rate, I pity the poor things," said Nina. "I don't despise them, as Aunt Nesbit does."
Here Nina, observing the path clear and uninterrupted for some distance under the arching pines, struck her horse into a canter, and they rode on for some distance without speaking.Soon the horse's feet splashed and pattered on the cool, pebbly bottom of a small, shallow stream, which flowed through the woods. This stream went meandering among the pines like a spangled ribbon, sometimes tying itself into loops, leaving open spots—almost islands of green—graced by its waters. Such a little spot now opened to the view of the two travellers. It was something less than a quarter of an acre in extent, entirely surrounded by the stream, save only a small neck of about four feet, which connected it to the main-land.
Here a place had been cleared and laid off into a garden, which, it was evident, was carefully tended. The log-cabin which stood in the middle was far from having the appearance of wretchedness which Nina had expected. It was almost entirely a dense mass of foliage, being covered with the intermingled drapery of the Virginia creeper and the yellow jessamine. Two little borders, each side of the house, were blooming with flowers. Around the little island the pine-trees closed in unbroken semicircle, and the brook meandered away through them, to lose itself eventually in that vast forest of swampy land which girdles the whole Carolina shore. The whole air of the place was so unexpectedly inviting, in its sylvan stillness and beauty, that Nina could not help checking her horse, and exclaiming,—
"I'm sure, it's a pretty place. They can't be such very forsaken people, after all."
"Oh, that's all Tiff's work," said Harry. "He takes care of everything outside and in, while the man is off after nobody knows what. You'd be perfectly astonished to see how that old creature manages. He sews, and he knits, and works the garden, does the house-work, and teaches the children. It's a fact! You'll notice that they haven't the pronunciation or the manners of these wild white children; and I take it to be all Tiff's watchfulness, for that creature hasn't one particle of selfishness in him. He just identifies himself with his mistress and her children."
By this time Tiff had perceived their approach, and came out to assist them in dismounting.
"De Lord above bless you, Miss Gordon, for coming to see my poor missis! Ah! she is lying dere just as beautiful, just asshe was the very day she was married! All her young looks come back to her; and Milly, she done laid her out beautiful! Lord, I's wanting somebody to come and look at her, because she has got good blood, if she be poor. She is none of your common sort of poor whites, Miss Nina. Just come in; come in, and look at her."
Nina stepped into the open door of the hut. The bed was covered with a clean white sheet, and the body, arrayed in a long white night-dress brought by Milly, lay there so very still, quiet, and life-like, that one could scarcely realize the presence of death. The expression of exhaustion, fatigue, and anxiety, which the face had latterly worn, had given place to one of tender rest, shaded by a sort of mysterious awe, as if the closed eyes were looking on unutterable things. The soul, though sunk below the horizon of existence, had thrown back a twilight upon the face radiant as that of the evening heavens.
By the head of the bed the little girl was sitting, dressed carefully, and her curling hair parted in front, apparently fresh from the brush; and the little boy was sitting beside her, his round blue eyes bearing an expression of subdued wonder.
Cripps was sitting at the foot of the bed, evidently much the worse for liquor; for, spite of the exhortation of Tiff, he had applied to the whiskey-jug immediately on his departure. Why not? He was uncomfortable—gloomy; and every one, under such circumstances, naturally inclines towardssomesource of consolation. He who is intellectual reads and studies; he who is industrious flies to business; he who is affectionate seeks friends; he who is pious, religion; but he who is none of these—what has he but his whiskey? Cripps made a stupid, staring inclination toward Nina and Harry, as they entered, and sat still, twirling his thumbs and muttering to himself.
The sunshine fell through the panes on the floor, and there came floating in from without the odor of flowers and the song of birds. All the Father's gentle messengers spoke of comfort; but he as a deaf man heard not—as a blind man did not regard. For the rest, an air of neatness had been imparted to the extreme poverty of the room by the joint efforts of Milly and Tiff.
Tiff entered softly, and stood by Nina, as she gazed. He had in his hand several sprays of white jessamine, and he laid one on the bosom of the dead.
"She had a hard walk of it," he said, "but she's got home! Don't she look peaceful?—poor lamb!"
The little, thoughtless, gay coquette had never looked on a sight like this before. She stood with a fixed, tender thoughtfulness, unlike her usual gayety, her riding-hat hanging carelessly by its strings from her hands, her loose hair drooping over her face.
