THE day was hot and sultry. The chinaberry trees gave out their sweet
flower fragrance, almost too sweet to breathe freely in, while their
lacy leaves scarcely stirred. A great shady one grew in the corner
of the paling-fence around the yard and close to the two-room living
quarters for the negro servants. Aunt Caroline sat in the door combing
her wiry hair with a curry comb, a jagged piece of broken mirror in her
lap to guide her in her hairdressing; close by were a couple of
rush-bottom chairs set face to face and holding across their seats a
pillow with a mosquito netting pulled tight across the top of the
backs. Every once in a while Aunt Caroline would twist her neck in the
direction of the improvised bed and, finding nothing stirring, would
resume her hair-brushing.
"Oh, Aunt Caroline," rushed out of the air and a two-year-old
little girl threw herself heavily against the old servant's knees,
nearly dashing her toilet articles to the ground. Aunt Caroline
started, raised her curry brush over her head and shook it hard at the
child.
"My lands," she said, in a low voice. "Whar you come from and
making all dat noise and your sister lying dar asleep. Ain't you never
swine to renembar what I's al'ays tellin' yer, not ter brash up against
one like out de Sperrit world and nearly scare yer old mammy ter deth?
Ennyhow yer look tired; come heah in my lap and le' me rock yer."
"May I have your looking glass, then, Aunt Caroline?"
"Look out, chile, you'll cut yerself! No. I's got to lay dis
up on de shelf for mahself. Dis no lookin' glass fer a white chile.
Now you come heah and get in my lap dis minute."
The child, tired from play and romping around, lifted her arms
to be taken up into her dear old mammy's lap. With her curlv head
pressed against Aunt Caroline's breast, she fell asleep in a little
while and was resting there long after Aunt Caroline had stopped
tilting her chair forward and backward--a way quite familiar to
Southern nurses in lulling children to sleep. In a little while she
had succumbed to the silent noon hour herself.
"Looka heah, nigger. What you mean holden dat chile in yer lap
and you fast ter sleep? Wake up. Yer heah? Miss Tiny is comin!"
Josiah shoved his brogan over Aunt Caroline's thinly shod foot and she
jerked her head up with a start.
"Bless mah soul!" She looked around with a frightened
appearance at the chairs with the mosquito netting over them and two
blue gray eyes were looking up into hers and a little fist was being
devoured.
"Here you are with the children," said a low, sweet voice.
"I've wondered if Lola was with you. Has the baby been asleep a long
time, Aunt Caroline?"
"Yes'm. She jest now waken up. Ain't she purty, Miss Tiny?
Just look at her little face looken like a cherub's. She shore is a
buiful chile. Looks a hole lot like you wid her big eyes, on'y dey
gray 'stead of black."
"Let me take Lola from you and you lift the baby and bring her
to the house."
"Yes'm." Aunt Caroline didn't lose an opportunity, however, to
turn around to remark to Josiah, who was hoeing not far away, "Yer,
Josiah, you jes come heah, suh, and tote dis chile up to de house. She
too hebby fer de Missus. You lubbering black nigger, you jes good fer
nothin' nohow and doan you eber stamp on my foot agin! Go long, Miss
Tiny, we will bring up de chillens!"
Jaffray was home for midday dinner. "I've bought a nurse girl
for you, Renestine. Here is the bill of sale," he said, handing a
light blue paper to her. Renestine read: "A copper colored girl," etc.
When they were seated at the table Jaffray said: "I felt like a mean
creature when I paid the money for that girl, but I knew we needed a
nurse girl. Aunt Caroline can't cook and care any longer for the
children too, so what was to be done? This slavery system is
frightful, and mark my words, Renestine, the day will come when the
darkies will be free. Where I was born on the Rhine, no one would
believe for a moment that I would buy a human being. They would hate
me as I hate myself for bartering in human flesh."
"I know, I know, Jaffray. I remember when my sister used to
send Josiah out in the morning to work, he would come back in the
evening with his pay that he had earned in the blacksmith shop and give
it to her, and Aunt Caroline would bring her money, too, that she had
made by a hard day's, washing and ironing. Oh, yes, it is all wrong
and dreadful, but we will treat them well and wait for the day to set
them free!"
"It will not be long now. There are all sorts of rumors about
Lincoln doing this 'and that."
"You mean about setting the negroes free?"
"Yes."
"But how? People will not just let them walk away!
"Walk away! Oh, little woman, if it could be brought around
that way the threatening clouds would not be so dark ahead! 'Just walk
away.' The President is offering to find a way out. One is to
'compensate' owners out of Government funds for the release of their
slaves; another is sending them to some warm country for colonization.
Of course, he would ask Congress for an appropriation for this."
For long hours they sat reading the latest news in the day's
paper and discussing the war reports with a very solemn foreboding of
coming events.