XXIXMARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN
The story of Mary Ann and Martha Ann and the red bonnet has been so often retold to my children and grandchildren that every detail has been retained, and in its completeness as I give it here, it is a bit of authentic family history “dressed up” as its hearers love it.
“What kin we do, Ma’y Ann? I dun hear Miss Liza talkin’ ’bout it agin, and ’lowin’ it got to be found.” The two little negroes sat under a wide-spreading pecan tree that scattered its shade and its late autumn nuts over the grassy lawn of a spacious Southern mansion. They crouched closely together, heads touching, voices whispering and faces turned to the river road, their scanty linsey skirts drawn tightly over little black legs, so that no searching eye from the broad veranda could spy them. Mary Ann looked anxiously around, and, drawing her knotty, kinky head closer still to Martha’s softer locks, whispered: “Marm Charlotte gwine to clean out de L, and you know she’ll go in dat room fust thing.”
Marthy sprang back with dilated eyes.
“Ma’y Ann, it carnt stay dar; it’s gotten to cum outen dar, oh Lordy! What did you put it dar in the fust place fur?”
“I didn’t put it dar.” Ma’y Ann’s eyes flashed. “You fotch it dar your own self, unner your apern; you sed it was yourn and Miss Ellen giv it to you.”
Marthy sprang to her feet. “Miss Ellen never giv me nothin’ in her whole life.” She shook her clenched fist in Ma’y Ann’s face, then burst into tears. The stolen conference, like many another that had preceded it, was opened in a spirit of mutual conciliation, but as the interview progressed and interest waxed, the poor little negroes became fierce in their alarm, fast losing sight of the turpitude of the deed committed in common in the over-mastering anxiety of each one to shift the entire blame on the other.
“Hush, gal, set down; I hear Marm Charlotte dis bery minit; she mustn’t kotch me under dis here pecon tree agin. I was down here yisterday, tryin’ to dig a hole where we’s settin’ now! I want ter berry de rotten thing. Marm Charlotte kotch’d me here, and she ax’d what I doin’ and I ’low’d I was gitten pecons fur de turkeys, and she ’sponded she low’d ter tell me when to feed de turkeys.”
Marthy Ann slowly resumed her seat, taking careto get well behind the pecan tree. She was nervously sobbing, “She’s kept me—a—lookin’ fur it—till I feared to go in—our—room—feared to find it—a settin’ on de baid—Oh, Ma’y Ann, what made you take hit?”
Ma’y Ann’s eyes flashed fire. She was of the heroic sort, and by no wise melted by Marthy’s lamentations and tears.
“I didn’t take hit; you tuck hit, and you know you did; you’s de biggest rascal on de place. You does a thing, den you goes whinin’ and cryin’ ’bout hit. I does a thing, I jist ’sponds fur hit and sticks hit out.”
Marthy wiped her eyes on the linsey skirt and tried to imbibe some of her companion’s courage.
“Well, Ma’y Ann, you put it whar tis and ghostes cum out ev’ry night and ties me wid de long, red strings.”
“No ghostes cum arter me,” said Ma’y Ann, bridling up. “Dat shows you put it dar your own self.”
“We ain’t got no time ter talk and fuss; we got ter find a place to put hit now. God knows it cums atter me ev’y night, and las’ night de debbel had it on, Ma’y Ann. I seed him; he jist strutted all around de room wid it on his haid and de ribbons was tied to his horns.”
“Oh, Lordy, Marthy, is he got hit now?” The terrified child sprang to her feet and gazed distractedly up the tree. “Marthy, we kin fling hit up in dis tree; won’t de debbil let hit stay in de crotch?”
The strained eyes eagerly searched for a sheltering limb that would catch and conceal the thing, the ghost of which would not lay, day or night. Marm Charlotte had never relaxed in her search, in bureaus, and armchairs, behind hanging dresses, in the big cedar chest, among the blankets, upon top shelves, in old bandboxes, in trunks, over bed testers, downstairs in china closets, among plates and dishes, under parlor sofas and over library bookcases. Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann had no rest. They made believe to search the garden, after the house had been pulled to pieces, going down among the artichoke bushes and the cherokee rose hedge that smothered the orchard fence, wishing and praying somebody might find it in one of those impossible places all torn by squirrels or made into nests by birds.
