Toward the close of an early summer afternoon, a little girl came running along the turnpike to where a boy stood wriggling his feet in the dust.
“Old Aunt Ailsey's done come back,” she panted, “an' she's conjured the tails off Sambo's sheep. I saw 'em hanging on her door!”
The boy received the news with an indifference from which it blankly rebounded. He buried one bare foot in the soft white sand and withdrew it with a jerk that powdered the blackberry vines beside the way.
“Where's Virginia?” he asked shortly.
The little girl sat down in the tall grass by the roadside and shook her red curls from her eyes. She gave a breathless gasp and began fanning herself with the flap of her white sunbonnet. A fine moisture shone on her bare neck and arms above her frock of sprigged chintz calico.
“She can't run a bit,” she declared warmly, peering into the distance of the long white turnpike. “I'm a long ways ahead of her, and I gave her the start. Zeke's with her.”
With a grunt the boy promptly descended from his heavy dignity.
“You can't run,” he retorted. “I'd like to see a girl run, anyway.” He straightened his legs and thrust his hands into his breeches pockets. “You can't run,” he repeated.
The little girl flashed a clear defiance; from a pair of beaming hazel eyes she threw him a scornful challenge. “I bet I can beat you,” she stoutly rejoined. Then as the boy's glance fell upon her hair, her defiance waned. She put on her sunbonnet and drew it down over her brow. “I reckon I can run some,” she finished uneasily.
The boy followed her movements with a candid stare. “You can't hide it,” he taunted; “it shines right through everything. O Lord, ain't I glad my head's not red!”
At this pharisaical thanksgiving the little girl flushed to the ruffled brim of her bonnet. Her sensitive lips twitched, and she sat meekly gazing past the boy at the wall of rough gray stones which skirted a field of ripening wheat. Over the wheat a light wind blew, fanning the even heads of the bearded grain and dropping suddenly against the sunny mountains in the distance. In the nearer pasture, where the long grass was strewn with wild flowers, red and white cattle were grazing beside a little stream, and the tinkle of the cow bells drifted faintly across the slanting sunrays. It was open country, with a peculiar quiet cleanliness about its long white roads and the genial blues and greens of its meadows.
“Ain't I glad, O Lord!” chanted the boy again.
The little girl stirred impatiently, her gaze fluttering from the landscape.
“Old Aunt Ailsey's conjured all the tails off Sambo's sheep,” she remarked, with feminine wile. “I saw 'em hanging on her door.”
“Oh, shucks! she can't conjure!” scoffed the boy. “She's nothing but a free nigger, anyway—and besides, she's plum crazy—”
“I saw 'em hanging on her door,” steadfastly repeated the little girl. “The wind blew 'em right out, an' there they were.”
“Well, they wan't Sambo's sheep tails,” retorted the boy, conclusively, “'cause Sambo's sheep ain't got any tails.”
Brought to bay, the little girl looked doubtfully up and down the turnpike. “Maybe she conjured 'em on first,” she suggested at last.
“Oh, you're a regular baby, Betty,” exclaimed the boy, in disgust. “You'll be saying next that she can make rattlesnake's teeth sprout out of the ground.”
“She's got a mighty funny garden patch,” admitted Betty, still credulous. Then she jumped up and ran along the road. “Here's Virginia!” she called sharply, “an' I beat her! I beat her fair!”
A second little girl came panting through the dust, followed by a small negro boy with a shining black face. “There's a wagon comin' roun' the curve,” she cried excitedly, “an' it's filled with old Mr. Willis's servants. He's dead, and they're sold—Dolly's sold, too.”
She was a fragile little creature, coloured like a flower, and her smooth brown hair hung in silken braids to her sash. The strings of her white pique bonnet lined with pink were daintily tied under her oval chin; there was no dust on her bare legs or short white socks.
As she spoke there came the sound of voices singing, and a moment later the wagon jogged heavily round a tuft of stunted cedars which jutted into the long curve of the highway. The wheels crunched a loose stone in the road, and the driver drawled a patient “gee-up” to the horses, as he flicked at a horse-fly with the end of his long rawhide whip. There was about him an almost cosmic good nature; he regarded the landscape, the horses and the rocks in the road with imperturbable ease.
