FEW days after the disaster in the family chapel, my mother's cousin, Mrs. Bray, came to see us, bringing her daughter Lucy. Their home had been in Henrico County, but Mr. Bray had "the western fever." My mother and Aunt Eliza Carter said so in my hearing before the Brays' visit, and when they arrived I was surprised to see him looking so well and strong and that he had a hearty appetite. They were on their way to Ohio, travelling in their own carriage, and having also along with them a huge covered wagon, drawn by four fine horses, and packed full of furniture. This wagon was rolled into an empty carriage-house and kept there, locked up, while they stayed.
They had planned to spend Sunday with us, just to say "Good-by," and to move on, on Monday. On Saturday night, Cousin Mary Bray was taken ill, and before morning the tiniest baby I ever saw was born. It was very weak, too, and cried like a kitten all the time it was awake. The mother had to be kept perfectly quiet. The dogs were sent to "the quarters," and everybody went about on tiptoe and talked in whispers. It was very dreadful until Monday morning, when an enchanting change was made in domestic arrangements.
The house was a rambling building, with three separate staircases—none of them back stairs—and two wings, besides what I made my father laugh by calling "the tail," in which was "the chamber." Cousin Mary Bray's room was in the second story of the south wing, which was connected by a corridor with the main house. In the north wing was a lumber room that had once been used as a bedroom, and had a good fireplace. Mam'Chloe set a couple of men to pile trunks, old chairs, bedsteads, and the like, in one corner, and two maids to sweeping and cleaning up the dust; and when half of the room was empty and "broom-clean," had a fire kindled, and our playthings and ourselves taken over to that end of the house. In the corner farthest from the fire were heaped a mattress, a feather-bed, some old blankets and comfortables, and this became, forthwith, our favorite resort. Even Mary 'Liza entered into the fun of climbing upon the pile that let us sink down,down, ever so far, and, pulling the blankets over us, making believe that we were in a big covered wagon, and going to Ohio. Our dolls, and a few other toys, went with us, and we munched ginger cakes and apples, and played that it was night and we were to sleep in the wagon, and that the wind howling under the eaves was wolves, roaring 'round and 'round the camp-fire, looking for little girls to eat. Mary 'Liza was Mr. Bray, I was CousinMary, Lucy was just herself, and she did her part well.
On Tuesday, which I heard Mam' Chloe say to my mother in a solemn sort of way was "the third day," our dinner was brought upstairs. We set the table for ourselves by covering a packing-box with an old sheet, and putting our plates and mugs and the dishes holding our food upon it. Mary 'Liza was at the foot of the table, I at the head, and Lucy sat up, prim and well-behaved, at the side, saying, "Yes, ma'am," to me and, "No, thank you, sir," to Mary 'Liza. We were making merry over the feast when the door opened and my mother came in with her maid Marthy, who had a plate in her hand with three round cakes on it. Pound-cake, baked in little pans, and warm from the oven! I danced and screamed for joy. Mary 'Liza sat still, her hands in her lap, and said, "Thank you," when her cake was put on her plate. Lucy laughed all over her face without saying anything, but when my mother sat down on a chair to rest after climbing the stairs, the child ran to her and put both arms around her neck and laid her cheek on her shoulder.
I can see her now—the picture was so pretty! Her hair was dark brown and waved naturally away from her forehead, making her face rather oval than round; her gray eyes were clear and large, and, when she was not smiling or talking, there was a serious shadow far down in them. She had a dear little mouth, and I liked to make her laugh that I might see the dimples come and go in her cheeks.
Her frock was a new material to Mary 'Liza and me,—bright red, with a tiny black clover leaf dotting it. They called the stuff "oiled calico," and, by putting my nose close to it, I could distinguish an odor that was something like oil. What we knew as "Turkey red," many years later, resembled it somewhat, but the oiled calico was much finer and softer.
My mother lifted the slight figure to her lap, and I pressed close to her other side, nibbling my cake, crumb by crumb, to make it last longer. I had a habit of swallowing my goodies as soon as I got them. Mary 'Liza always put aside part of hers "until next time."