Christmas, with its turkeys and capons fattened on pecan nuts, its dances and flirtations in the wide halls of the big house, its weddings and breakdowns in the negro quarters, had come and gone. Thewhirr of the ponderous mill had ceased; the towering chimney of the sugar house no longer waved its plume of smoke by day nor scattered its showers of sparks by night. Busy spiders spun nets over big, dusty kettles, and hung filmy veils from the tall rafters. Keen-eyed mice scampered over the floors and scuffled in the walls of the deserted building whence the last hogshead of sugar and barrel of molasses had been removed, and the key turned in the great door of the sugar house. Tiny spears of cane were sprouting up all over the newly plowed fields. Drain and ditches were bubbling over, and young crawfish darting back and forth in their sparkling waters. The balmy air of early summer, freighted with odors of honeysuckle and cape jessamine, and melodious with the whistle and trill of mocking birds, floated into the open windows and doors of the plantation dwelling. The shadowy crepe myrtle tree scattered crimpy pink blossoms over the lawn. Lady Banks rose vines festooned the trellises and scrambled in wild confusion over the roof of the well house, waving its golden radiance in the soft, sunny air. Cherokee and Chickasaw hedges, with prodigal luxuriance, covered the rough wooden fences, holding multitudes of pink and white blossoms in thorny embrace, and shelteringthe secret nests of roaming turkey hens and their wild-eyed broods.
“Well, Levi, you’se dun your job, and it wus a big one, too.”
“Yes, William, I whitewashed as much as ten miles o’ fencing, and all de trees in de stable lot, besides de cabins and de chicken houses.”
“Ten miles o’ fencing,” replied William doubtfully. “I didn’t ’low dere wuz dat much on de whole plantation. Why, dey call hit ten miles from here to Manchac, and ’bout ten from here to Cohite.”
“I mean ten miles in and out; about five miles one side de fence and five miles de odder.”
“Oh! that-a-way,” said William dubiously. “Charlotte, give Mr. Stucker another dodger.”
The speakers were two negro men, one in the shirt sleeves and long apron that betokened the household cook, the other in the shiny, shabby “store clothes” of the town darky. They sat at the kitchen table, in front of a window commanding a view of newly whitewashed fences and trees. Etiquette required that William should play the rôle of host, on this, the last morning of the whitewasher’s stay. Charlotte had laid the cloth and placed the plates and knives for two, and served the fried bacon and hot corn dodgers to Mr. Levi Stucker, a free man, who had a house of his own and a wife towait on him and in view of this dignity and state was deemed entitled to unusual consideration.
“Lemme ask you, Charlotte,” said Stucker, carefully splitting his dodger, and sopping the hot crumbs in the bacon gravy, “is you missed ary thing outen de yard on dese premises? Caze I heard dem two little gals havin’ a big talk in dat room next to me last night; you knows dat’s a mighty weaky boardin’ ’tween dose rooms and a pusson don’t have to listen to hear. I bin hearin’ ’em movin’ ’bout and a whisperin’ most ginerally every night when dey ought most likely to be asleep. Las’ night a old owl was a squinchin’ on dat mulberry tree by de winder, and de shutter hit slammed. Dat woke dem gals up; it was atter midnight; dey was skeert, one on ’em begin to blubber and sed de debbil was dar to kotch ’em. From de way dey talked—(but it was mystifyin’, I tell you)—I ’lowed in my mind dem gals had stole somethin’, I couldn’t gather what, fur dey didn’t name no specials, but sure’s you born dey’s up to somethin’, and skeered to death ’bout its bein’ foun’ out.”
Charlotte stopped on her way to the frying pan with widening eyes and uplifted fork, and listened attentively, with an occasional jerk of the head toward William.
“Jist tell me,” pursued Levi, “if you ’low dosegals to have de run of de quarters, caze dey gits mischief in dere heads if dey run wid quarter niggers.”
