ALICE AND MUGGINS.
Had an angel appeared suddenly to the blacks at Spring Bank they would
not have been more surprised or delighted than they were with Alice when
she came down to breakfast looking so beautifully in her muslin wrapper,
with a simple white blossom and geranium leaf twined among her flowing
curls, and an expression of content upon her childish face which said
that she had resolved to make the best of the place to which Providence
had so clearly led her for some wise purpose of his own. She had arisen
early and explored the premises in quest of the spots of sunshine which
she knew were there as well as elsewhere, and she had found them, too,
in the grand old elms and maples which shaded the wooden building, in
the clean, grassy lawn and the running brook, in the well kept garden of
flowers, and in the few choice volumes arranged in the old bookcase at
one end of the hall. Who read those books? Not ’Lina, most assuredly,
for Alice’ reminiscences of her were not of the literary kind; nor yet
Mrs. Worthington, kind, gentle creature as she seemed to be. Who then
but Hugh could have pored over those pages? And with a thrill of joy she
was turning from the corner, when the patter of little naked feet was
heard upon the stairs, and a bright mulatto child, apparently seven or
eight years old, appeared, her face expressive of the admiration with
which she regarded Alice, who asked her name.
Curtesying very low the child replied,
“I dunno, missus; Mas’r Hugh don nickname me _Muggins_, and every folks
do that now. You know Mas’r Hugh? He done _rared_ when he read you’s
comin’; do this way with his boot, ‘By George, Ad will sell the old hut
yet without ’sultin’ me,’” and the little darkey’s fist came down upon
the window sill in apt imitation of her master.
A crimson flush overspread Alice’s face as she wondered if it were
possible that the arrangements concerning her coming there had been made
without reference to Hugh’s wishes.
“It may be; he was away,” she sighed; then feeling an intense desire to
know more, and being only a woman and mortal, she said to _Muggins_,
walking round her in circles, with her fat arms folded upon her bosom,
“Your master did not know I was coming till he returned from New Orleans
and found his mother’s letter?”
“Who tole you dat ar?” and Muggin’s face was perfectly comical in its
bewilderment at what she deemed Alice’s foreknowledge. “But dat’s so. I
hear Aunt Chloe say so, and how’t was right mean in Miss ’Lina. _I hate
Miss ’Lina! Phew-ew!_” and Muggins’ face screwed itself into a look of
such perfect disgust that Alice could not forbear laughing outright.
“You should not hate any one, my child,” she said, while Muggins
rejoined,
“I can’t help it—none of us can; she’s so—mean—and so—low-flung, Claib
says. She hain’t any _bizzens_ orderin’ us round nuther, and I will hate
her!”
“But, Muggins, the Bible teaches us to love those who treat us badly,
who are _mean_, as you say.”
“Who’s he?” and Muggins looked up quickly. “I never hearn tell of him
afore, or, yes, I has. Thar’s an old wared out book in Mas’r Hugh’s
chest, what he reads in every night, and oncet when I axes him what was
it, he say ‘It’s a Bible, Mug.’ Dat’s what he calls me for short,
_Mug_.”
There was a warm spot now in Alice’s heart for Hugh. A man who read his
Bible every night could not be very bad, and she blessed Mug for the
cheering news, little dreaming whose Bible it was Hugh read, or whose
curl of yellow hair served him for a book mark. Mug’s prying eyes had
ferreted that out, too, and delighted with so attentive a listener as
Alice, she continued:
“Dat’s the thing, then, what teaches us to love the hatefuls. Mug don’t
want to read him, though I reckon Mas’r Hugh done grow some better, for
he hain’t been hoppin’ mad this good while, like he got at Miss ’Lina
’bout that dress and Miss Adah. He was awful then. He _swared_, he did.”
“Muggins, you must not tell me these things of your master. It is not
right,” Alice interposed and Muggins replied,
“Well, then, I done took ’em back. He didn’t swared, but he do read the
Bible, and he do kiss dat curl of yaller har what he keeps in it. I see
him through the do’ and I hear him whisper ’bout Golden Har or somethin’
mighty like him.”
