“Fish runnin’ well outside de bar, dese days,” remarked Jake one evening
to several of his seagoing companions.
A large, bronze-colored negro paused in his task of rigging a line, and
cast an eye to sea through the driveway.
“An’ we mens bes’ make de mores ob it,” he observed. “Dem Septumbuh
storm due soon, an’ fish ain’t likes eas’ win’ an’ muddy watuh.”
Jake laughed reassuringly.
“Go ’long wid yuh. Ain’t yuh done know we hab one stiff gale las’
summer, an’ he nebber come two yeah han’ runnin’.”
His wife came toward him with a baby in her arms, and, giving him the
child to hold, took up the mess of fish which he was cleaning in a
leisurely fashion.
“Ef yuh ain’t mans enough tuh clean fish no fastuh dan dat, yuh bes’
min’ de baby, an’ gib um tuh a ’oman fuh clean!” she said scornfully, as
she bore away the pan.
The group laughed at that, Jake’s somewhat shamefaced merriment rising
above the others. He rocked the contented little negro in his strong
arms, and followed the retreating figure of the mother with admiring
eyes.
“All right, mens,” he said, returning to the matter in hand. “I’m all
fuh ridin’ luck fer as he will tote me. Turn out at fo’ tuhmorruh
mornin’, and we’ll push de ‘Seagull’ clean tuh de blackfish banks befo’
we wets de anchor. I gots er feelin’ in my bones dat we goin’ be gunnels
undeh wid de pure fish when we comes in tuhmorruh night.”
The news of Jake’s prediction spread through the negro quarter. Other
crews got their boats hastily in commission and were ready to join the
“Mosquito Fleet” when it put to sea.
On the following morning, when the sun rose out of the Atlantic, the
thirty or forty small vessels were mere specks teetering upon the
water’s rim against the red disc that forged swiftly up beyond them.
Afternoon found the wharf crowded with women and children, who laughed
and joked each other as to the respective merits of their men and the
luck of the boats in which they went to sea.
Clara, Jake’s wife, sought the head of the dock long before sundown, and
sat upon the bulkhead with her baby asleep in her lap. Occasionally she
would exchange a greeting with an acquaintance; but for the most part
she gazed toward the harbor mouth and said no word to any one.
“She always like dat,” a neighbor informed a little group. “A conjer
’oman once tell she Jake goin’ git drownded; an’ she ain’t hab no
happiness since, ’cept when he feet is hittin’ de dirt.”
Presently a murmur arose among the watchers. Out at the harbor mouth,
against the thin greenish-blue of the horizon, appeared the “Mosquito
Fleet.” Driven by a steady breeze, the boats swept toward the city with
astonishing rapidity.
Warm sunlight flooded out of the west, touched the old city with
transient glory, then cascaded over the tossing surface of the bay to
paint the taut, cupped sails salmon pink, as the fleet drove forward
directly into the eye of the sun.
Almost before the crowd realized it, the boats were jibing and coming
about at their feet, each jockeying for a favorable berth.
Under the skillful and daring hand of Jake, the “Seagull” took a chance,
missed a stern by a hairbreadth, jibed suddenly with a snap and boom,
and ran in, directly under the old rock steps of the wharf.
A cheer went up from the crowd. Never had there been such a catch. The
boat seemed floored with silver which rose almost to the thwarts,
forcing the crew to sit on gunnels, or aft with the steersman.
Indeed the catch was so heavy that as boat after boat docked, it became
evident that the market was glutted, and the fishermen vied with each
other in giving away their surplus cargo, so that they would not have to
throw it overboard.
§
By the following morning the weather had become unsettled. The wind was
still coming out of the west; but a low, solid wall of cloud had
replaced the promising sunset of the evening before, and from time to
time the wind would wrench off a section of the black mass, and volley
it with great speed across the sky, to accumulate in unstable pyramids
against the sunrise.
But the success of the day before had so fired the enthusiasm of the
fishermen that they were not easily to be deterred from following their
luck, and the first grey premonition of the day found the wharf seething
with preparation.