At Christmas I had made a valiant effort to be economical and forehanded, and got the plantation carpenter to knock together a savings-bank for me, with a hole in the top. Into this I put half of the candy, raisins, and almonds given to me in the holidays and for a fortnight afterward. The self-denial went hard with me, but I consoled myself each night with the anticipation of opening day. The end of the fortnight arrived at last. I promised my sable cohort such a spread in the playhouse as it and they had never beheld. Barratier, Mariposa's brother, borrowed a hammer and chisel from "the shop," and pried off the lid. All crowded close to peep in. The box was almost full. Sticksof peppermint candy, with ribbons of red and white winding about them (a barber's pole reminds me of them to this hour); lollipops, also of peppermint, that would just go into my mouth and let the roof down and the teeth meet; cubes of amber lemon candy; and, most delicately delicious of all, squares of pink rose-candy that dissolved upon the tongue and smelt like the Vale of Cashmere to the very last grain; bunches of raisins, which we—and Jacky Horner—called "plums"; almonds, palm-nuts, filberts; small ginger cakes of a cut and size that Aunt 'Ritta would not make for us unless she were in a particularly good humor;—the sight called forth a round-eyed and round-mouthed "Aw-w-w!" from the heads packed in a solid circle, as necks craned eagerly forward.
For five heavenly minutes I was a fairy-godmother, a Lady Bountiful, with whom the ability to give was coequal with the desire. I made them sit down in rows on the carpeted boards. I hope there was not sacrilege in thinking, as I gave the order, how and where a similar command had been spoken. Beginning with the babies, I put a bit of candy upon each greedy palm, bidding my pensioners wait until I gave the signal to eat it. Then I took a pink cube between my thumb and finger, waved it theatrically above my head, and popped it into my mouth. Every other mouth opened simultaneously.
Even now I hurry over the telling. The treasure-chest was of green pine boards. The contents were so strongly impregnated with turpentine that not a morsel was eatable. The weest pickaninny spat it out and squalled because the turpentine burned his tongue.
I could dwell tearfully—possibly profitably—upon the moral of the adventure, had I not left Lucy Bray all this time on my mother's lap, and myself fingering the oiled calico in covetous admiration.
"Mother," I said, "I wish, next time you go to Richmond, you would buy me a frock like this. Don't you think it is pretty?"
"Very pretty, Molly. But I do not like to have you wear cotton in the winter. I am afraid you might catch fire. Haven't you a worsted frock that you can put on to-morrow, Lucy? It would be safer while you children are up here so much alone."
Lucy was an old-fashioned little body from being the only child for so long and being so much with her mother. Instead of answering directly, she stopped to think, a pucker drawn between her brows with the effort.
"I don't believe I have, Cousin Mary," she said slowly. "'Most all my best clothes are packed up, and the trunks are in the wagon. We didn't mean to stay here more than two days, you know. It wouldn't be worth while to unpack the trunks, I s'pose? Mamma will be well enough to go on to Ohio pretty soon, won't she?"
"I hope so, dear."
My mother drew her up to her and kissed the brown head. She, too, was thoughtful.I supposed that she was wondering if she would better unpack those trunks. I was not glad that Cousin Mary Bray was sick, but I was in no hurry for her to get well enough to travel. I had never had another visitor whose ways of playing suited me as well as Lucy's. She was a year older than I, and a year younger than Mary 'Liza, and she got along beautifully with both of us. Then there was her cat, Alexander the Great, that she was taking to Ohio with her. He was the biggest cat any of us had ever known, with a coat of the longest, softest fur you can imagine, all pure gray, without a white or black hair on him, and he had lots of fun and sense. Mary 'Liza wanted, at first, to make believe that he was a hungry wolf, but Lucy would not hear of it until I proposed he should be a tame wolf we had taken when he was a baby and trained to defend us. He really seemed to understand what was expected of him, and when we lay down in the feather-bed andhuddled close together under the covers, and whispered, as the wind screamed around the corners of the house:—
"There they are again! Don't you s'pose they'll be afraid of the fire? Wolves always are, you know,"—and Lucy would answer:—
"Faithful Alexander will take care of us."
Alexander would prowl up and down the room and stalk around the bed, never offering to get upon it, until we called out to one another:—
"Another morning, and we are still safe!"
Then, he would leap into Lucy's arms, and purr, and tickle her nose with his whiskers, until she couldn't speak for laughing. She had had him ever since he was born, and he slept on the foot of her bed at night. While she sat in my mother's lap, he was winding himself in and out between her feet, his tail carried aloft like a soldier's plume, and purring almost as loudly as a watchman's rattle. My mother looked down, presently, at him, and checkedthe absent-minded passes of her hand over Lucy's hair.