Alice was in a tremor of distress. She knew Muggins ought not to
disclose Hugh’s secrets, and she saw no way to stop her except by
sending her away, and this she was about to do when a new idea was
suggested to her. Possibly she could keep her from repeating the story
to others, so she asked if “Muggins had ever told this about the curl to
any one else.”
“Nobody but Chloe, and she _boxt_ my ears so that I done forgot till I
see you, and that har of your’n makes me ’member the one Mas’r Hugh
kissed—real smackin’ loud, so,” and Muggins illustrated on her own hand.
“Well, then,” Alice said, “promise you will not. Your master would be
very angry to know you watched him through the door, and then told what
you saw. You must be a good girl, Muggins. God will love you if you do.
Do you ever pray?”
“More times I do, and more times when I’se sleepy I don’t,” was Muggins’
reply, her face brightening up as she continued, “But I can tell you who
does—Miss Adah and Uncle Sam, over dar in the cornfield. They prays,
both of ’em, and Sam, is powerful, I tell you. I hears him at the black
folk’s meetin’. _Hollers_—oh! oh!” and Muggins stopped her ears, as if
even the memory of Sam’s prayers were deafening; but if the ears
stopped, the tongue was just as busy as the talkative child went on:
“Sam prays for Mas’r Hugh, that God would fetch him right some day, and
Miss Adah say God will, ’case she say he see and hear everyting. Mug
don’t believe dat; can’t cheat dis chile, ’case if he hear and see, what
made him hold still dat time Miss ’Lina _licked_ me for telling Mas’r
Harney how’t she done up her har at night in fourteen little braids, and
slep’ in great big cap to make it look wavy like yourn. Does you twist
yourn up in tails?” and as she had all along been aching to do, Muggins
laid her hands on the luxuriant tresses, which Alice assured her were
not done up in tails.
Here was a spot where Alice might do good; this half-heathen, but
sprightly, African child needed her, and she began already to get an
inkling of her mission to Kentucky. She was pleased with _Muggins_, and
suffered the little dusky hands to caress her curls as long as they
pleased, while she questioned her of the bookcase and its contents,
whose was it, ’Lina’s or Hugh’s?
“Mas’r Hugh’s in course. Miss ’Lina _can’t read_!” was Muggins’ reply,
which Alice fully understood.
’Lina was no reader, while Hugh was, it might be, and she continued to
speak of him. Did he read evenings to his mother, or did ’Lina play to
them?
“More’n we wants, a heap!” and Muggins spoke scornfully. “We can’t bar
them things she thumps out. Now we likes Mas’r Hugh’s the best—got good
voice, sing Dixie, oh, splendid! Mas’r Hugh loves flowers, too. Tend all
them in the garden.”
“Did he?” and Alice spoke with great animation, for she had supposed
that ’Lina’s or at least Mrs. Worthington’s hands had been there.
But it was all Hugh, and in spite of what Muggins had said concerning
his aversion to her coming there she felt a great desire to see him. She
could understand in part why he should be angry at not having been
consulted, but he was over that, she was sure from what Aunt Eunice
said, and if he were not, it behooved her to try her best to remove any
wrong impression he might have formed of her. “He shall like me,” she
thought; “not as he must like that golden haired maiden, whose existence
this sprite of a negro has discovered, but as a friend, or sister,” and
a softer light shone in Alice’s blue eyes, as she foresaw in fancy Hugh
gradually coming to like her, to be glad that she was there, and to miss
her when she was gone.
“What time did he come home last night?” she asked, feeling more
disappointed than she cared to confess at Muggin’s answer that, “he
hadn’t come at all!”
Alice was but human, and it must be confessed that she had made her
toilet that morning with a slight reference to Hugh’s eyes, wondering if
he liked white, and wondering, too, if he liked flowers, when she placed
the wax ball in her hair.
“You are sorry?” Mug said, interpreting her looks aright.
“Yes, I am sorry. I want to see your master, Hugh. I mean to like him
very much.”
“I’ll tell him dat ar,” thought Muggins. “I ’members how’t he say oncet
that nobody done love him,” and, spying Claib in the distance, the
little tattler ran off to tell him how beautiful the new missus was, and
how she let her smooth her _har_, all she wanted to.