Clara, with the baby in her arms, accompanied Jake to the pier-head. She
knew the futility of remonstrance; but her eyes were fearful when the
heavy, black clouds swept overhead. Once, when a wave slapped a pile,
and threw a handful of spray in her face, she moaned and looked up at
the big negro by her side. But Jake was full of the business in hand,
and besides, he was growing a little impatient at his wife’s incessant
plea that he sell his share of the “Seagull” and settle on land. Now he
turned from her, and shouted:
“All right, mens!”
He bestowed a short, powerful embrace upon his wife, with his eyes
looking over her shoulder into the Atlantic’s veiled face, turned from
her with a quick, nervous movement, and dropped from the wharf into his
boat.
Standing in the bow, he moistened his finger in his mouth, and held it
up to the wind.
“You mens bes’ git all de fish yuh’ kin tuhday,” he admonished. “Win’ be
in de eas’ by tuhmorruh. It gots dat wet tas’ ter um now.”
One by one the boats shoved off, and lay in the stream while they
adjusted their spritsails and rigged their full jibs abeam, like
spinnakers, for the free run to sea. The vessels were similar in design,
the larger ones attaining a length of thirty-five feet. They were very
narrow, and low in the waist, with high, keen bows, and pointed sterns.
The hulls were round-bottomed, and had beautiful running lines, the
fishermen, who were also the designers and builders, taking great pride
in the speed and style of their respective craft. The boats were all
open from stem to stern and were equipped with thole-pins for rowing, an
expedient to which the men resorted only in dire emergency.
Custom had reduced adventure to commonplace; yet it was inconceivable
that men could put out, in the face of unsettled weather, for a point
beyond sight of land, and exhibit no uneasiness or fear. Yet bursts of
loud, loose laughter, and snatches of song, blew back to the wharf long
after the boats were in mid-stream.
The wind continued to come in sudden flaws, and, once the little craft
had gotten clear of the wharves, the fleet made swift but erratic
progress. There were moments when they would seem to mark time upon the
choppy waters of the bay; then suddenly a flaw would bear down on them,
whipping the water as it came, and, filling the sails, would fairly lift
the slender bows as it drove them forward.
By the time that the leisurely old city was sitting down to its
breakfast, the fleet had disappeared into the horizon, and the sun had
climbed over its obstructions to flood the harbor with reassuring light.
The mercurial spirits of the negroes rose with the genial warmth.
Forebodings were forgotten. Even Clara sang a lighter air as she rocked
the baby upon her lap.
But the sun had just lifted over the eastern wall, and the heat of noon
was beginning to vibrate in the court, when suddenly the air of security
was shattered. From the center of town sounded the deep, ominous clang
of a bell.
At its first stroke life in Catfish Row was paralyzed. Women stopped
their tasks, and, not realizing what they did, clasped each others’
hands tightly, and stood motionless, with strained, listening faces.
Twenty times the great hammer fell, sending the deep, full notes out
across the city that was holding its breath and counting them as they
came.
“Twenty!” said Clara, when it had ceased to shake the air.
She ran to the entrance and looked to the north. Almost at the end of
vision, between two buildings, could be seen the flagstaff that
surmounted the custom-house. It was bare when she looked--just a thin,
bare line against the intense blue, but even as she stood there, a
flicker of color soared up its length; then fixed and flattened, showing
a red square with a black center.
“My Gawd!” she called over her shoulder. “It’s de trut’. Dat’s de
hurricane signal on top de custom-house.”
Bess came from her room, and stood close to the terrified woman.
“Dat can’t be so,” she said comfortingly. “Ain’t yuh ’member de las’
hurricane, how it tek two day tuh blow up. Now de sun out bright, an’ de
cloud all gone.”
But Clara gave no sign of having heard her.
“Come on in!” urged Bess. “Ef yuh don’t start tuh git yuh dinner, yuh
won’t hab nuttin’ ready fuh de mens w’en dey gits in.”