“No, sir,” responded the woman emphatically, “dey never goes down dar; I’m keerful ’bout dat—onreason’ble keerful; no, sir, if I was to let ’em have the run o’ dat quarter lot dere would never be a cold biskit nor a cup o’ clabber in dis house de minit atter you put ’em outen your hands. No, sir, Mr. Stucker, if old Hannah, or ary of de sick niggers down dar wants anything from dis house dey got to send one of their own little niggers wid de cup or de pan, and I pintedly gives ’em what’s needed; dere’s nuff work for Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann ’bout dis house ’dout dey visitin’ at de quarters and waitin’ on quarter niggers. I bet, dough, dey’s bin in some mischief I ain’t had time to ferret out.”
After a pause she continued, “And you say you think dey done stole somethin’?”
“Yes,” answered Stucker, pushing back his chair and rising from the table; “yes, I understand somethin’ of dat natur’, if you has missed ary thing.”
“We did miss dat currycomb what William comb his har wid; it was a bran new, kinder stiff one, and he missed it last Sunday,” replied Charlotte.
“Dat jist fallen outen de winder, it warn’t lost,”interrupted William, who had been watching for a favorable opportunity to join the conversation.
“Yes, dem spawns foun’ hit outdoors, when I tole ’em I’d skin ’em if it wasn’t perjuced,” said Charlotte, turning to William, who thereupon relapsed into acquiescent silence.
“It warn’t no currycomb dey was talkin’ ’bout last night,” said Stucker, jerking first one leg then the other to free his shaggy breeches of dodger crumbs.
“Jist hold on a minit,” said Charlotte, stepping to the kitchen door and shouting, “Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann, whar’s you?”
“Here I is, ma’am, I’s comin’, yes ’em,” was responded from an upper porch, and the two little darkies scuffled down the back stairs.
“Jist you two run down to de orchard whar I kin see you all de time, hear me? All de time, and look fur dat Dominiker hen’s nest. I hear her cacklin’ down dar, and don’t neither of you dar’ cum back till you find it. If you cum back ’fore I call you, I’ll pickle you well. Run!”
Two little guinea blue cotton skirts whisked through a gap in the rose hedge and emerged in the deep grass of the orchard, before Charlotte turned back into the kitchen, satisfied they were at a distance, and still under her observation. LeviStucker meanwhile, having carefully tied his two weeks’ earnings in the corner of his red cotton handkerchief, and shared his last “chaw” of tobacco with William, swung his bundle from the end of his long whitewash pole and departed, with the shambling, shuffling gait of the typical Southern negro.
“I’m gwine upstairs, William, and I’ll ramshackle dat room till I find out what’s dar,” said the woman. She slowly mounted the stairs, down which the two culprits had so lately descended with flying feet, and turned into a small room on the servants’ gallery. She glanced around the bare apartment the two little negroes called their own. There was a battered trunk against the wall with a damaged cover and no fastening of any kind, a rickety chair and a bed. Charlotte tore the linsey dresses, homespun petticoats and check aprons from nails behind the door, shaking and critically examining each article. In the trunk she found remnants of rag dolls and broken toys and bits of quilt pieces that had been their playthings for time out of mind. There were no pockets to examine, no locks to pry open. “Dey don’t need no pockets to carry dere money in, and no locked up trunks fur dere jewelry,” Charlotte always said. It was her habit to go in and out their room freely, to see that it was kept in some kind of order and the bed regularly made up. The doorof the room was always open, and no means afforded for securing it on the inside. Notwithstanding these precautions of Charlotte, who practically accepted the doctrine of infant depravity, there was a mystery concealed in that room that at intervals almost throttled the two little negroes, and, strange to say, with all the woman’s vigilance, had slumbered months within sound of her voice. She rapidly threw the clothes on the window sill, turned the trunk inside out and pushed its battered frame into the middle of the floor.
Nothing now remained to be searched but the plain unpainted bed. It was neatly made up, the coarse brown blankets securely tucked in all around. Charlotte whisked that off and dragged after it the cotton mattress which rested on a “sack bottom,” secured by interlacing cords to the bed frame. There was revealed the hidden secret! Crushed quite flat and sticking to the sacking, long under pressure of the cotton mattress and the tossing and tumbling children, what trick of dainty beauty lay before her? It was so crumpled and smothered, torn and ragged, soiled with fleeces of cotton lint that had sifted through the bed seams, and covered with dust and grime that but for glimpses of its original form and color here and there it would never have been recognized. Charlotte snatched itout and fled to the porch to see if Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann were still down in the orchard. There they lay, prone in the soft grass, happy as only children, and black ones at that, can be. Four little ebony legs kicked up in the air, and the sound of merry shouts reached Charlotte’s ear.