Behind him, in the body of the wagon, the negro women stood chanting the slave's farewell; and as they neared the children, he looked back and spoke persuasively. “I'd set down if I was you all,” he said. “You'd feel better. Thar, now, set down and jolt softly.”
But without turning the women kept up their tremulous chant, bending their turbaned heads to the imaginary faces upon the roadside. They had left their audience behind them on the great plantation, but they still sang to the empty road and courtesied to the cedars upon the way. Excitement gripped them like a frenzy—and a childish joy in a coming change blended with a mother's yearning over broken ties.
A bright mulatto led, standing at full height, and her rich notes rolled like an organ beneath the shrill plaint of her companions. She was large, deep-bosomed, and comely after her kind, and in her careless gestures there was something of the fine fervour of the artist. She sang boldly, her full body rocking from side to side, her bared arms outstretched, her long throat swelling like a bird's above the gaudy handkerchief upon her breast.
The others followed her, half artlessly, half in imitation, mingling with their words grunts of self-approval. A grin ran from face to face as if thrown by the grotesque flash of a lantern. Only a little black woman crouching in one corner bowed herself and wept.
The children had fallen back against the stone wall, where they hung staring.
“Good-by, Dolly!” they called cheerfully, and the woman answered with a long-drawn, hopeless whine:—
“Gawd A'moughty bless you twel we
Meet agin.”
Zeke broke from the group and ran a few steps beside the wagon, shaking the outstretched hands.
The driver nodded peaceably to him, and cut with a single stroke of his whip an intricate figure in the sand of the road. “Git up an' come along with us, sonny,” he said cordially; but Zeke only grinned in reply, and the children laughed and waved their handkerchiefs from the wall. “Good-by, Dolly, and Mirandy, and Sukey Sue!” they shouted, while the women, bowing over the rolling wheels, tossed back a fragment of the song:—
“We hope ter meet you in heaven, whar we'll
Part no mo',
Whar we'll part no mo';
Gawd A'moughty bless you twel we
Me—et a—gin.”
“Twel we meet agin,” chirped the little girls, tripping into the chorus.
Then, with a last rumble, the wagon went by, and Zeke came trotting back and straddled the stone wall, where he sat looking down upon the loose poppies that fringed the yellowed edge of the wheat.
“Dey's gwine way-way f'om hyer, Marse Champe,” he said dreamily. “Dey's gwine right spang over dar whar de sun done come f'om.”
“Colonel Minor bought 'em,” Champe explained, sliding from the wall, “and he bought Dolly dirt cheap—I heard Uncle say so—” With a grin he looked up at the small black figure perched upon the crumbling stones. “You'd better look out how you steal any more of my fishing lines, or I'll sell you,” he threatened.
“Gawd er live! I ain' stole one on 'em sence las' mont',” protested Zeke, as he turned a somersault into the road, “en dat warn' stealin' 'case hit warn' wu'th it,” he added, rising to his feet and staring wistfully after the wagon as it vanished in a sunny cloud of dust.
Over the broad meadows, filled with scattered wild flowers, the sound of the chant still floated, with a shrill and troubled sweetness, upon the wind. As he listened the little negro broke into a jubilant refrain, beating his naked feet in the dust:—
“Gawd A'moughty bless you twel we
Me—et a—gin.”
Then he looked slyly up at his young master.
“I 'low dar's one thing you cyarn do, Marse Champe.”
“I bet there isn't,” retorted Champe.
“You kin sell me ter Marse Minor—but Lawd, Lawd, you cyarn mek mammy leave off whuppin' me. You cyarn do dat widout you 'uz a real ole marster hese'f.”
“I reckon I can,” said Champe, indignantly. “I'd just like to see her lay hands on you again. I can make mammy leave off whipping him, can't I, Betty?”
But Betty, with a toss of her head, took her revenge.
“'Tain't so long since yo' mammy whipped you,” she rejoined. “An' I reckon 'tain't so long since you needed it.”
As she stood there, a spirited little figure, in a patch of faint sunshine, her hair threw a halo of red gold about her head. When she smiled—and she smiled now, saucily enough—her eyes had a trick of narrowing until they became mere beams of light between her lashes. Her eyes would smile, though her lips were as prim as a preacher's.
Virginia gave a timid pull at Betty's frock. “Champe's goin' home with us,” she said, “his uncle told him to—You're goin' home with us, ain't you, Champe?”
