A Woman Named Smith Part 4

The doctor paused in his headlong flight.

"All right: laugh!" he said, darkly. "But I shall warn Jelnik, none the less!" And muttering: "_Sophronisba!_ Lord have mercy on us!

_Sophronisba!_" he departed hastily.

"What a nice neighbor!" commented Alicia. She added, musingly: "Sophy, this is an enchanted place--a place where one has good meals, bad advice, and black cats showered on one, free and gratis.

All one has to do is to stand still and take things as they come!"

"And hope one won't follow in the footsteps of one's predecessor, who was an unmitigated old devil."

"At least," said Alicia, laughing, "_he_'ll never live to be an old woman, will he, Sophy?"

"The man has the tact of a cannibal--"

"The shoulders of a Hercules--"

"An abominable temper--"

"And a beautiful beard. Somehow, Sophy, I rather approve of a beard, on somebody his size. I decidedly approve of a beard!"

"If his miserable hens come over here, I shall most certainly--"

"Keep the eggs. We'll tell him so when he comes again."

"Comes again? What, and my name Sophronisba?"

"My own grandmother had the second sight; and _I_ don't need spectacles," said Alicia. "Sophy, that man has come into our lives to stay. I feel it in my bones! It's not an unpleasant feeling," she finished gracelessly.

When Unc' Adam presently put in his appearance, he was profoundly impressed and respectful: we were brisk, unhaunted, and unafraid, after a night in Hynds House! The three colored women who had come with him, induced by cupidity and curiosity to enter ol' Mis'

Scarlett's ill-omened domain, at first hung back. They were plainly prepared to bolt at the first unusual noise.

Of the three, one--by name Mary Magdalen--proved to be a heaven-born, predestinated cook; and her we persuaded, by bribery, cajolery, and subornation of scruples, to remain with us permanently. Only, she flatly refused to stay on the place overnight. Darkness shouldn't catch Mary Magdalen under the Scarlett Witch's roof-tree.

There are certain gifted beings who possess the secret of bringing order out of chaos; for them the total depravity of inanimate objects has no terrors; inanimate objects become docile to their will. Such a one was Mary Magdalen. In two days she had transformed a sooty cavern into a clean and orderly kitchen. For she was a singing and a scourful woman, and her Sign was the speretual and the scrubbing-brush. It is true that she put a precious old Spode tea-pot on the stove and boiled the tea in it; that she hung her wig and the dish-towel on the same nail; and that she immediately asked for a white stocking foot to use as a coffee-bag.

"But don't you-all go bust no new pai'h," she advised economically.

"Ah 'd rathah make mah coffee in a ol' white stockin' foot any day, jes' so you ain't done wo' out de toes too much."

"Sophy," said the horror-struck Alicia, "that woman must be watched until we can buy a percolater. Suppose she's got 'a ol' white stockin' foot' of her own!"

Despite which there never was, never will be, such another cook as Mary Magdalen. It is true she wasn't amenable to discipline, and reason wasn't her guiding-lamp. And nothing--not bribes, threats, entreaties, prayers, orders, commands, moral suasion--could break her of doing just what she wanted to do just when and how she wanted to do it. You'd be entertaining your dearest enemies, serene in the consciousness that your house was a credit to your good management; and behold, Mary Magdalen in the drawing-room door, with her wig askew and her hands rolled in her ap.r.o.n:

"Oh, Miss Sophy!"

"Well?" say you, resignedly, with a feigned smile; "what is it, Mary Magdalen?"

"Miss Sophy, you know we-all's sugah?"

"Yes."

"Wellum, Miss Sophy, 't ain't any."

"I have already ordered more, Mary Magdalen."

"An' you know ouah flouah, Miss Sophy?"

"I--"

"Us ain't got a Gawd's speck!"

Then she would beam upon the visitors, all of whom were known to her.

"Howdy, Miss Sally! How you-all comin' on? Ah comin' 'round to see de baby soon 's Ah gits chanst." Or, "Lawsy me, Miss Jinny, dat boy o' yo's is jes' natch.e.l.ly bustin' outer da clo'es wid growin', ain't he? He jes' de spit o' he pa, bless 'im!"

Which untoward confidence didn't seem to surprise our visitors. They had Mary Magdalens of their own.

A few days later Doctor Geddes sent us Schmetz, the gardener, a gnarled little man with a peppery temper, a torrential flow of Alsatian French, and a tireless energy. I don't know why nor how Schmetz had come to Hyndsville, except that somehow he had acquired a small farm near by and couldn't get away from it. He explained to us, gently but firmly, that if we wouldn't meddle after the manner of women, but would leave his job in his own hands, it would be better for us, and for the garden. We meekly acquiescing, he called in helpers and with a wave of his hand set hoe and ax and spade to work.