“You’ll fly dem laigs to sum purpose yit, fur I lay I’ll git Marse Jim to giv you a breakdown dat’ll make dem laigs tired,” she said to herself. “You jist lay dar,” she muttered, as she descended the steps. “You needn’t waste your time (it’s a awful short one) lookin’ for aigs dat de ole Dominiker ain’t never laid yit.”
The deep window of the library was wide open, the sash thrown up and an easy lounging chair drawn to the veranda, on which reposed the towering form of the planter, lazily smoking a cigar, and looking off upon the broad, swift river at a passing steamboat, floating so high on its swelling waves that its deck was almost on a line with the top of the grass-covered levee. Its passengers, thronging the “guards” in the fragrance of a fine morning, seemed almost near enough to the spectator on shore to respond to a friendly nod of the head. The delicate lady of the mansion sat silently within, also watching the passing boat.
“I see some one waving a paper from theBelle Creole. I believe that’s Green. Yes, he has tied a handkerchief to his crutch, and is waving that.”
The planter rose as he spoke and stood for a moment for a better view. “Here, give me something, quick, to wave back at him.”
At this critical moment Charlotte appeared on the scene. “This will do,” he exclaimed, catching the velvet wreck from the astonished woman’s grasp and tossing it aloft, holding it by the long strings.
“Lord! jist see Marse Jim wid dat bonnet I dun foun’, dat you lost ’fore grinding time, Miss Liza, and whar you spec it was? Right onder Ma’y Ann’s bed.”
“My bonnet! for pity’s sake, only look at it. Look!”
“It don’t look much like a bonnet. It’s more like a red rag to make the turkeys gobble,” replied the master, disdainfully, throwing it to Charlotte.
“My bonnet I paid Olympe twenty dollars for, and never wore it but once; see the satin strings! And just look at the cape at the back! And the feather poppies!”
Charlotte straightened herself up, holding the crumpled bonnet and turning it around to show its proportions. It was of the “skyscraper” shape, made on stiff millinette, that is more easily brokenthan bent. Mashed sideways, it showed in its flattened state as much of the satin lining as of velvet cover.
“Levi Stucker ain’t no fool. He tole me and William he heard Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann whisperin’ and plannin’ in dere room nights till he was sure dey was a hatchin’ mischief, ef dey hadn’t already hatched more snakes dan dey could kiver, so I ’low’d I’d go and ramshackle dat room o’ theirn, and onder de baid, Marse Jim, ’twixt de sackin’ and de cotton baid, way onder de very middle, I found dis bonnet what I bin lookin’ fur ever since grindin’ time. Now, Marse Jim, dere ain’t no use in talkin’ to dem gals; dere ain’t no use in readin’ no caterkism to ’em, nor in Miss Liza telling no more tales to ’em ’bout dat liar Anifera, or sum sich name. No use in whippin’ ’em, nudder. If I’se whipped dem two niggers once fur not lookin’ fur dis bonnet when I sont ’em to, I’se whipped ’em forty times. Dat didn’t make ’em find what they hid demselves, and it ain’t going to do ’em no good now. Marse Jim, you jist got to skeer de very life outen ’em, and send ’em to de canefields. Dey is rascals and rogues.”
“Well, Charlotte,” he responded, “put the bonnet on this side, out of sight, and bring those children here. I’ll see what I can do.”
As Charlotte left he turned to his tender-hearted wife and told her, “It is important those little negroes should have a lesson that would be of some use. Charlotte is right on the subject of moral suasion as far as those little imps are concerned, so don’t let your kindness and sympathy interfere with my conduct of the case. Keep in the background, and I will give them a lesson they will not soon forget.”
“I can’t imagine what could have induced those children to make way with that bonnet,” said Miss Liza, meditatively, as she looked at the crumpled wreck on the floor.
“Perhaps mischief, perhaps accident. The thing is to make them acknowledge the theft. Entrenched as they are behind a whole barricade of lies and deceit, the thing is to make them capitulate,” replied the husband.