After a moment the idea penetrated, and the half-dazed woman turned
toward Bess, her eyes pleading.
“You come wid me, an’ talk a lot. I ain’t likes tuh be all alone now.”
“Sho’ I will,” replied the other comfortingly. “I min’ de baby fuh yuh,
an’ yuh kin be gittin’ de dinner.”
Clara’s face quivered; but she turned from the sight of the far red flag
and opened her door for Bess to pass in.
After the two women had remained together for half an hour, Bess left
the room for a moment to fetch some sewing. The sun was gone, and the
sky presented a smooth, leaden surface. She closed the door quickly so
that Clara might not see the abrupt change, and went out of the entrance
for a look to sea.
Like the sky, the bay had undergone a complete metamorphosis. The water
was black, and strangely lifeless. Thin, intensely white crests rode the
low, pointed waves; and between the opposing planes of sky and sea a
thin westerly wind roamed about like a trapped thing and whined in a
complaining treble key. A singularly clear half-light pervaded the
world, and in it she could see the harbor mouth distinctly, as it lay
ten miles away between the north and south jetties that stretched on the
horizon like arms with the finger-tips nearly touching.
Her eyes sought the narrow opening. Guiltless of the smallest speck, it
let upon utter void.
“It’d take ’em t’ree hour tuh mek harbor from de banks wid good win’,”
said a woman who was also watching. “But dere ain’t no powuh in dis
breeze, an’ it a head one at dat.”
“Dey kin row it in dat time,” encouraged Bess. “‘An’ de storm ain’t hyuh
yit.”
But the woman hugged her forebodings, and stood there shivering in the
close, warm air.
§
Except for the faint moan of the wind, the town and harbor lay in a
silence that was like held breath.
Many negroes came to the wharf, passed out to the pier-head, and sat
quietly watching the entrance to the bay.
At one o’clock the tension snapped. As though it had been awaiting St.
Christopher’s chimes to announce “Zero Hour,” the wind swung into the
east, and its voice dropped an octave, and changed its quality. Instead
of the complaining whine, a grave, sustained note came in from the
Atlantic, with an undertone of alarming variations, that sounded oddly
out of place as it traversed the inert waters of the bay.
The tide was at the last of the ebb, and racing out of the many rivers
and creeks toward the sea. All morning the west wind had driven it
smoothly before it. But now, the stiffening eastern gale threw its
weight against the water, and the conflict immediately filled the bay
with large waves that leapt up to angry points, then dropped back
sullenly upon themselves.
“Choppy water,” observed a very old negro who squinted through
half-closed eyes. “Dem boat nebbuh mek headway in dat sea.”
But he was not encouraged to continue by the silent, anxious group.
Slowly the threatening undertone of the wind grew louder. Then, as
though a curtain had been lowered across the harbor mouth, everything
beyond was blotted by a milky screen.
“Oh, my Jedus!” a voice shrilled. “Here he come, now! Le’s we go!”
Many of the watchers broke for the cover of buildings across the street.
Some of those whose men were in the fleet crowded into the small
wharf-house. Several voices started to pray at once, and were
immediately drowned in the rising clamor of the wind.
With the mathematical precision that it had exhibited in starting, the
gale now moved its obliterating curtain through the jetties, and thrust
it forward in a straight line across the outer bay.
There was something utterly terrifying about the studied manner in which
the hurricane proceeded about its business. It clicked off its moves
like an automaton. It was Destiny working nakedly for the eyes of men
to see. The watchers knew that for at least twenty-four hours it would
stay, moving its tides and winds here and there with that invincible
precision, crushing the life from those whom its preconceived plan had
seemed to mark for death.
With that instant emotional release that is the great solace of the
negro, the tightly packed wharf-house burst into a babblement of weeping
and prayer.
The curtain advanced to the inner bay and narrowed the world to the
city, with its buildings cowering white and fearful, and the remaining
semi-circle of the harbor.
