The October sun was shining hot, but it was cool and pleasant inside the
mill. The brown water in Sawny Creek lapped softly against the rocks in
its bed, and the sycamore and cottonwood trees, which grew from the
water's edge up the steep, muddy banks, stood straight and motionless in
the warm sunny air, no touch of autumn upon them yet; only the
sweet-gums were turning slightly yellow, and the black-gums were tinging
red. It wanted two hours of sunset, but blackbirds were on their way
home, and the thickets were noisy with their crying.
Inside the moss-grown old mill there was music and dancing going on,
for, comfortably reclining on a pile of cotton seed in the rough
ginning-room, with thick festoons of cobwebs everywhere, and bits of
dusty lint clinging to every splinter in its walls, a young man was
playing a banjo, and two others, with naked feet, were dancing as if
for their lives. A slim dark girl in a blue and white homespun dress,
her head turbaned with a square of the same, sat on a bag of seed cotton
watching them.
"Now, boys, a break-down," called out the player, "and then I must gin
out Religion's cotton; come, now, lively."
And they went lively enough.
"You bake the bread, and gimme the crus';
You sift the meal, and gimme the husk;
You bile the pot, and gimme the grease;
I have the crumbs, and you have the feast--
But mis' gwine gimme the ham-bone."
The loose boards shook and trembled under the heavy feet, the scattered
cotton seed whirled away in little eddies, and baskets of cotton
standing about tipped a little break-down of their own. Even the girl on
the bag, whose sober, earnest face seemed out of keeping with the
gayety, beat time with her bare feet. But by the time the miller threw
his banjo aside, its strings still quivering, she was standing up, and
the look of interest had given place to the old gravity. She had not a
pretty feature, not even the usual pretty teeth. She was a homely black
girl.
"See here, Religion," said the miller, "this here's Saturday evenin',
and I keeps holiday like everybody else but you; can't you git along
without that little tum of cotton? It ain't wuth ginnin'."
"I'm 'bliged to have it," she answered. "I didn't give nary day's work
for rent this week; will pay the week's rent and git sumpin beside. We
doesn't draw no ration."
"It's a mighty small heap o' ration you'll git out'n that tum of cotton
after you pay fifty cents for your week's rent. Don't you find it
cheaper to work out the week's rent than to pay it?"
"I git fifty cents a hundred for pickin'," she answered, simply, "and I
kin pick two hundred and fifty a day, and scrap twenty-five more. We
doesn't git but fifty cents fur a whole day's work on the plantation."
He looked at her admiringly, at the thin supple body and long light arms
that could reach so far among the cotton bolls. He untied the bags and
proceeded to fill the gin. A girl who could pick two hundred and
seventy-five pounds of cotton a day was a person of some consequence.
The gin stopped its whir, and the clerk weighed the cotton. Religion
watched him sharply, and counted the checks he handed her twice.
"If you pass 'em at the Hermitage," he said, "tell 'em to give you
another five-cent check; I'm short to-night."
"I ain't goin' to the Hermitage store; I'm goin' to the ferry. They give
me cash there for the checks."
"What do they take off?"
"They takes one cent out'n every five. But I'm 'bliged to have the hard
money. We has to pay for a good many things we git for Min in hard
money." She had taken up the empty bags, but still waited. "I wish you'd
please, sir, see if you 'ain't got another check nowhere."
"You're a sight, Religion," he said, good-naturedly. "Here's a nickel."
With her bags on her arm she went out across the dry grass to where a
little black mule, not much larger than a goat, was standing. Beck
greeted her with a bray astonishing for one of her size, and a switch
with her rope of a tail. Unheeding the cheerful greeting, Religion gave
all her attention to untying the halter, and soon they were going along
the sandy road straight through the woods.