“Cum right in; don’t be modest now. Marse Jim sont fur you,” was heard in Charlotte’s bantering tone, as she appeared in the doorway, half-leading, half-dragging the reluctant culprits, who already began to sniff a coming battle. With some difficulty she marshaled them before the master and stood close at hand ready to offer moral support if the court of inquiry gave any signs of weakening, or to cut off retreat on the part ofthe little darkies if they became too alarmed to “stand fire.”
“Well, Mary and Martha, where have you been?” inquired Marse Jim, in his blandest and most conciliatory tone.
“Down in de orchard lookin’ for aigs fur Marm Charlotte.” “And we was findin’ some when she hollowed fur us to cum to de house.” “De Dominicker hen got nest in de haige.” “She’s settin’, too.”
“Hold on, hold on, don’t both of you talk at once. I didn’t ask about the hen’s nest. Have you been all over the orchard in the hot sun?”
“Yes, sir.” “Yes, sir, we goes anywhar fur Marm Charlotte.” “She sont us.” “Yes, sir, she sont us fur aigs.” “An’ we was findin’ sum too.” “Dat Dominicker hen——”
With uplifted restraining hand he said: “Hush, don’t both talk at once. Let me talk some. Did you go away down there without your bonnet?”
“We ain’t got no bonnet.” “Me and Ma’y Ann don’t wear bonnets, Marse Jim.”
“Yes, you have a bonnet. Isn’t this your bonnet?” the master said, in his quiet, inquiring tone, holding up before their bulging eyes the dilapidated wreck that they had not dared look at in all the months they had buried it out of sight. Ma’yAnn steadfastly turned her face away from the ghost. She bit her lips, but uttered not a word.
“No, Marse Jim—I—I—er, Marse Jim, I feel sick, sick,” stammered Marthy, as she trembled so she almost fell.
“Sick! Give me your hand.” She quickly recovered, and clasped the tawny paws behind her back. “Give me your hand; let me feel your pulse.” Reluctantly she proffered the hand. “There, now,” he said, letting the limp little hand fall to her side. “You feel chilly, don’t you? Go sit down on that step.” Marthy sidled slowly away, tears welling her eyes and her whole frame shaken with suppressed sobs.
“Stop dat cryin’; nobody ain’t doin’ nuthin’ to you; stop dat foolishness and listen to what Marse Jim is a sayin’ to you two onreasonable rapscallions,” said Charlotte, in a severe tone. She held Mary Ann (who was making ready to fly at the first opportunity) by the back of her neckband.
“Let Martha alone, Charlotte, she is weakening; we’ll talk about the bonnet to Mary Ann, she knows.”
“No, Marse Jim, I ’clar I never see dat bonnet in all my life; I ’clar I never did. I ’clar——”
“Hush,” said the master in a stern voice, “letme ask a question or two, and only answer what I ask.”
“Tell de truth, too,” ejaculated Charlotte, “onless you want de debbil to kotch you.”
“Give me your hand.” The child clutched at her cotton skirt with both hands. He reached out, quietly and forcibly took one skinny little black paw in his firm grasp. Drawing the shrinking, reluctant child toward him, he fixed his eyes upon her averted face. “Now look me right in the eye; everybody does that to people who are talking to them; look me in the eye. What made you hide that bonnet? Look at me when I am talking to you.”
“I didn’t neber see dat bonnet b’fore. I ’clar——”
“Stop, look at me; don’t look at Martha, she’s better.” The child’s eyes dropped. “Don’t look at the floor, look me in the eye.”
“Marse Jim, slap her; make her look at you.”
“Be quiet, Charlotte; she’s going to tell, I want to help her,” replied the imperturbable inquisitor in his blandest tones. Still holding the reluctant hand and drawing the figure more closely to him, he said, “You say you never saw this bonnet? How came it in your bed?”
There was a long pause. The little negro at last gathered herself up, and, with a gleam of inspiration,exclaimed: “Marse Jim, de rats put it dar—de rats runs all over dat floor nights. Me and Marthy Ann jist hears ’em jist toting things all around. Rats put it dar, Marse Jim, big rats.”