And now from the opaque surface of the screen came a persistent roar
that was neither of wind or water, but the articulate cry of the storm
itself. The curtain shot forward again and became a wall, grey and
impenetrable, that sunk its foundations into the tortured sea and bore
the leaden sky upon its soaring top.
The noise became deafening. The narrow strip of water that was left
before the wharves seemed to shrink away. The buildings huddled closer
and waited.
Then it crossed the strip, and smote the city.
From the roofs came the sound as though ton after ton of ore had been
dumped from some great eminence. There was a dead weight to the shocks
that could not conceivably be delivered by so unsubstantial a substance
as air, yet which was the wind itself, lifting abruptly to enormous
heights, then hurling its full force downward.
These shocks followed the demoniac plan, occurring at exact intervals,
and were succeeded by prying fingers, as fluid as ether, as hard as
steel, that felt for cracks in roofs and windows.
One could no longer say with certainty, “This which I breathe is air,
and this upon which I stand is earth.” The storm had possessed itself of
the city and made it its own. Tangibles and intangibles alike were
whirled in a mad, inextricable nebula.
The waves that moved upon the bay could be dimly discerned for a little
distance. They were turgid, yellow, and naked; for the moment they
lifted a crest, the wind snatched it and dispersed it, with the rain,
into the warm semi-fluid atmosphere with which it delivered its attack
upon the panic-stricken city.
Notch by notch the velocity increased. The concussions upon the roofs
became louder, and the prying fingers commenced to gain a purchase,
worrying small holes into large ones. Here and there the wind would get
beneath the tin, roll it up suddenly, whirl it from a building like a
sheet of paper, and send it thundering and crashing down a deserted
street.
Again it would gain entrance to a room through a broken window, and,
exerting its explosive force to the full, would blow all of the other
windows outward, and commence work upon the walls from within.
It was impossible to walk upon the street. At the first shock of the
storm, the little group of negroes who had sought shelter in the
wharf-house fled to the Row. Even then, the force of the attack had been
so great that only by bending double and clinging together were they
able to resist the onslaughts and traverse the narrow street.
Porgy and Bess sat in their room. The slats had been taken from the bed
and nailed across the window, and the mattress, bundled into a corner,
had been pre-empted by the goat. Bess sat wrapped in her own thoughts,
apparently unmoved by the demoniac din without. Porgy’s look was one of
wonder, not unmixed with fear, as he peered into the outer world between
two of the slats. The goat, blessed with an utter lack of imagination,
revelled in the comfort and intimacy of his new environment, expressing
his contentment in suffocating waves, after the manner of his kind. A
kerosene lamp without a chimney, smoking straight up into the unnatural
stillness of the room, cast a faint, yellow light about it, but only
accentuated the heavy gloom of the corners.
From where Porgy sat, he could catch glimpses of what lay beyond the
window. There would come occasional moments when the floor of the storm
would be lifted by a burrowing wind, and he would see the high, naked
breakers racing under the sullen pall of spume and rain.
Once he saw a derelict go by. The vessel was a small river sloop, with
its rigging blown clean out. A man was clinging to the tiller. One wave,
larger than its fellows, submerged the little boat, and when it wallowed
to the surface again, the man was gone, and the tiller was kicking
wildly.
“Oh, my Jedus, hab a little pity!” the watcher moaned under his breath.
Later, a roof went by.
Porgy heard it coming, even above the sound of the attack upon the Row,
and it filled him with awe and dread. He turned and looked at Bess, and
was reassured to see that she met his gaze fearlessly. Down the street
the roar advanced, growing nearer and louder momentarily. Surely it
would be the final instrument of destruction. He held his breath, and
waited. Then it thundered past his narrow sphere of vision. Rolled
loosely, it loomed to the second story windows, and flapped and tore at
the buildings as it swept over the cobbles.
When a voice could be heard again, Porgy turned to his companion.
“You an’ me, Bess,” he said with conviction “We _sho’_ is a little
somet’ing attuh all.”