“I ain't goin' home,” responded Betty, jerking from Virginia's grasp. She stood warm yet resolute in the middle of the road, her bonnet swinging in her hands. “I ain't goin' home,” she repeated.
Turning his back squarely upon her, Champe broke into a whistle of unconcern. “You'd just better come along,” he called over his shoulder as he started off. “You'd just better come along, or you'll catch it.”
“I ain't comin',” answered Betty, defiantly, and as they passed away kicking the dust before them, she swung her bonnet hard, and spoke aloud to herself. “I ain't comin',” she said stubbornly.
The distance lengthened; the three small figures passed the wheat field, stopped for an instant to gather green apples that had fallen from a stray apple tree, and at last slowly dwindled into the white streak of the road. She was alone on the deserted turnpike.
For a moment she hesitated, caught her breath, and even took three steps on the homeward way; then turning suddenly she ran rapidly in the opposite direction. Over the deepening shadows she sped as lightly as a hare.
At the end of a half mile, when her breath came in little pants, she stopped with a nervous start and looked about her. The loneliness seemed drawing closer like a mist, and the cry of a whip-poor-will from the little stream in the meadow sent frightened thrills, like needles, through her limbs.
Straight ahead the sun was setting in a pale red west, against which the mountains stood out as if sculptured in stone. On one side swept the pasture where a few sheep browsed; on the other, at the place where two roads met, there was a blasted tree that threw its naked shadow across the turnpike. Beyond the tree and its shadow a well-worn foot-path led to a small log cabin from which a streak of smoke was rising. Through the open door the single room within showed ruddy with the blaze of resinous pine.
The little girl daintily picked her way along the foot-path and through a short garden patch planted in onions and black-eyed peas. Beside a bed of sweet sage she faltered an instant and hung back. “Aunt Ailsey,” she called tremulously, “I want to speak to you, Aunt Ailsey.” She stepped upon the smooth round stone which served for a doorstep and looked into the room. “It's me, Aunt Ailsey! It's Betty Ambler,” she said.
A slow shuffling began inside the cabin, and an old negro woman hobbled presently to the daylight and stood peering from under her hollowed palm. She was palsied with age and blear-eyed with trouble, and time had ironed all the kink out of the thin gray locks that straggled across her brow. She peered dimly at the child as one who looks from a great distance.
“I lay dat's one er dese yer ole hoot owls,” she muttered querulously, “en ef'n 'tis, he des es well be a-hootin' along home, caze I ain' gwine be pestered wid his pranks. Dar ain' but one kind er somebody es will sass you at yo' ve'y do,' en dat's a hoot owl es is done loss count er de time er day—”
“I ain't an owl, Aunt Ailsey,” meekly broke in Betty, “an' I ain't hootin' at you—”
Aunt Ailsey reached out and touched her hair. “You ain' none er Marse Peyton's chile,” she said. “I'se done knowed de Amblers sence de fu'st one er dem wuz riz, en dar ain' never been a'er Ambler wid a carrot haid—”
The red ran from Betty's curls into her face, but she smiled politely as she followed Aunt Ailsey into the cabin and sat down in a split-bottomed chair upon the hearth. The walls were formed of rough, unpolished logs, and upon them, as against an unfinished background, the firelight threw reddish shadows of the old woman and the child. Overhead, from the uncovered rafters, hung several tattered sheepskins, and around the great fireplace there was a fringe of dead snakes and lizards, long since as dry as dust. Under the blazing logs, which filled the hut with an almost unbearable heat, an ashcake was buried beneath a little gravelike mound of ashes.
Aunt Ailsey took up a corncob pipe from the stones and fell to smoking. She sank at once into a senile reverie, muttering beneath her breath with short, meaningless grunts. Warm as the summer evening was, she shivered before the glowing logs.
For a time the child sat patiently watching the embers; then she leaned forward and touched the old woman's knee. “Aunt Ailsey, O Aunt Ailsey!”
Aunt Ailsey stirred wearily and crossed her swollen feet upon the hearth.
“Dar ain' nuttin' but a hoot owl dat'll sass you ter yo' face,” she muttered, and, as she drew her pipe from her mouth, the gray smoke circled about her head.