“Dat’s a lie,” said Charlotte, positively. “Nary rat on dat floor. Marse Jim, you jist foolin’ way your time on dese niggers.”
The baffled master turned toward the crouching figure on the steps. She was still trembling, her face buried in her hands. He saw she was ready to confess, but he was determined Mary Ann should acknowledge also.
“Have you a mammy, Mary Ann?” he inquired.
“No, Marse Jim; I ain’t got no mammy; I ain’t never had no mammy, and my daddy, he’s daid, and I ain’t——”
“Hush, I didn’t ask all that. If you haven’t a mammy there’s no one to care if you die. I am sure I don’t want little girls round the house that steal and lie. Nobody else would have you; nobody would buy you, and I can’t keep you here. It’s come to a pretty pass when a lady can’t lay her bonnet on the bed without you two little imps taking it and hiding it for months, and lying about it right straight along. You have no mammy to cry for you, and I don’t want you, and Miss Liza don’t want you. What can be done with you?”
Martha sobbed, on the veranda step, and Mary looked defiant, but no response came to that repeated inquiry. After a pause, Mary Ann bridled up; the matter in question seemed to be taking a broader range; the bonnet seemed to be merging in generalities, and might in time sink into the other question of what can be done with them. Martha’s courage also revived, so she could respond to the inquiry of her parentage.
“I ain’t neber had no daddy, and my mammy she’s married to long Phil now.”
The planter shifted his legs, looked abroad in a meditative way, then turned to the charge.
“Well, now, you girls want to tell us all you know about this,” holding up again before them the battered brim and crushed poppies and long, dingy ribbons. Martha buried her face again, and Mary was suddenly interested in the gambols of a squirrel in the pecan tree. Neither culprit would look at the evidence of their guilt. “What will become of you? I can’t keep you and nobody will buy a rogue; nobody wants you.”
“My mammy wants me, Marse Jim,” whimpered the scared Martha.
“No, your mother is Nancy, isn’t she? She’s a good woman and don’t want a rogue and a liar tied to her all her days.” Another long pause.“Come here, Martha, both of you stand by Charlotte and hold her hands. I will give you one more chance. Which—one—of—you—stole—that bonnet? Did both of you do it together? Who hid it? What made you do it?” There was a pause between the questions, not one word of response. Martha’s tears dropped on her little naked foot, while Mary Ann looked vacantly at the nimble squirrel in apparent indifference, not a muscle of her face giving any evidence of emotion.
“Marse Jim,” said Charlotte, whose impatience increased as she saw signs of action on the part of the inquisitor. “Marse Jim, what you gwine to do? It’s no use er whippin’ dese gals; dere hides is like cowhide and whippin’ ain’t no good noways fur liars. Killin’ is good for such.”
The planter rose from his chair, straightened his tired limbs and kicked the bonnet out of his way. “Bring them along, Charlotte. I’ll see what I can do.”
Charlotte, with a firm grasp of each child, followed the tall leader, who, as he turned into the hall, tossed a nod and a significant wink to his wife. She obediently rose and followed. In all the interview the mistress had remained a passive but interested spectator, feeling sure that at a critical moment a signal from her husband would afford her an opportunityto intervene. The master led his followers straight to the well-house, under whose vine-clad arbor reposed the dripping bucket, attached by a windlass to an endless chain.
“I think it best to drown them,” he quietly remarked. The little group filled the arbor. William and Billy, the gardener; Delia, the laundress; Lucy, the maid; Sawny, the “woodpile boy” and Oliver, who “went wid de buggy,” attracted by the spectacle, gathered around the outskirts. The story of the finding of the long lost bonnet had spread over the yard and premises; fragments had even wafted to “the quarters,” with the mysterious rapidity and certainty that always attended a household event in the old plantation days.
“Mary Ann first,” said the master, as catching her suddenly and firmly by the neckband of her dress and imprisoning her struggling legs by wrapping her skirts tightly around them, he held her over the well-hole, head a little down. The struggles and writhings of the child were of no avail in the grasp of the strong man. “I want you to tell the truth and promise never to tell another lie before I drop you down this well.” The child squirmed and screamed in the relentless clutch, swearing entire ignorance of the whole matter. Charlotte felt she must pile on the agony, so she saw “de debbildown dar wid his pitchfork, ready to ketch her.” That vision was too much for the now thoroughly alarmed little darky.