After that, they sat long without exchanging a word. Then Porgy looked
out of the window and noticed that the quality of the atmosphere was
becoming denser. The spume lifted for a moment, and he could scarcely
see the tormented bay.
“I t’ink it mus’ be mos’ night,” he observed. “Dey ain’t much light now
on de outside ob dis storm.”
He looked again before the curtain descended, and what he saw caused his
heart to miss a beat.
He knew that the tide should be again at the ebb, for the flood had
commenced just after the storm broke. But as he looked, the water, which
was already higher than a normal flood, lifted over the far edge of the
street, and three tremendous waves broke in rapid succession, sending
the deep layers of water across the narrow way to splash against the
wall of the building.
This reversal of nature’s law struck terror into the dark places of
Porgy’s soul. He beckoned to Bess, his fascinated eyes upon the
advancing waves.
She bent down and peered into the gloom.
“Oh, yes,” she remarked in a flat tone. “It been dis way in de las’
great storm. De win’ hol’ de watuh in de jetty mout’ so he can’t go out.
Den he pile up annoder tide on him.”
Suddenly an enormous breaker loomed over the backs of its shattered and
retreating fellows. The two watchers could not see its crest, for it
towered into, and was absorbed by, the low-hanging atmosphere. Yellow,
smooth, and with a perpendicular, slightly concave front, it flashed
across the street, and smote the solid wall of the Row. They heard it
roar like a mill-race through the drive, and flatten, hissing in the
court. Then they turned, and saw their own door give slightly to the
pressure, and a dark flood spurt beneath it, and debouch upon the floor.
Bess took immediate command of the situation. She threw an arm about
Porgy, and hurried him to the door. She withdrew the bolt, and the
flimsy panels shot inward. The court was almost totally dark. One after
another now the waves were hurtling through the drive and impounding in
the walled square.
The night was full of moving figures, and cries of fear; while, out of
the upper dark, the wind struck savagely downward.
With a powerful swing, Bess got Porgy to a stairway that providentially
opened near their room, and, leaving him to make his way up alone, she
rushed back, and was soon at his heels with an armful of belongings.
They sought refuge in what had been the great ball-room of the mansion,
a square, high-ceilinged room on the second story, which was occupied by
a large and prosperous family. There were many refugees there before
them. In the faint light cast by several lanterns, the indestructible
beauty of the apartment was evident, while the defacing effects of a
century were absorbed in shadow. The noble open fireplace, the tall,
slender mantel, with its Grecian frieze and intricate scrollwork, the
high panelled walls were all there. And then, huddled in little groups
on the floor, or seated against the walls, with eyes wide in the
lantern-shine, the black, fear-stricken faces.
Like the ultimate disintegration of a civilization--there it was; and
upon it, as though to make quick work of the last, tragic chapter, the
scourging wrath of the Gods--white, and black.
§
The night that settled down upon Catfish Row was one of nameless horror
to the inhabitants, most of whom were huddled on the second floor in
order to avoid the sea from beneath, and deafening assaults upon the
roof above their heads.
With the obliteration of vision, sound assumed an exaggerated
significance, and the voice of the gale, which had seemed by day only a
great roar, broke up in the dark into its various parts. Human voices
seemed to cry in it; and there were moments when it sniffed and moaned
at the windows.
Once, during a silence in the room, a whinny was distinctly heard.
“Dat my ole horse!” wailed Peter. “He done dead in he stall now, an’ dat
he woice goin’ by. Oh, my Gawd!”
They all wailed out at that; and Porgy, remembering his goat, whimpered
and turned his face to the wall.
Then someone started to sing:
“I gots uh home in de rock, don’t yuh see?”
With a feeling of infinite relief, Porgy turned to his Jesus. It was not
a charm that he sought now for the assuaging of some physical ill, but a
benign power, vaster perhaps even than the hurricane. He lifted his rich
baritone above the others:
“Oh, between de eart’ an’ sky,
I kin see my Sabior die.