The weather had changed into days of deep blue skies, splendid days full of the warmth of potential power; and nights filled with fragrance, nights of fierce beauty, and the glamour of golden moons, and the thrilling melody of that feathered Israfel, the mocking-bird. Through our open windows immense moths, spirits of the summer nights, drifted in on enameled and jeweled wings and circled in a fire-wors.h.i.+ping dance around our light.

Those were wonderful days. For that was a house of surprises, a house full of laid-by things. One never knew what one was going to find. One morning it might be a Ridgway jug all delicate vine leaves and faun heads, or an old blue-and-white English platter, or a piece of fine salt-glaze. On the top shelf of a long-locked closet, pushed back in the corner, you'd discover a full set of the most beautiful sapphire gla.s.sware, and a paG.o.da work-box with ivory corners; and on a lower shelf, wrapped in half a moth-eaten shawl, two glowing l.u.s.ter jugs in proof condition. Mary Magdalen salvaged a fine china sillabub stand, with little white-and-gold covered cups on it, from a sooty box under a kitchen cupboard. A back drawer of the dusty office desk yielded up half a dozen exquisite prints. And I'm sure Alicia will remember even in heaven the ecstasy she experienced when a battered bureau gave into her hands the adorable Bow figures of Kitty Clive and Woodward the actor, she pink-and-white, petticoated and furbelowed, lovely as when London went mad over her, and he c.o.c.ked-hatted and ruffled and dandified; and neither with so much as the least littlest chip to mar their perfection.

Or a hair trunk would reveal little frocks st.i.tched by hand, and a pair of tiny flat slippers with strings gone to dust like the little feet that had worn them. With these were two dolls, one dressed in sprigged India muslin and lace, with a shepherdess hat glued on her painted head; the other dressed in a poke-bonnet, a satin sack, and a much-flounced skirt. They had evidently belonged to "Lydia, our Darling Child," whose name, in unsteady letters, was painfully set down in the printed picture-books at the bottom of the trunk. These things that had belonged to a "darling child" so long dead lent the grim old house a softening touch. Poor old house, whose little children had all gone, so long ago!

It was the day we were taking up the beautiful old carpet in the back drawing-room. Alicia was rejoicing for the thousandth time over this treasure of hand-woven French art. Of a sudden, horrible yells rose from the garden, and a shrieking negro went by the window like an arrow. We caught "Murder!--Ol' Witch!--Corpses!" as he disappeared. Uncle Adam, catching his panic, bolted with him; the two negro women followed. Only Mary Magdalen, amazonian arms bare, a rolling-pin grasped in a formidable fist, stood like a rock of defense behind us.

"Ah jes' wants to catch any ol' corpses trapesin' 'round mah kitchin, trackin' up mah clean flo', an Ah 'll suah settle day hash once fo' all!" trumpeted Mary Magdalen.

Outside, Schmetz was jumping up and down, flapping his arms, and screaming in voluble French:

"Name of a dog! Senseless Senegambians, remain! Iron-skulled offspring of the union of a black mule and a pickax, cease to fly!"

"What is the matter? For heaven's sake? what is the matter?" I shouted.

"We done dig up de corpses! We done fin' wha'h dat ol' witch 'oman bury de bodies!" howled a workman in reply.

"Imbeciles, a.s.ses, beings without brains, listen to me!" shrieked Schmetz, this time in good English. "This corpse is not alive! Never yet was he alive! Return, sons of perdition, and a.s.sist me to raise him--may he fall upon your brain-pans of donkeys!"

As if that had been all that was needed, the last wavering workman flung down his shovel and took to his heels, running like a rabbit and roaring as he ran.

"Schmetz!" called a clear and peremptory voice. "Schmetz! what's the matter over there?"

"Ah! It is Monsieur Jelnik!" bawled Schmetz. "_Nom de Dieu_, Monsieur Jelnik, come with a great quickness! I have dug from the earth the leetle boy of stone--you know him, _hein_? Those n.i.g.g.e.rs, _sacrement_! they think they have uncovered the deceased corpse, the victim of Madame the late mistress, with which she made her spells of a sorceress."

"What!" said the voice. "You've found the statue, Schmetz? Ask, my good fellow, if it is permitted that I come and view it."

"Why, of course!" said I, quickly.

"Thank you," said the voice.