The child edged nearer. “I want to speak to you, Aunt Ailsey,” she said. She seized the withered hand and held it close in her own rosy ones. “I want you—O Aunt Ailsey, listen! I want you to conjure my hair coal black.”
She finished with a gasp, and with parted lips sat waiting. “Coal black, Aunt Ailsey!” she cried again.
A sudden excitement awoke in the old woman's face; her hands shook and she leaned nearer. “Hi! who dat done tole you I could conjure, honey?” she demanded.
“Oh, you can, I know you can. You conjured back Sukey's lover from Eliza Lou, and you conjured all the pains out of Uncle Shadrach's leg.” She fell on her knees and laid her head in the old woman's lap. “Conjure quick and I won't holler,” she said.
“Gawd in heaven!” exclaimed Aunt Ailsey. Her dim old eyes brightened as she gently stroked the child's brow with her palsied fingers. “Dis yer ain' no way ter conjure, honey,” she whispered. “You des wait twel de full er de moon, w'en de devil walks de big road.” She was wandering again after the fancies of dotage, but Betty threw herself upon her. “Oh, change it! change it!” cried the child. “Beg the devil to come and change it quick.”
Brought back to herself, Aunt Ailsey grunted and knocked the ashes from her pipe. “I ain' gwine ter ax no favors er de devil,” she replied sternly. “You des let de devil alont en he'll let you alont. I'se done been young, en I'se now ole, en I ain' never seed de devil stick his mouf in anybody's bizness 'fo' he's axed.”
She bent over and raked the ashes from her cake with a lightwood splinter. “Dis yer's gwine tase moughty flat-footed,” she grumbled as she did so.
“O Aunt Ailsey,” wailed Betty in despair. The tears shone in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks.
“Dar now,” said Aunt Ailsey, soothingly, “you des set right still en wait twel ter-night at de full er de moon.” She got up and took down one of the crumbling skins from the chimney-piece. “Ef'n de hine foot er a he frawg cyarn tu'n yo' hyar decent,” she said, “dar ain' nuttin' de Lawd's done made es'll do hit. You des wrop er hank er yo' hyar roun' de hine foot, honey, en' w'en de night time done come, you teck'n hide it unner a rock in de big road. W'en de devil goes a-cotin' at de full er de moon—en he been cotin' right stiddy roun' dese yer parts—he gwine tase dat ar frawg foot a mile off.”
“A mile off?” repeated the child, stretching out her hands.
“Yes, Lawd, he gwine tase dat ar frawg foot a mile off, en w'en he tase hit, he gwine begin ter sniff en ter snuff. He gwine sniff en he gwine snuff, en he gwine sniff en he gwine snuff twel he run right spang agin de rock in de middle er de road. Den he gwine paw en paw twel he root de rock clean up.”
The little girl looked up eagerly.
“An' my hair, Aunt Ailsey?”
“De devil he gwine teck cyar er yo' hyar, honey. W'en he come a-sniffin' en a-snuffin' roun' de rock in de big road, he gwine spit out flame en smoke en yo' hyar hit's gwine ter ketch en hit's gwine ter bu'n right black. Fo' de sun up yo' haid's gwine ter be es black es a crow's foot.”
The child dried her tears and sprang up. She tied the frog's skin tightly in her handkerchief and started toward the door; then she hesitated and looked back. “Were you alive at the flood, Aunt Ailsey?” she politely inquired.
“Des es live es I is now, honey.”
“Then you must have seen Noah and the ark and all the animals?”
“Des es plain es I see you. Marse Noah? Why, I'se done wash en i'on Marse Noah's shuts twel I 'uz right stiff in de j'ints. He ain' never let nobody flute his frills fur 'im 'cep'n' me. Lawd, Lawd, Marse Peyton's shuts warn' nuttin ter Marse Noah's!”
Betty's eyes grew big. “I reckon you're mighty old, Aunt Ailsey—'most as old as God, ain't you?”
Aunt Ailsey pondered the question. “I ain' sayin' dat, honey,” she modestly replied.
“Then you're certainly as old as the devil—you must be,” hopefully suggested the little girl.
The old woman wavered. “Well, de devil, he ain' never let on his age,” she said at last; “but w'en I fust lay eyes on 'im, he warn' no mo'n a brat.”
Standing upon the threshold for an instant, the child reverently regarded she ran out into the twilight.
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