I gots uh home in de rock,
Don’t yuh see!”
Then they were all in it, heart and soul. Those who had fallen into a
fitful sleep, awoke, rubbed their eyes, and sang.
Hour after hour dragged heavily past. Outside, the storm worked its will
upon the defenceless city. But in the great ball-room of Catfish Row,
forty souls sat wrapped in an invulnerable garment. They swayed and
patted, and poured their griefs and fears into a rhythm that never
missed a beat, which swept the hours behind it into oblivion, and that
finally sang up the faint grey light that penetrated the storm, and told
them that it was again day.
§
At about an hour after daybreak the first lull came. Like the other
moves of the hurricane, it arrived without warning. One moment the
tumult was at its height. The next, there was utter suspension.
Abruptly, like an indrawn breath, the wind sucked back upon itself,
leaving an aching vacuum in its place. Then from the inundated
water-front arose the sound of the receding flood.
The ebb-tide was again overdue, and with the second tide piled upon it,
the whole immeasurable weight of the wind was required to maintain its
height. Now, with the pressure removed, it turned and raced beneath the
low-lying mist toward the sea, carrying its pitiful loot upon its back.
To the huddled figures in the great room of the Row came the welcome
sound, as the court emptied itself into the street. The negroes crowded
to the windows, and peered between the barricades at the world without.
The water receded with incredible speed. Submerged wreckage lifted above
the surface. The street became the bed of a cataract that foamed and
boiled on its rush to the sea. Presently the wharf emerged, and at its
end even a substantial remnant of the house could be descried. How it
had survived that long was one of the inexplicable mysteries of the
storm.
Suddenly Peter, who was at one of the windows, gave a cry, and the other
negroes crowded about him to peer out.
The sea was still running high, and as a large wave lifted above the
level of the others, it thrust into view the hull of a half-submerged
boat. Before the watchers could see, the wave dropped its burden into a
trough, but the old man showed them where to look, and presently a big
roller caught it up, and swung it, bow on, for all to see. There was a
flash of scarlet gunnel, and, beneath it, a bright blue bird with open
wings.
“De ‘Seagull’!” cried a dozen voices together. “My Gawd! dat Jake’
boat!”
All night Clara had sat in a corner of the room with the baby in her
arms, saying no word to anyone. She was so still that she seemed to be
asleep, with her head upon her breast. But once, when Bess had gone and
looked into her face, she had seen her eyes, wide and bright with pain.
Now the unfortunate woman heard the voices, and sprang to the window
just in time to see the craft swoop into a hollow at the head of the
pier.
She did not scream out. For a moment she did not even speak. Then she
spun around on Bess with the dawn of a wild hope in her dark face.
“Tek care ob dis baby ’til I gits back,” she said, as she thrust the
child almost savagely into Bess’s arms. Then she rushed from the room.
The watchers at the window saw her cross the street, splashing wildly
through the kneedeep water. Then she ran the length of the wharf, and
disappeared behind the sheltering wall of the house.
It was so sudden, and tired wits move slowly. Several minutes had passed
before it occurred to anyone to go with her. Finally Peter turned from
the window.
“Dat ’oman ain’t ought tuh be out dey by sheself,” he said. “Who goin’
out dey wid me, now?”
One of the men volunteered, and they started for the door.
A sound like the detonation of a cannon shook the building to its
foundations. The gale had returned, smashing straight downward from some
incredible height to which it had lifted during the lull.
The men turned and looked at one another.
Shock followed shock in rapid succession. Those who stood by the windows
felt them give inward, and instinctively threw their weight against the
frames. The explosions merged into a steady roar of sound that
surpassed anything that had yet occurred. The room became so dark that
they could no longer see one another. The barricaded windows were
vaguely discernible in bars of muddy grey and black. Deeply rooted walls
swung from the blows, and then settled slowly back on the recoil.
A confused sound of praying filled the room. And above it shrilled the
terror of the women.