"Give him some milk, Marthy," she said, smiling. "I wish you had a coat like his, Lucy. I shouldn't be afraid then of your taking cold, or of your going too near the fire. Marthy! to-morrow you must hunt up a fender to put here, and see if one of your Miss Mary 'Liza's last winter's frocks won't fit Miss Lucy. It would do very well for her to play in. We must take good care of her while—this bad weather lasts."
I fancy she would have finished the sentence differently but for fear of saddening the child by intimating that her mother might be ill for a long time. She kissed Lucy in putting her down, and patted my shoulder, telling me to "be a good girl and very kind to my cousin."
"I am glad you all are so comfortable and happy here," she added. "I could not have you downstairs just now. Carry these things down, Marthy, and run up every little whileto see how the young ladies are getting on. Be sure and keep up a good fire, Mary 'Liza, my dear. I trust you to look after the other children."
When she had gone I went to the window and flattened my nose against the glass to peer into the storm. It was a dormer-window, and the March snow was drifted high upon the roof on both sides of it, and upon the jutting eaves above it, until I looked out, as through a tunnel, into the jutting tree-tops. Beyond was a mad whirl of snowflakes that hid the nearest hills. The wind whined and scolded, and now and then arose into a hoarse bellow. I shivered, and slipped my cold hands up the sleeves of my stuff frock. We had circassian frocks for every day, and merino for Sundays. Our under petticoats were of flannel, and we wore, outside of these, quilted skirts interlined with wool. My mother had a nervous dread of fire.
A shriek of laughter turned me to the more cheerful scene behind me. Alexander theGreat was chasing his own tail as violently as if he had just discovered it and considered it as an offence to his dignity. Lucy was clapping her hands to egg him on, and Mary 'Liza had sat down upon the pile of bedding to laugh at her ease. Before leaving the room Marthy had piled wood upon the andirons as high as she could reach up the chimney-throat without grazing her hands in withdrawing them, as was the rule in fire-architecture on Virginia plantations. The March wind, finding its way through many a crack and cranny, beat at the flames until they flared this way and that. The cat dashed dizzily across the hearth, and Lucy, with a cry of alarm, darted forward to snatch him from the dangerous neighborhood. She caught hold of him, and pulled him away, and the draught whipped her skirts into the hottest heart of the fire.
It was the work of an instant. The oily dressing of the cotton fabric may have made it the more inflammable. Rooted to the floor by horror, I saw a column of flame flash pastme to the door, and heard the piercing wail grow fainter down the stairs.
My mother heard it in the distant room where the sick woman was sleeping quietly, the tiny baby on her arm. Shutting the door as she came out, the hostess flew across the house to the north wing, and met the burning child on the stairs. Eluding her by keeping close to the wall, she gained the upper room, saw, at one wild glance that her own little ones were safe, tore a blanket from the bed, overtook Lucy at the stair-foot, and smothered the flames with it.
HE details of Lucy Bray's death were told to me by others. My childish recollection held every feature of that first awful scene as tenaciously as if the flames had kindled upon me, and not upon my hapless playfellow. What followed is a hazy kaleidoscope, lurid and vague, until my scattered thoughts settled to the perception that I was making a long visit at Uncle Carter's and sharing Cousin Molly Belle's room and bed.
She made me a new rag-doll-baby while I was there. That was the first thing that"brought me round," as Aunt Eliza phrased it. For one whole day when it was raining and blowing out of doors, I had eyes and thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that miraculous doll-baby, as she grew and glowed into an entity under the fingers of my best-beloved crony. She was a blonde after she ceased to be a blank. Her eyes were blue, her cheeks were shaded carmine; she had a real nose raised above the dead level of her countenance, stuffed artistically, and kept in shape by well-applied stitches. Finally,—and half a century thereafter I thrill in thinking of it,—an intellectual cranium was covered with a cunningly fashioned wig of Cousin Molly Belle's own silky auburn hair.
This last and transcendent touch was added after I went to bed one night. The superb creation, arrayed in a lovely light purple French calico frock that could be taken off at night and put on in the morning, and sure enough underclothes, all tucked and trimmed, smiled from my pillow into my eyes when Iunclosed them at the touch of the morning light.