The rickety box-wagon and the chain traces rattled noisily. Religion
cracked her whip--it was a stick with a plaited leather string on the
end. Beck was in a hurry to get home, and the wagon bumped along over
roots and stumps until it was a wonder how Religion kept herself on the
board which served for a seat. All the swamps and woods in Sawny were in
bad repute. There was an old cemetery, rambling over many acres, lost in
ivy and briers and immense trees, but abundant in ghost stories. There
was the swamp through which Sherman's soldiers had cut a road, and near
by was the hill-side where many sunken hollows marked their graves. A
"spirit" could be raised there at a thought's notice. Beck flew past
these unpleasant places, and her little hoofs were clattering over the
loose bridge at the foot of the hill, where, the cemetery ending, the
plantation road began, when she backed suddenly--so suddenly that the
board tipped up and dropped Religion into the bottom of the wagon.
Beck had some tricks like all of her kind, and thinking this was one,
Religion was scrambling up and readjusting her seat when she saw a face
bending over her that she never forgot--a strange evil face, the lower
part hidden by a short bushy beard, the upper by many thin braids of
hair curling at the ends. Between the two crops of hair she saw a pair
of small red eyes, dull and sleepy, but with a curious gleam in them
like the eyes of the snakes in the swamp, and thick widespread nostrils.
She only had time to note these features and the thick rings of gold in
the great ears when the face disappeared, and, as if they floated in the
air, she heard the words:
"I am the seventh son of the seventh daughter. I know all things. I can
tell you what is killing your sister."
Religion pulled up her rope reins, and Beck flew up the road as if all
Sherman's army were after her; nor did she slacken until she reached the
great gateway which turned into the Hermitage. Only a flat-topped post
remained of the gate, and a boy of twelve, with a face like Religion's,
was perched on it.
"Hi, dar, 'Ligion! Ho, Beck!" he cried. "Take me in an' give me a piece
of a ride anyway," and with a twinkle of his long ashy legs he landed
safely in the wagon.
"What you doin' here, Bud?" questioned his sister. "Why ain't you to
home with mammy and Min?"
"Min done had one o' she wussest spells, an' mammy sent me to Miss Tina
fur calomel. I heerd youna comin', an' I waited; 'kase ridin' beats
walkin' black and blue."
He looked up at her with a sly giggle, and crammed his mouth with
persimmons. He expected a scolding for delaying with the calomel, but
his sister only said:
"Quit eatin' them 'simmons. Pres'n'y we'll have to git calomel for
youna."
They were passing through the quarter now, where every one was getting
supper. The air was full of the appetizing odor of frying corn-bread and
bacon and boiling coffee. Men sat on the door-steps or smoked in groups
under the fine oaks which grew in the middle of the street, waiting for
the call to supper. Up at the end of the row of houses, and separated a
little from them by a wild-plum thicket, stood a house like a black
stump just seen above the green around it. It had what none of the
others possessed, a porch in front, but the rotten frame-work had
dropped off piece by piece, until it was a mystery how the heavy
scuppernong vine that grew upon it was supported. There were lilies and
roses in the clean bit of front yard, and on a box was a number of
geraniums flourishing in tin cans. There were boxes of violets, and a
thick honeysuckle was hugging a post and sending out sweet yellow
sprays. Beck drew up before the house with a jerk that had determination
in it. Bud jumped out with a boyish shout, but his sister caught his
arm.
"Hush, Bud! Don't you hear Min?"
"Min made up that piece to-day," responded Bud, in a roaring whisper.
"Maw an' me's been scared pretty nigh to death. Miss Tina say it ain't
Min singin', but that spell workin' on her."
The voice was sweet and rich, with an undercurrent of sadness running
through that went to the heart. It seemed to wait and tremble, then
float and float away, dying into softest melody. It was not the untaught
music of the plantation singers; it was a voice exquisitely trained.
"Lord! Lord!" ejaculated Religion. The words held a heartful of trouble.
She lowered the shafts gently and led Beck round the house.
"That you, Religion?" inquired a voice from somewhere in the yard.
She could hear milk straining into a pail, and the tramp of some animal
over dry shucks.