For an appreciable space of time the spasm lasted. Then, slowly, as
though by the gradual withdrawing of a lever, the vehemence of the
attack abated. The muddy grey bars at the windows became lighter, and
some of the more courageous of the negroes peered out.
The wharf could be seen dimly extending under the low floor of spume and
mist. The breakers were higher than at any previous time, but instead of
smashing in upon the shore, they raced straight up the river and
paralleled the city. As each one swung by it went clean over the wharf,
obliterating it for the duration of its passage.
Suddenly from the direction of the lower harbor a tremendous mass
appeared, showing first only a vast distorted stain against the grey
fabric of the mist. Then a gigantic wave took it, and drove it into
fuller view.
“Great Gawd A’mighty!” some one whispered. “It’s dat big lumbuh schooner
bruck loose in de harbor.”
The wave hunched its mighty shoulders under the vessel and swung it
up--up, for an interminable moment. The soaring bowsprit lifted until it
was lost in mist. Tons of water gushed from the steep incline of the
deck, and poured over the smooth, black wall of the side, as it reared
half out of the sea. Then the wave swept aft, and the bow descended in a
swift, deadly plunge.
A crashing of timbers followed that could be heard clearly above the
roaring of the storm. The hull had fallen directly across the middle of
the wharf. There was one cataclysmic moment when the whole view seemed
to disintegrate. The huge timbers of the wharf up-ended, and were washed
out like straws. The schooner rolled half over, and her three masts
crashed down with their rigging. The shock burst the lashings of the
vessel’s deck load, and as the hull heeled, an avalanche of heavy
timbers took the water. The ruin was utter.
Heavy and obliterating, the mist closed down again.
Bess turned from the window holding the sleeping infant in her arms,
raised her eyes and looked full at Porgy.
With an expression of awe in his face, the cripple reached out a timid
hand and touched the baby’s cheek.
§
The windows of the great ball-room were open to the sky, and beyond
them, a busy breeze was blowing across its washed and polished expanse,
gathering cloud-remnants into little heaps, and sweeping them in
tumbling haste out over the threshold of the sea.
Most of the refugees had returned to their rooms, where sounds of busy
salvaging could be heard. Porgy’s voice arose jubilantly announcing that
the goat had been discovered, marooned upon the cook-stove; and that
Peter’s old horse had belied his whinny, and was none the worse for a
thorough wetting.
Serena Robbins paused before Bess, who was gathering her things
preparatory to leaving the room, placed her hands upon her hips, and
looked down upon her.
“Now, wut we all goin’ do wid dis po’ mudderless chile?” she said,
addressing the room at large.
The other occupants of the room gathered behind Serena, but there was
something about Bess’s look that held them quiet. They stood there
waiting and saying nothing.
Slowly Bess straightened up, her face lowered and pressed against that
of the sleeping child. Then she raised her eyes and met the gaze of the
complacent older woman.
What Serena saw there was not so much the old defiance that she had
expected, as it was an inflexible determination, and, behind it, a
new-born element in the woman that rendered the scarred visage
incandescent. She stepped back, and lowered her eyes.
Bess strained the child to her breast with an elemental intensity of
possession, and spoke in a low, deep voice that vested her words with
sombre meaning.
“Is Clara come back a’ready, since she dead, an’ say somet’ing ’bout
‘_we_’ tuh yuh ’bout dis chile?”
She put the question to the group, her eyes taking in the circle of
faces as she spoke.
There was no response; and at the suggestion of a possible return of the
dead, the circle drew together instinctively.
“Berry well den,” said Bess solemnly. “Ontell she do, I goin’ stan’ on
she las’ libbin’ word an’ keep dis chile fuh she ’til she do come back.”
Serena was hopelessly beaten, and she knew it.
“Oh, berry well,” she capitulated. “All I been goin’ tuh do wuz jus’ tuh
puhwide um wid er propuh Christian raisin’. But ef she done gib um tuh
yuh, dere ain’t nuttin mo’ I kin do, I guess.”
VI
[Illustration]