The river was rising. Already the banks were lost by the engulfing
water. The fish trap had been hauled high up the slope of the yard
out of harm’s way. Myrtle and sassafras drowned, while the topmost
branches of the willows, heavy with raindrops, dipped in the ever
rising flood. It was a sign of spring.... The river roared through its
channel and every day a broader expanse of water covered the swamp
bottoms and flowed sullenly outward over the young corn planted in the
bottom lands. Wild things sought higher land. The surface of the water
bore strange fruit. Here an old log, turning over and over, on its way
downstream, and there a young tree, uprooted and swept along, its faint
green leaves half submerged in the red flood. A chicken coop rode its
strangely dignified way downstream.
Water cut off the Sherrod farm from the highroad. Will had taken
the horse and buggy and escaped to town. He gave as his excuse that
somebody had to tell Doctor White to come out at the end of the week.
Rain set in again the night Annie’s son was born. It started at supper
time. Cold fingers tapped on all the windowpanes. Aunt Julia, the
negro midwife, climbed the attic stairs and stuffed rags in all the
broken windowpanes. In the intervals when she could draw her breath a
little more easily, Annie lay and listened to it. She was afraid. She
was horribly afraid the doctor wouldn’t get there in time. She asked
continually if they had not heard him drive into the yard. “Jes’ de
win’, honey!” the old negro woman would reply, placing her wrinkled
brown hand on Annie’s tossed hair. “Yo’ res’ easy, he’ll sho’ be here
bimeby.”
Henry sat outside the door and heard her cries. He wrung his soft,
helpless hands. Tears ran down and splashed on his clean coat front,
the coat Annie had washed for him just a few days before.
The old woman moved about the room, placing basins and folding cloths,
she trimmed the lamp and put it close beside the bed where it would
be most needed. She tested the water in the big kettle on the hearth,
brought in pine logs to feed the ravenous fire, and then eased her
rheumatic old body into the low rocker beside Annie.
“Mammy,” Annie reached out and clutched her with straining fingers,
“don’t you reckon the doctor will be gittin’ here purtty soon now--Will
must er told him how bad I needed him----”
“Yes, honey, he’ll come. Jes’ you res’ easy now. Hole yore breaf when
you feels the pains--hole yore breaf and bear down----”
“He ain’t comin’--I know he ain’t!” Annie wailed. “Will ain’t never
told him!”
This went on for hours, Annie wailing and begging for the doctor and
the old woman comforting her as best she could. Henry alternately dozed
and wrung his hands in the cold outside the door. Toward morning Annie
suddenly lifted up her voice and called him:
“Yes, Annie. He’s coming--Will sure told him----”
“Henry, you listen to me--I don’t care no more. _I don’t care if he
gits here or not_, but I want you to promise me that if ’n’ I dies Will
don’t lay hand on this child--you promise?”
“You ain’t goin’ die, Annie----”
“Promise!”
“I--I promise.”
Annie lay down quietly. “I’m goin’ to be all right now--I ain’t goin’
to holler no more----” But even as she spoke the final agony came.
“Help!” she cried in a voice that brought Henry to his feet and the old
woman scuffling across the room....