I christened my beauty "Mollabella," and would not change the name for her maker's gentle remonstrances and all my college cousin Burwell's teasing.
Musidora had lapsed, little by little, into chronic invalidism, spending much of her time in bed. She was uncomely to any eyes but mine, and I would not subject her to unkind criticism. Her case was made hopeless by the officious kindness of Argus, a Newfoundland puppy, in bringing her to the playhouse one day after I had purposely left her tucked up snugly under three blankets inside of my reversed cricket by the dining-room fire. The attention was well meant, and he could not be expected to know that to drag sickly Musidora by the left leg through the mud until the infirm member parted company with the body, and to finish the journey with the head between his teeth, was not a happy device by which to win her owner'sregard. I forgave him, in time, but Musidora was, after this last misadventure, a problem. I wondered much, sadly and silently, what other little girls did with doll-babies who died natural deaths. Not like Rozillah, who was never mentioned in my hearing, unless I were very naughty indeed, and heroic treatment was indicated.
The day after my return home, the question was solved.
In the fortnight of my absence great changes had befallen our household. Lucy and her mother and the tiny scrap of a baby had died, and been laid under the snow in the Burwell burying-ground on the hillside beyond the Old Orchard. Mr. Bray had gone to Ohio along with the big covered wagon. Alexander the Great went with him in the carriage. With tears in her sweet eyes, my mother told me how fond the father was of Lucy's pet, and how strangely the cat had acted in staying on Lucy's grave all the time until Mr. Bray took him away by force and carried him off in the carriage with him.
From my retinue of vassals I had, in the chicken playhouse, a fuller and more circumstantial account of all that had passed during those gloomy days. The pleasant weather that succeeded the March snowstorm had given place to a cold, sweeping rain. I scampered as fast as I could across the yard to my castle, my red cloak over my head, and we had to shut the door to exclude the slant sheets of rain. All gathered in the upper end of the room where my chair stood, the only seat there except the floor. To the accompaniment of hissing rain and angry winds, the gruesome particulars of the triple funeral were narrated. Mariposa—with the baby on her lap—was chief spokeswoman, but nearly every one present had some item of his own, authentic or imaginary, to add. All were sure that the three whose fate had aroused the whole county to a passion of pity and regret were angels in heaven.
The Birth of Mollabella."I had eyes and thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that miraculous doll-baby."
The Birth of Mollabella.
"I had eyes and thoughts for nothing except the evolution of that miraculous doll-baby."
"Mammy,shesay, s'long as po' Miss Lucy was bu'n' so bad, 'twas mussiful fur to let her go," said Mariposa, rolling the babyover on his pudgy stomach, and patting his back to "bring up the wind." "Shesay,efone o' we-alls was to get bu'nt or cripple', or pufformed, or ennything like that, she's jes' pray all night an' all day—'Good Lord,take'em! Heavenly Marster! put 'em out o' they mizzry!' An' Ung' Jack,hesay, seems ef everything that's put in the groun' comes up beautifuller 'n 'twas when it went in. He tell how the seeds,theytu'n into flowers, an' apples an' watermillions, an' all that, an' how folks tu'n inter angills."
I cried myself to sleep that night. My mother, kept wakeful, doubtless, by her own sad thoughts, heard the sobs I tried to stifle with the bedclothes, and came to me with talk of the dear Saviour who had taken little Lucy to his arms, and of her happiness in being forever with the Lord.
I did not tell her—what child would?—that, while I missed and grieved for the companion of those three happy days, a deeper heartache forced up the tears.
For I knew now what must be done with Musidora.
I had taken her to bed with me that night for the first time in many weeks. Mary 'Liza was amused, in an amiable way, when she saw the bundle done up in red flannel—Musidora's rheumatism wasawful!—that I hugged up to me.
"I never let Dorinda sleep with me," she observed. "I am afraid of hurting her. But I suppose you can't hurt Musidora. Why don't you give her to one of the colored children? She is really a sight."
"Nobody asked you to look at her!" retorted I, crossly, putting my hand over the unfeatured face. "Mam' Chloe says, 'Handsome is as handsome does.' Anyhow, my doll-baby doesn't say mean things to folks."
The little bout raised the tear-level nearer to the escape-pipe. It was easy to cry when Mary 'Liza's breathing assured me that she was asleep. It also confirmed my resolution to have the poor, deformed dear dead and buried without useless delay.
