Southern Lights and Shadows Part 13

"'That's. .h.i.t,' said Mammy, nodding to them. 'But I don't expect to hear from the other fif's. It don't make much diffunce, howsomever, bein' ez how the Bureau is gwine settle up.'

"The visitors evidently did not understand this. I explained what Mammy was after--you had told me, you know. They were very much amused, and asked a heap of questions. After a little talk between themselves, in which I could not help seeing that the young lady was very earnest, the gentleman asked:

"'Is the work for sale?' Was it for sale!"

My friend nearly prostrated me with a hearty punch by way of expressing his feelings, whilst I was choking for an answer.

"Well, sir, I gave him the figger. He bought so quick that it made me sick I hadn't asked more. Looker here!"

He displayed two new greenbacks which covered the amount. We embraced.

At last Mammy had become a source of revenue. I must, in justice to myself, record the fact that a resolve immediately took form in my mind that she also should be a beneficiary of my good fortune.

My friend wanted me to take the picture down myself. I told him that it was not ethical to do so. The precious burden was confided to his porter. When we returned to his store we found the gentleman there who had made the purchase. I was duly presented by my friend.

The gentleman said that he had not noticed my name on the picture particularly, nor on the receipt given by the merchant for the money, which gave the t.i.tle and painter of the work, until he had gotten back to the hotel, when his wife recognized it and remembered having been in my studio--a fine name for a small concern--in New York, and that we had many friends in common there.

The upshot of the matter was that the gentleman gave me an invitation to call at the Spottswood. I went the next day.

They were immensely amused and interested with any particulars about her.

The father--the names are immaterial, the young lady's was Elaine--asked me jocularly at what sum I estimated my fifth in Mammy. I had previously convinced him that we never had the remotest idea of parting with the old lady. Consequently we had never estimated her value, but that I thought my fifth at the time of the settling of the estate would have been about one hundred dollars. After I had made several visits, the three came to see my other picture.

The day after their departure Mammy called. She was in fine spirits over a visit that she had made to my new friends, at their earnest request. All the time that she was speaking she was working at a knot in the corner of her handkerchief. I knew that she kept her small valuables there, but was thunderstruck when she extracted two fifty-dollar bills.

"Why, Mammy! Where--"

"Dat's all right, honey. The Bureau gent'man fix it all, jess like I tole you. He said dat he done 'nquired, an' yo' fif' was wuth dat--two fifties, one hundred--an' I let him off de res."

"But what gentleman?"

"Dat gent'man whar was at de Spottswood Hotel. He tole me he wuz agent for de Bureau. An' I tell you, Mahs William, dey's quality, dem folks. You kain' fool Becky."

Of course I did not enlighten Mammy. What would have been the use?

Not many days thereafter I got a request to s.h.i.+p my "Dead Hopes," at my price, to the address of a frame-maker in New York. Elaine's father said that he had a purchaser for it. I discovered later that he was a master of pleasant fiction.

When I wondered, long after, to him that he should have bought a Confederate picture, he convinced me that my picture had nothing confederate in it; that he had inferred that I had painted it in a catholic spirit. The lady was in mourning, the flowers faded, the letters too small for postmark, the picture on the wall a colorless photograph, and the sword a regulation pattern common to both armies. He thought it very skilfully planned, and complimented me on it. I was silent. All the Confederate part and point had been in my mind.

About a year after this--I had been located in New York some months--Elaine and I came on a visit to Richmond. I might just as well say that it was our bridal trip.

We looked up Mammy in her comfortable quarters. She had been well provided for. There was some little confusion in her mind at first as to who Elaine was, but on being made to understand, called down fervent blessings upon her head.

"Now the old lady kin go happy. I always said that I had nussed Mahs William, an' of I jess could live long 'nuff to--"

Elaine cut in rather abruptly, I thought.

"Why, Mammy, what a beautiful vine you have on your stoop!"

"What's stoop, honey? Dat's a poach."

Mammy lived some years longer, aging comfortably, and unvexed by any question of fractions. She died a serene integer, with such comfortable a.s.surance of just valuation as is denied most of us, and contented that it should be expressed in terms that were, to her, the only sure criterion applicable to her race.