“I tuck it, Marse Jim, I tuck it,” she screamed.
“Will you ever steal again?” still holding her over the well, where in her own little reflection in the placid water she was convinced to her dying day she had seen “de debbil.”
“Neber, neber, ’fore God, neber agin.”
“Never tell another lie if I let you off?”
“Neber, Marse Jim; neber’s long as I lib. Please the Lord and Miss Liza, I’ll be a good little nigger; neber lie agin if you’ll lemme off dis time.”
While that harrowing scene was being enacted with the most determined and refractory of the little witches, and the spectators on the outskirts were convulsed with laughter—every one of them had at one time or another been suspected of the theft—Martha, the tearful, was on her knees, holding despairingly to Miss Liza’s skirts and imploring her “Jist to save me dis time, I’ll be good, I’ll neber tell anoder lie. I’se got a mammy dat will cry fur me, and I don’t want ter die. Oh! save me frum de debbil,” she screamed, when Charlotte’s voice proclaimed him at the bottom of the well. “Don’t let de debbil have your good little nigger.”
Confessions and promises being obtained, MaryAnn was placed upon her feet. Four little black legs flew down the backyard; two little guinea-blue skirts flipped over the cowyard fence and two little dusky spots vanished in the distance. William called after them to “clip it ’fore de debbil gits outen dat well.” Charlotte held her sides with outbursts of laughter that had been held in painful restraint.
“De debbil done skeer ’em more en Marse Jim,” Sawny remarked, as he shambled back to the woodpile.
“I think, my dear,” said the planter, linking his arm into that of his wife and returning to the library with her, “I think those children had a lesson that may last them all their lives. They had to be scared into a confession.”
“I hated to see them badgered,” she replied. “I dropped a few tears over Martha myself—perhaps,” with a smile, “she thought I was scared too.”
Charlotte came in and picked up the wreck. “Miss Liza, I’se goin’ to take dis bonnet, jist as it is, all tousled up and mashed and I’m gwine to make Ma’y Ann war it one day and Marthy Ann de next clean till dey gits sick o’ bonnets; dey shall war it till de chillen come home Sat-day. I ’spose dere’ll be sum laffin’ done when de chillen sees Ma’y Ann wid dat bonnet tied on her haid.”
Another winter had come and gone, and June was again filling the old plantation with its intoxicating odors and delicious melody. The little room on the back porch was darkened by a heavy curtain at the only window. A table drawn up by the rough wooden bed, made gay by a patchwork quilt, held a few medicine bottles, a cup and spoon; also a tumbler of pink and white roses. The quiet mistress moved about noiselessly, occasionally putting her cool hand upon the brow of the little sick negro, or gently stroking the thin, black fingers that lay listlessly upon the bright coverlet.
“Miss Liza, whar Ma’y Ann?” The lady turned her face from the questioner. After a moment’s hesitation she replied, cheerfully: “She’s all right, Martha.”
“Miss Liza, whar is she? Whar Ma’y Ann?”
“She’s down by the quarters now,” was the unsatisfactory response. The weary patient closed her eyes for a few moments, but it was evident that with the first consciousness, following a severe illness, the child’s thoughts turned to her old companion.
“She ain’t bin here sence I was tuk sick.” After a pause, “I want ter talk to Ma’y Ann ’bout sumthin’.”
“Tell me,” said the mistress, soothingly, “what it was you wanted to see Mary for.”
Both the little negroes had been ill of scarlet fever. The children of the household had not been allowed for weeks to come home for their Saturday holidays. Martha fell ill first, and Mary was removed into the room formerly occupied by Levi Stucker, where she soon fell a victim to the disease. The mistress and Charlotte only were allowed to minister to the invalids. Mary, the robust one of the two, the more mischievous, the one apparently better equipped for a struggle with disease, succumbed, after a few days of delirium. The busy hands were stilled, the flying feet arrested, the voluble tongue silenced, at the touch of the Angel of Death. The little body was carried past the “quarters” and beyond, to the negroes’ “burying ground,” where it lay in peaceful shadows of the trees the romping children loved so well. Martha lingered long on the mysterious border, fitfully fighting an apparently hopeless battle, the more tenderly and faithfully nursed by Mammy Charlotte, as the warm-hearted, childless woman realized the frail tenure of life held by the little negro whom she had ruled in varying moods of sternness and tenderness, untempered with judgment. With the fretful peevishness of convalescence, the sickchild whined repeated desires to know “Whar Ma’y Ann?”