I cannot decide what moved me to bear her off secretly to the seldom-used staircase in the north wing to prepare her for her last long sleep. I escaped thither the next morning, as soon as lessons were over, and seated myself half-way up the steep staircase. It was scarred in many places by fire and smoke. No amount of scrubbing could quite efface the traces of the catastrophe. I looked at them for a long time before beginning my sad task, and did not shrink from the sight. My state of mind was distinctly morbid. Children were not reckoned to have nerves at that date, and little notice was taken of their silent moods. That I should voluntarily seek a solitary quarter of the house, which was shunned by others, never entered my mother's or my nurse's mind.
I had abundance of time in which to be as miserable as I thought I ought to be, and diligently nursed such sickly, sentimentalfancies as ought to be foreign to a healthy young mind, while I divested maimed and sightless Musidora of her flannel mufflings and dressed her in a clean night-gown. Without saying what I meant to do with it I had begged a square of white cambric from Mam' Chloe, and set about notching it with a pair of blunt scissors. Mariposa had described a winding-sheet minutely to me, and I meant that my dead doll-baby should be decently laid out. The notching took a tedious time, and the bows of the blunt scissors left purple furrows upon thumb and fingers. Uncle Ike had given me an empty raisin box. I lined it with Musidora's own mattress and quilt, spread the "pinked" cambric on them, laid the remains (no figurative phrase in this connection) upon this bed, folding the one arm left to the unfortunate across her breast, and wrapped the edges of the winding-sheet over her face. With difficulty I coaxed the points of four projecting nails left in the lid into corresponding holes in the box, and havingno hammer, sat down upon the top to make them fast, bouncing up and down a few times to make a good job of it.
I sat still awhile after closing the casket, and rehearsed mentally the order of the obsequies. I had, thus far, made no arrangements for them beyond instructing the colored children to meet me in the Old Orchard under the big sweeting when the sun reached the "noonmark" my father had, to please me, cut in the fence by the playhouse door. They would be there in force and on time. I would get myself and burden out of the end door of the north wing and steal around the yard fence to the back of the garden without being seen. I knew how Mary 'Liza would smile and hitch up her straight, clean nose at the box and its contents, and I had a boding fear lest grown people might disapprove of and forbid the funeral.
Upon that my heart was fully set. The grief of losing the ceremony would be harder to endure than the delicious mournfulnesswith which I had systematically imbued my soul. I chose four boys of uniform size for pall-bearers; Barratier was to have a spade ready and to dig the grave, and when it was filled in we would sing a hymn. Mourning garments were the knotty point. I, as Musidora's mother, could not appear at her funeral in the crimson circassian frock I wore at present. That would upset everything.
A happy thought struck me. I recollected to have seen in the lumber-room, hanging upon some pegs high upon the wall, a row of old bonnets, and a black one among them. Other black things could be had for the hunting. I was a fanciful child, too used to conjuring up weird situations and make-believe happenings to be easily scared by what other children might dread. Nor was I then, or ever, a physical coward. As soon as the idea of visiting that upper room came to me I acted upon it. Tripping up the narrow stairs, I pushed hard against thedoor. It stuck in the frame, and I was fearing it might be locked when it gave way suddenly and I almost fell into the chamber. It was a dreary place, although the spring sunshine poured broadly from wall to wall. The charred brands of the fire that had wrought such woe were cold in the corners of the hearth, having toppled, head-foremost and backward, over the andirons after burning through in the middle. The old blankets and comfortables were huddled upon the mattress and trailed upon the floor, as my mother had left them in snatching one to throw about Lucy. A ball with which Alexander the Great had played was in a corner. But for the dead fire and the living sunshine and the stillness that met me on the threshold like a draught of icy air, we might have left the place not three minutes ago.
I learned, subsequently, that my mother had been sadly prostrated by the terrible threefold disaster, and had never had the nerve to re-visit the place where it began. None of theservants would have gone near it of their own free will. A queer, unfamiliar tremor I did not recognize as superstitious dread contracted my heart, and arrested me just within the doorway. The box, from which we had eaten our dinner, was in the middle of the floor, the three crickets pushed a little way back from it, and half-way between the fireplace and a window in the gable was the rocking-chair my mother had occupied while she held Lucy on her lap. Faded calico covered the seat, a valance of the same hung about the legs; two of the upright spindles were missing from the back. I took in every feature of the haunted room before I rushed over to the wall where the bonnets hung, climbed upon a chair, grabbed the black bonnet, and espying a black silk apron dependent from another peg, jerked it down, and ran off shakily, with my booty. The queer trembling had got into my legs, and as I went downstairs I steadied myself against the wall, avoiding, as I had not thought of doing as I went up, the scorched streaks on thewalls and the stains on the steps. Even after I stood in the safe shelter of the garden fence, my heart beat so loudly that I put the raisin box down upon the grass, and pulled myself together.
