The days grew hotter, the green corn waved on the hill-side, the wheat
was ripening, but the deep mystery of death was over it all. The boy
goes about his play, he shouts and has his daily contentions, his
quarrels and fights, but darkness comes, and as he goes to his bed,
his mind reverts to a soul that has recently taken its flight. Older
people have the consoling prop of religion or the forceful brace of
philosophy, but in the boy's nostrils lives the scent of the roses that
lay upon the breast of mystic death; a fear possesses him as he peeps
in at the parlor door. Ah, many days must fall upon a sad memory before
it is sweetened. They told me that my young mistress was in Heaven.
I asked Aunt Mag if she would be my mistress there, and she said no,
that there was no mistresses in Heaven, no slaves, but all white and
the angels of God. And with the flash of iconoclastic reason that comes
to youth, I asked her why God made black people belong to white people
on the earth and afterward made them all equal in Heaven. The old
woman turned from her spinning wheel and held up her hands in fright.
"Chile," she said, "you musn't talk like dat. Whut de Lawd do it ain't
fur us ter question, an' ef you wan't so young you mout git struck wid
lightenin' fur sayin' dem words. Run off ober yander in de yard an'
play. I'se er feered de lightenin' mought strike at you anyhow."
That night as Bob and I lay in our room, he in his high canopied bed,
and I on my low lounge, I asked him if he knew that all the black
people would be white in Heaven. "Yes, of course," he answered. "It
would be a funny Heaven with a lot of niggers standing about, grinning."
"But they wouldn't have to grin."
"No, but they would."
"And you won't own me there, will you?" I said, after a moment's
silence.
"No, you'll belong to God."
"But don't I belong to God now?"
I heard him turn over. "Yes, but you belong to me, too. And when I get
through with you God may have you. Get over in my bed and I'll bet I
can throw you out."
"No, Old Miss might hear us. But do you think," I asked after musing
for a time, "that we'll know each other up there and talk about the
time when we were down here?"
"Yes; why not?"
"But you'd tell me that I used to belong to you and God wouldn't like
that."
"Well, then, we won't say anything about it, but we'll think about it
all the same."
"Yes, we'd keep it to ourselves. But if a nigger angel beats a white
angel flying, there'll be trouble, won't there?"
"There won't be anything of that. God won't let the nigger angels
out-fly the white ones."
There came a tap at the door--a house-maid come to tell us that if we
did not stop talking Old Miss would come in and whip us. We whispered
and giggled a long time, and then Bob fell asleep, and I lay there
thinking of the white roses that had scented the parlor. It must have
been very late for the lights were out everywhere, when I heard voices
on the walk just below my window. I looked out cautiously and in the
moonlight I saw Old Master and Dr. George Bates. Master was walking up
and down, but the doctor stood still.
"I want you to understand this," said the old man. "You are at perfect
liberty to stay here as long as you choose--and I will feed you and
clothe you, but you must have nothing whatever to say about the running
of my affairs. You are constantly meddling with things that don't
concern you."
"General, it is not my intention to interfere, I assure you."
"But you do," said Old Master, making an emphatic motion. "You seem to
think that I ought to divide my property with you. Get that out of your
head as soon as you can."
"It has never been in my head, General. I merely suggested that if you
would give me Dan I would take him and go South."
"Give you Dan! Confound it, haven't I told you that he belongs to Bob?"
"Yes, but I didn't know but you gave him away just as a man sometimes
gives a colt to a boy--merely to claim."
"I don't give things that way, sir."
"I know, but your wife--"
"There, that will do."
"She said that she thought that you might be induced--"
"Didn't I say that would do?"
"Yes, sir, but let me finish, if you please. Of course you know that
my wife's share, whatever it may amount to, will fall to me?"
"Yes, if I so desire it, sir."
"But I know you well enough to feel that you won't refuse me."
"Now you are presuming upon my kindness, sir."
"No, sir; I am paying a tribute to your sense of justice. And now this
is what I have agreed to do: to take Dan and wait until you are ready--"
"You have agreed with whom, sir?" Old Master broke in.
"Oh, I don't know that it was exactly an agreement. I had a talk with
your wife, and--"
"Infamous puppy!" Old Master cried, shaking his fist in the doctor's
face. "Didn't I tell you that you'd gone far enough in that direction?"