“What is it you want to tell Mary Ann to-day, when she is not here? Can’t you tell me?” said the patient watcher.
“I jist want ter see her; I’se gwine ter tell you ’bout dat bonnet, Miss Liza, and she ain’t here, and I mout die; sometimes folkses dies of broke laigs, and my laigs is broke. I want Ma’y Ann ter know I ain’t goin’ outen dis world wid dat bonnet on my soul.”
The mistress drew closer to the bedside, stroked and patted the attenuated hand in a soothing way to quiet and compose the restless invalid.
“Maybe it’s jist as good Ma’y Ann ain’t here, Miss Liza. I kin tell de tale better’n when she is here to jine in.” After a pause, apparently to marshal her thoughts more clearly, the child proceeded: “Dat time Miss Ellen cum here, she tuk outen her trunk a red bonnet, and she sed she had two on ’em jist alike, dat her chillen had wore out, and she fotched ’em fur me and Ma’y Ann. I was in dar and seed de bonnet, and you tuk hit, don’t you ’member, Miss Liza? You tuk hit and sed no, Ma’y Ann and me had no use fur bonnets, and you know’d two pore little white gals at your church dat didn’t have none, and you was goin’ ter give ’em to dem.I went out and tole Ma’y Ann all ’bout hit, and she ’low’d if we had bonnets we cud go to church too. Well, we talked tergedder ’bout dose bonnets, and we plan we’d take ’em ennyhow, fust time we seed ’em. Well, one night Ma’y Ann runned right in here, in dat very door. I was in here den. I shet de door and stood against it, and onder her apern she had de bonnet. She didn’t find only one, but she grabbed dat. I tole her dat was the bery one Miss Ellen took outen her trunk, and me and Ma’y Ann, we tried it on our haids, ’fore dat bery piece o’ lookin’ glass stickin’ on de wall dere, and we ’greed ter watch till we kotch de udder one, so we hid it in dat trunk dar, behind you, Miss Liza, and ev’ry day we tried hit on. I want ter tell you all ’bout hit ’fore Ma’y Ann gits back frum de quarters. I dun know how long we kep’ hit in dat trunk, ontil one day dere was a awful fuss, eberybody skeered up, lookin’ fur your bonnet, dat was missin’. Me and Ma’y Ann was glad. We couldn’t find one of our bonnets now your’n wuz gone, too.”
“Didn’t you know you had taken my bonnet?” said the mistress, who was at last seeing through the mystery.
“Jist let me tell you de whole thing, Miss Liza. I bin layin’ here long time thinkin’ de straight uv hit, so Ma’y Ann can’t bodder me when I telled itto you. Ma’y Ann is dat sondacious she most make you b’lieve anythin’. No, Miss Liza, we never thought dat till one day I hear Miss Ellen say how nice dem red bonnets she brung did look on de Quiggins gals at church. Den Marm Charlotte, she begun agin ’bout your bonnet bein’ missed and she searchin’ fur hit all de time, and I hear her tell Sawny it wuz red and had black flowers on hit. Me and Ma’y Ann took de bonnet outen de trunk dat night and dere wuz de black flowers, jist like she sed, den we know’d you had give Miss Ellen’s bonnets to the Quigginses, and Ma’y Ann had stole your’n. We hefted dis baid and put de bonnet under hit, and, please Gord, Miss Liza, I neber seed dat bonnet agin till Marse Jim shuck hit at us dat day.”
“Why didn’t you come tell me what you had done, and why you had done it, when you first found it out?”
“Miss Liza, we was afeerd. Marm Charlotte kep’ sayin’ whoever had dat bonnet wud be hung, and de odder negroes talked back. Thank de Lord, dey never seed hit, so Ma’y Ann and me didn’t dar let on.”
“Didn’t you expect it would be found out some day?”
“Yes’em, I ’spec we did.”