The sunshine was genial to my chilled frame; through the palings I could see double rows of hyacinths, tulips, and butter-and-eggs, edging the walks, and bushes of lilacs and snowballs almost in bloom, just as they had looked before I went up to the lumber-room. The serene naturalness of it all restored my wits to me; I unrolled the apron which I had wrapped about the bonnet, and reawakened, as from a nightmare, to the business of the hour.
When I presented myself to the group awaiting me under the big sweeting, a low, but fervent, groan of admiration broke forth as from one breast. The bonnet covered my head generously, jutting six inches beyond my nose. The crêpe curtain at the back descended to my shoulder-blades and flapped at the sides like the wings of a dejected crow. I had madea mourning-cloak of the apron by tying it, hind part before, about my neck, whence it drooped to my heels. Mariposa said—respectful of the genius manifest in my caparison—that I looked "mos' ezzac'ly like a real, sure-'nough widder." The boys were impressed into gravity becoming the occasion, and obeyed, with never a snicker or a grimace, my instructions as to the conduct of the ceremony.
I walked directly behind the coffin; Mariposa, with the baby on her left hip, marched next, arm-in-arm with another girl, who carried her baby—a very young one—over her shoulder, its head wobbling helplessly as she walked. The rest came after us, two-and-two, through the Old Orchard, out through the draw-bars at the lower end, and into the graveyard beyond.
It was a retired, and not an unlovely spot. A brick wall, splashed with ochre and gray lichens, enclosed six generations of dead Burwells and their next of kin. A locked gate kept out trespassers. Long streamers of brier and wild berry bushes, purple and ashywith the mantling sap drawn upward by the March sunshine, were matted over the older graves; a spreading "honey-shuck" tree arose near the middle of the badly kept square, and smaller trees flourished here and there. An apple tree, flushed with blossoms, leaned over the wall above the place selected for Musidora's grave.
Barratier struck his perpendicular spade into the black soil in a truly workmanlike manner, utilizing the foundation of the wall as one side of the oblong pit. The coffin was lowered into place by means of tow-strings, provided by thoughtful Mariposa. There was no reason, save her punctilio of "doin' things jes' like folks," why Barratier, or I, for that matter, should not have stooped and laid the casket in the eighteen-inch-deep hole with our bare hands. But lowered it was in funereal style, and covered with apple blossoms, before the bearers returned the black earth to the excavation and mounded it into proper shape. I stood at the head of the grave, my handkerchief at my eyes,trying with all my might to feel sorry enough to cry. The excitement of the conventional ceremonies, and the complacent consciousness of being the principal actor in it, and doing the thing creditably, drew the sting out of what would have been real grief had the flutter of my spirits allowed me to think. I believe that, if maturer mourners would be as frank as I, we should find that my experience was not singular, nor my reluctant composure unnatural.
Mariposa had her emotions better in hand. She sobbed volubly, wiping away real tears with the baby's calico slip, and three other girls accomplished commendable snivels. An embarrassing halt brought down my handkerchief and hushed audible mourning. The affair was not over. Every eye was riveted expectantly upon me, and I had forgotten what came next. Mariposa plucked my cloak and whispered in my ear:—
"Thar oughter be a pra'ar now!"
The propriety of the suggestion was obvious. I had seen pictures of funerals and knewhow the officiating clergyman appeared in committing "dust to dust, ashes to ashes." But there was the fear aforementioned of breaking a Commandment by addressing the Almighty in a make-believe service.
"'Tain't a fun'ral 'thout thars a pra'ar!" Mariposa muttered insistently.
Nerved by the exigency, I lifted both hands and eyes toward the sky:—
"World without end, Amen and Amen!"
"A-a-men!" groaned my faithful lieutenant. Her emphasis assured me that the inspiration I had obeyed was a felicitous touch. She pressed still closer to me, mindful of my dignity, and prompted me further, in an artistic mutter, without using her lips.