"General," said the doctor, stepping back, "you have insulted me."
Old Master snorted. "Oh, I have insulted you, have I? Then I have done
something that I thought must be impossible. Listen to me. You came
here a beggar, with a doctor's sheep-skin under your arm; you are of a
good family--that I will not deny. But I say you came a beggar, and you
won my child--how, God only knows. You told me that you would practice
medicine on the plantation after you were married, but did you?"
"Why, yes, sir; I have attended many a case. You know one very well."
"Oh, you have? Did you get out of bed when they sent for you one night
to see old Aunt Mag? Didn't you complain that you were too sick to get
up? And that very night, sir, didn't you slip away and play poker over
the creek?"
"Somebody has lied about me," the doctor declared.
"I admit, sir, that lying has been done, but you did it."
"General, I insist that you must not talk to me this way. I'm no dog."
"If you were, sir, I would be more considerate of you."
"Keep on and you'll say something that you may regret."
Just at that moment Old Master had turned to walk down the path, but he
wheeled about. "What's that? Say something that I may regret? I don't
know about that, sir, but I may say something that you'll regret. I may
tell you to get off this place, and I won't regret it, but you will."
"That would be a scandal, General."
"Yes, a disgrace--to you." The old man walked down the path, tall and
gaunt in the moon-light. He turned, and coming back, stepping slowly,
he said: "But it is our duty to avoid anything in the nature of a
rupture. So now, I'll tell you what I'll agree to do. I will give you
Sam and money enough to go South, and when the time comes to divide the
estate, you shall have your share. Now, I ask you if that is not fair?"
"Yes, General, it is perfectly fair, but--"
"But what, sir?" Master snapped impatiently.
"But I don't want Sam. I want Dan--want to make a race rider of him."
"What good will a race rider do you? You've got no horses."
"I can get the horses."
"But you can't get Dan, sir, so let the matter rest. Bates, I don't
want to get mad, and I should think, sir, that in the light of our
recent affliction--"
"I understand, General, and we'll let the subject drop, but if Bob
should agree--"
"Stop, there, sir. Bob is not old enough to entertain a business
proposition." For a time the old man walked up and down, with his hands
behind him and then turned upon the doctor. "I believe, sir, that you
are an evil-minded man. For a long time I thought that your laziness
was an indication of good nature--the lazy dog is rarely vicious--but
now I am of the opinion that you have an active quality, that of
rascality, sir."
"General," said the doctor, "I can't stand everything. You forget, sir,
that I am a gentleman."
"Oh, do I forget it?" the old man spoke up. "There is a difference
between forgetting a thing and never having known it. Bates, I have
endeavored to like you, I have striven to crush what I hoped was merely
a prejudice, but I can't. I don't think that we have ever held an
agreeable conversation. There is something about you that antagonizes
me. When you are away I am determined to like you, but when you come
back, I find that my resolve is weak. I don't want to drive you off--I
would stand most anything rather than face a neighborhood scandal, but
don't you think that it would be a good idea for you to go away and
stay away for a long time? I say, don't you?"
"You can drive me off, sir."
"Ah, the very thing you want me to do--you want to put my name into the
mouths of the gossipers."
"General, you have called me a scoundrel and now you are trying
to prove it. I can stand a great deal, but I can't put up with
everything--even from you. I have told you that I am a gentleman, and
while a gentleman respects age, he cannot permit age to humiliate him.
I know that you've got nerve enough to shoot a man who rides into your
room--"
"Another word of that, Bates, and I will knock you down."
"You have gone too far," Bates replied in a tone that made me shiver.
The moon shone upon his half upturned face and I fancied that I saw the
glitter of his evil eyes. Master, who was now standing some distance
from him said something which I did not catch and Bates, with his hand
upraised, made a stride toward him. At my elbow, on a stand near the
window, was a heavy glass tumbler. Indeed, I had long held it in my
hand, and when Bates strode forward, I threw the tumbler with all my
might. I heard it strike, and leaning out, I saw the doctor lying on
the ground. I heard Old Master shout for a light, and now thoroughly
frightened. I ran to my lounge and lay there with the cover drawn over
my head.