An Incident

BY SARAH BARNWELL ELLIOTT

It was an ordinary frame house standing on brick legs, and situated on a barren knoll, which, because of the dead level of marsh and swamp and deserted fields from which it rose, seemed to achieve the loneliness of a real height. The south and west sides of the house looked out on marsh and swamp; the north and east sides on a wide stretch of old fields grown up in broom-gra.s.s. Beyond the marsh rolled a river, now quite beyond its banks with a freshet; beyond the swamp, which was a cypress swamp, rose a railway embankment leading to a bridge that crossed the river. On the other two sides the old fields ended in a solid black wall of pine-barren. A roadway led from the house through the broom-gra.s.s to the barren, and at the beginning of this road stood an outhouse, also on brick legs, which, save for a small stable, was the sole out-building. One end of this house was a kitchen, the other was divided into two rooms for servants. There were some shattered remnants of oak-trees out in the field, and some chimneys overgrown with vines, showing where in happier times the real homestead had stood.

It was toward the end of February; a clear afternoon drawing toward sunset; and all the flat, sad country was covered with a drifting red glow that turned the field of broom-gra.s.s into a sea of gold; that lighted up the black wall of pine-barren, and shot, here and there, long shafts of light into the sombre depths of the cypress swamp. There was no sign of life about the dwelling-house, though the doors and windows stood open; but every now and then a negro woman came out of the kitchen and looked about, while within a dog whined.

Shading her eyes with her hand, this woman would gaze across the field toward the ruin; then down the road; then, descending the steps, she would walk a little way toward the swamp and look along the dam that, ending the yard on this side, led out between the marsh and the swamp to the river.

The over-full river had backed up into the yard, however, and the line of the dam could now only be guessed at by the wall of solemn cypress-trees that edged the swamp. Still, the woman looked in this direction many times and also toward the railway embankment, from which a path led toward the house, crossing the heap of the swamp by a bridge made of two felled trees.

But look as she would, she evidently did not find what she sought, and muttering "Lawd! Lawd!" she returned to the kitchen, shook the tied dog into silence, and seating herself near the fire, gazed sombrely into its depths. A covered pot hung from the crane over the blaze, making a thick bubbling noise, as if what it contained had boiled itself almost dry, and a coffee-pot on the hearth gave forth a pleasant smell. The woman from time to time turned the spit of a tin kitchen wherein a fowl was roasting, and moved about the coals on the top of a Dutch oven at one side. She had made preparation for a comfortable supper, and evidently for others than herself.

She went again to the open door and looked about, the dog springing up and following to the end of his cord. The sun was nearer the horizon now, and the red glow was brighter. She looked toward the ruin; looked along the road; came down the steps and looked toward the swamp and the railway path.

This time she took a few steps in the direction of the house; looked up at its open windows, at the front door standing ajar, at a pair of gloves and a branch from the vine at the ruin, that lay on the top step of the piazza, as if in pa.s.sing one had put them there, intending to return in a moment.

While she looked the distant whistle of a locomotive was heard echoing back and forth about the empty land, and the rumble of an approaching train. She turned a little to listen, then went hurriedly back to the kitchen.

The rumbling sound increased, although the speed was lessened as the river was neared. Very slowly the train was moving, and the woman, peeping from the window, watched a gentleman get off and begin the descent of the path.

"Ma.s.s Johnnie!" she said. "Lawd! Lawd!" and again seated herself by the fire until the rapid, firm footstep having pa.s.sed, she went to the door, and standing well in the shadow, watched.

Up the steps the gentleman ran, pausing to pick up the gloves and the bit of vine. The negro groaned. Then in the open door, "Nellie!" he called, "Nellie!"

The woman heard the call, and going back quickly to her seat by the fire, threw her ap.r.o.n over her head.

"Abram!" was the next call; then, "Aggie!"

She sat quite still, and the master, running up the kitchen steps and coming in at the door, found her so.

"Aggie!"

"Yes, suh."

"Why didn't you answer me?"

The veiled figure rocked a little from side to side.

"What the mischief is the matter?" walking up to the woman and pulling the ap.r.o.n from over her face. "Where is your Miss Nellie?"

"I dun'no', suh; but yo' supper is ready, Ma.s.s Johnnie."

"Has your mistress driven anywhere?"