"The services o' this solemn 'casion will be close' by er hymn."
I uttered it as if she had not given the cue, and "lined out" the hymn I had pitched upon as eminently appropriate for the "solemn 'casion."
"When I can read my title clearTo mansions in the skies."
Mariposa raised the tune and carried it, the rest of the band screaming in her wake.
"I'll bid farewell to every fearAnd wipe my weeping eyes,"
I continued in a nasal sing-song.
The chorus was plain sailing before a spanking breeze;
"And wipe my weeping eye-eye-eyes!And wipe my weeping eye-er-ese!I'll bid farewell to every fearAnd wipe my weeping eyes."
Like the echo of the final screech a fearsome wail arose from within the enclosure,—a long-drawn cry, repeated while we stared into one another's blanched faces, too affrighted for words.
Mariposa was the first to recover the use of her tongue and limbs.
"Th' ghos' o' the little baby!" she yelled, and took to her nimble heels at a rate that made it impossible for the fleetest of her fellow fugitives to overtake her.
I was left all alone.
EANING against the outside of the brick wall, too stunned to join in my companions' stampede, I yet did not lose my senses. Neither did I cry out or whimper. Children have gone into convulsions and become idiotic for less cause. I was phenomenally healthy, and, as I have said, no coward. Before the hindmost deserter gained the draw-bars my reason was on the return path. I had the signal advantage above my comrades of not believing in ghosts. My father had asserted to me positively, once and again, that no such things existed, and put himself to much trouble to explain natural phenomena thatare often misinterpreted by the ignorant and superstitious into supernatural manifestations. His orders were strict that the servants should never retail ghost stories in our hearing; and he was obeyed by the elder negroes. Mam' Chloe, whatever may have been her reserved rights of private judgment, backed him up dutifully with the epigram:—
"Folks that's gone to the bad placecan'tget out to come back, an' them that's in heaven don'twantto."
The cry I had heard certainly sounded like the weak wail of Cousin Mary Bray's skinny little baby, but God and the dear angels would never let the helpless, tiny mite wander back to earth alone. My mother had said to me, last night, that it would never cry any more.
"It was in pain all the while it was here," she reminded me. "It never awoke that it did not begin to cry. Think how sweet it must be for it not to suffer now. I think that God sent for it to come to heaven because He was so sorry for it."
Strength flowed into my soul with the recollection. My mother never said what was not exactly true. Happy, safe, and saving faith of childhood in a parent's wisdom, a parent's word, a parent's power!
Curious, rather than frightened, I stepped over Musidora's grave, and hurried around to the locked gate. Two unsodded mounds were near the entrance. One was long, and one short. Stretched upon this last was something that moved slightly and cried again, yet more piteously, when I called to it. The sight sent me flying like a flushed partridge through the Old Orchard to the garden fence, over it and up the middle walk of the garden. While yet afar off, I saw my father standing there talking with the gardener. Evidently the scattered horde had not spread an alarm. My father turned at my loud panting, and eyed me with astonishment. Without pausing to consider why he should be amazed, I caught hold of him and shrieked my news:—
"Father! father! it is Alexander the Great come back to look for Lucy!"
My father seldom scolded. He more rarely punished without inquiry. He was stern now and spoke sharply.
"What is the meaning of this nonsense, Molly? You are forever getting up some new sensation. There is such a thing as having too much 'make-believe.' I would rather have a little sensible truth now and then."
"But, father, really and truly—" chokingly, for his words were as drawn swords to my loving heart.
He pushed my hand away from his arm.
"When you look and behave less like a crazy child, I will hear what you have to say. Where did you get those things?"
I wished that the ground would open and swallow me away from his cold, contemptuous eye. I had forgotten my ridiculous costume entirely. The shame and humiliation of having exposed myself to his just criticism, theadded disgrace of the grinning gardener's enjoyment of the figure I had cut—the absurd coal-scuttle of a bonnet hanging down my back, the black silk apron streaming behind me like a half-inflated balloon—overwhelmed me with speechless confusion. I hung my head in an agony.
"Where did you get them, I say?" repeated my father.
"Up in the lumber-room," I stammered, faintly and sheepishly.
"Go, put them back where you found them! Then, come to me. As I was saying, James—"
He went on with his directions to the gardener.