She heard some one entering the cottage, but she did not look up. She was conscious of some one looking over her shoulder, and thought it was Harry.
"Poor thing! how young she looks," she said, "to have had so much trouble!" Her voice trembled, and a tear stood in her eye. There was a sudden movement; she looked up, and Clayton was standing by her.
She looked surprised, and the color deepened in her cheek, but was too ingenuously and really in sympathy with the scene before her even to smile. She retained his hand a moment, and turned to the dead, saying, in an under-tone, "See here!"
"I see," he said. "Can I be of service?"
"The poor thing died last night," said Nina. "I suppose some one might help about a funeral. Harry," she said, walking softly towards the door, and speaking low, "you provide a coffin; have it made neatly."
"Uncle," she said, motioning Tiff towards her, "where would they have her buried?"
"Buried?" said Tiff. "O Lord! buried!" And he covered his face with his hard hands, and the tears ran through his fingers.
"Lord, Lord! Well, it must come, I know, but 'pears like I couldn't! Laws, she's so beautiful! Don't, to-day! don't!"
"Indeed, Uncle," said Nina, tenderly, "I'm sorry I grieved you; but you know, poor fellow, that must come."
"I's known her ever since she's dat high!" said Tiff. "Her har was curly, and she used to war such pretty red shoes, and come running after me in de garden. 'Tiff, Tiff,' she used to say—and dar she is now, and troubles brought her dar! Lord, what a pretty gal she was! Pretty as you be, Miss Nina. But since she marrieddat ar," pointing with his thumb over hisshoulder, and speaking confidentially, "everything went wrong. I's held her up—did all I could; and now here she is!"
"Perhaps," said Nina, laying her hand on his, "perhaps she's in a better place than this."
"Oh, Lord, dat she is! She told me dat when she died. She saw de Lord at last,—she did so! Dem's her last words. 'Tiff,' she says, 'I see Him, and He will give me rest. Tiff,' she says,—I'd been asleep, you know, and I kinder felt something cold on my hand, and I woke up right sudden, and dar she was, her eyes so bright, looking at me and breathing so hard; and all she says was, 'Tiff, I've seen Him, and I know now why I've suffered so; He's gwine to take me, and give me rest!'"
"Then, my poor fellow, you ought to rejoice that she is safe."
"'Deed I does," said Tiff; "yet I's selfish. I wants to be dere too, I does—only I has de chil'en to care for."
"Well, my good fellow," said Nina, "we must leave you now. Harry will see about a coffin for your poor mistress; and whenever the funeral is to be, our carriage will come over, and we will all attend."
"Lord bless you, Miss Gordon! Dat artoogood on ye! My heart's been most broke, tinking nobody cared for my poor young mistress! you's too good, dat you is!"
Then, drawing near to her, and sinking his voice, he said: "'Bout de mourning, Miss Nina.Hean't no 'count, you know—body can see how 'tis with him very plain. But missis was a Peyton, you know; and I's a Peyton, too. I naturally feels a 'sponsibility he couldn't be 'spected fur to. I's took de ribbons off of Miss Fanny's bonnet, and done de best I could trimming it up with black crape what Milly gave me; and I's got a band of black crape on Master Teddy's hat; and I 'lowed to put one on mine, but there wasn't quite enough. You know, missis, old family servants always wars mourning. If missis just be pleased to look over my work! Now, dis yer is Miss Fanny's bonnet. You know I can't be 'spected for to make it like a milliner."
"They are very well indeed, Uncle Tiff."
"Perhaps, Miss Nina, you can kind of touch it over."
"Oh, if you like, Uncle Tiff, I'll take them all home, and do them for you."
"The Lord blessyou, Miss Gordon! Dat ar was just what I wanted, but was most 'fraid to ask you. Some gay young ladies doesn't like to handle black."
"Ah! Uncle Tiff, I've no fears of that sort; so put it in the wagon, and let Milly take it home."
So saying, she turned and passed out of the door where Harry was standing holding the horses. A third party might have seen, by the keen, rapid glance with which his eye rested upon Clayton, that he was measuring the future probability which might make him the arbiter of his own destiny—the disposer of all that was dear to him in life. As for Nina, although the day before a thousand fancies and coquetries would have colored the manner of her meeting Clayton, yet now she was so impressed by what she had witnessed, that she scarcely appeared to know that she had met him. She placed her pretty foot on his hand, and let him lift her on to the saddle, scarcely noticing the act, except by a serious, graceful inclination of her head.