I slunk away, forgetful of everything except my personal discomfiture, dodging from one clump of shrubbery to another, lest I should be seen from the windows of the house, going almost on all-fours in exposed stretches of walk or garden-beds, and so making my retreat to the side door of the north wing.I had stripped off the hateful masquerade habiliments and rolled them into a compact bundle, but anybody who met me would ask what I was carrying under my arm, and I could bear no more that day. Unable to contain myself a minute longer, I sank down in the solitude of the steep staircase leading to the lumber-room, and had my cry—if not out—so nearly to the end that I felt adequate to making my judge see reason,—if only he would not look at me as if he were ashamed of his daughter! Was it very wrong to take those things on the sly? Would I be punished for it? Had he told my mother yet? And did Mary 'Liza know about it? I could never, never tell her that I had worn thenastybonnet and cloak as mourning to Musidora's funeral. I would be whipped first.
Crying again in anticipation of the dilemma, I trudged slowly up the steps, and pushed back the door, which stuck fast again although I did not recollect shutting it.
"Just's if somebody was leaning againstit!" said I, pettishly, and flung my whole weight against the lower panel.
The door flew back and I fell headlong, face downward, on the floor, the bundle flying ahead of me clear to the hearth. I picked myself up, rubbed my smarting palms and, in a vile humor, recovered the detestable cause of all the trouble. I boxed the lop-ears of the bonnet, and gave the apron a vicious shake, in restoring them to their respective pegs. Then, I backed down from the chair on which I had been standing, and started for the door. A feeble cry stopped me as if a shot had passed through me.
The room was in afternoon shadow, and the blinds of the larger of the two windows had blown shut. The cry quavered out again, and at the same instant I saw—or verily believed that I saw with my natural eyes—Cousin Mary Bray seated in the rocking-chair between the hearth and the window, holding a baby in her arms. She was rocking gently back and forth, her face was pale and peaceful, and shewore a sort of dim gray dress. Thus much I had seen when my father called loudly to me from the bottom of the steps:—
"Molly! what are you doing up there? Come down directly! do you hear?"
The apparition disappeared on the instant, and as I moved toward the door, I stumbled over something soft that mewed miserably. In a second I had it in my arms,—a rack of bones covered with muddy, tangled gray fur,—and rushed down the stairs.
"I told you so, father! don't you see? It is Alexander the Great. Now, isn't it?"
Will it be believed that the commotion attendant upon the recognition of the wanderer, the talk, conjectures and questions, the nursing and feeding, and cosseting the creature who was at the point of death from starvation and fatigue—put all thought of revealing what I had beheld in the haunted chamber out of my head, until, when I recalled it in all its vividness, I simply could not speak of it? It was all like a swift, bad dream, the telling ofwhich might revive the unpleasant sensation it created in passing. I do not pretend to explain a child's reserve on subjects which have gone very far into the deeps of a consciousness that never lets them go. Perhaps the solution is partly in the poverty of a vocabulary which lags painfully behind the development of thought and emotion. Certain it is that I was a woman grown before I ever confided to a living soul what I thought sat in the rocking-chair in the haunted room, brooding peacefully above a quieted baby.
Lucy's cat—guided by what instinct only his Creator and ours knows—had found his way to her grave over two hundred miles of fen, field, and forest. Not finding her there, he had tracked me to the room where she had last played with him. When carried to other parts of the house, he cried piteously all day and all night. When the north wing was locked against him, he went back to the grave and could not be coaxed away. Finally, my mother proposed that he be allowed to stay there, until coldweather. He was the plantation-pet all summer, growing plump, but never playful, with nourishing food and rest. His meals were sent to him twice a day, but he partially supported himself by catching birds and field-mice in the burying-ground, which he never left. We got used to his presence there after a while, and his habit of patrolling the top of the wall, several times a day, for exercise, or under the impression that he was guarding the short green mound where he slept every night.
As the winter approached repeated efforts were made to tempt him to the house, and when they were ineffectual my father took him there in his own arms. The cat refused food and sleep, keeping the household awake with his cries, and in the morning flew so savagely at his jailers that we were obliged to let him go.
The fiercest tempest known in mid-Virginia for forty years beset us on the anniversary of Lucy's death, and raged for three days. When the drifts in the graveyard melted, we found Alexander the Great dead at his post.