"It's me, maw, an' I got enough to pay the rent, and there'll be some
over."
"Youna mus' had good luck. Min'll be more'n middlin' glad of a few
crackers. I thought sure the gal was gone to-day, Religion," and a tall
form rose up from beside the cow and came towards the girl. "I sut'n'y
thought she was gone to-day," continued the mother. "She just died off,
and didn't 'pear to have no more life in her than a dead bird. I was
mighty scared."
"Why youna didn't send fur me?"
"Chile, I didn't want to worry youna. Then the neighbors come in, 'kase
I did a big piece o' hollerin', an' they worked on her and fotched her
back; I 'ain't been no 'count since. See how my hand trembles now."
She placed her hand on her daughter's arm. It was large and hard, but
all the ploughing, hoeing, and wood-cutting that she had done had not
destroyed its fine shape. It was cold and trembling.
Religion took it between her own square thick ones. "Never mind, maw;
she's better now, 'kase she's singin' a new piece. I'll go an' eat and
do the errands, so as to git back. You won't feel so bad when I'm here."
The single thing which made the room she entered different from all the
other rooms in the quarter was a white bed. The two other beds had the
usual patchwork quilts and yellow slips. Religion touched a light-wood
splinter to the fire, and holding the light above her head, went up to
the white bed. The face on the pillow was of that pure lustrous
whiteness which is sometimes seen in very young children; the features
were perfect. She seemed a creature of an entirely different sphere--as
different from Religion as a butterfly from a grub, and yet there was an
indefinable likeness between the two.
"I was waiting for you, 'Ligion," she said, opening her eyes; "I want to
tell you something; come close, so ma and Bud won't hear. A woman has
been here, a little old woman, and she sat on the bed and told me some
things. She told me that Tina had cut off a piece of my hair and hid it
in a gum-tree in the swamp, and that I never would be well till my hair
was found.
"I remember the night she combed my hair, and how Mauma Amy said it was
bad luck to comb hair after dark; it was so thick and long then, and it
has come out so since." She drew the long thin brown braid between her
fingers. "Why should Tina want to hurt me? The only harm I ever did her
was to love her."
She burst into tears, and Religion hugged her in mute sympathy; that
was her only way to comfort. When Min was quiet, she stirred up the
pillows and smoothed out the white spread. Then she took a tin cup full
of clabber, poured a little syrup upon it, and ate it heartily. A plate
of greens was hot on the hearth, and a corn-cake was browning
beautifully in the bake-kettle. But there was no time to eat the
dainties.
John Robinson, the owner of Hermitage, was a single man. He was old,
feeble, and notoriously grasping, yet the dirty, ill-smelling room which
Religion entered was strewn with choicest books, sheets of music lay on
the table and chairs, and several rare violins lay on a piano, whose
mother-of-pearl keys glowed in the red firelight.
"Who's that?" he called, in a cracked old voice, the instant he heard
Religion's footsteps. He was wrapped in a cloak and sunk in an arm-chair
before the fire.
"Me, Marse John--Minnie's Religion. I've come to pay the rent."
"Oh, come in, girl! Down, Bull!" he piped to a great hound that was
slowly rising from a sheepskin. "It's fifty cents. Sure you've got it
all, and no nickels with holes in them?"
She placed a little tobacco-bag in his hand, and he leaned forward to
the light to count the money. He had a sharp, pinched old face
surrounded by shaggy white hair. A portrait of him taken in a long-past
day hung over the fireplace. In that he was a handsome man, with thick
chestnut-brown hair. His hands shook so that the pieces of money dropped
from them and rolled upon the brick hearth. A tall mulatto woman came
from a near room and picked them up.
"Count it over again, Tina," he commanded, "and see if it's all there
and no holes in it. You can't trust Religion herself with money. How's
your sister?"
"Min ain't no better; she ain't never going to be no better in this
world."
"Tut, tut!" he muttered. "There should be some strength of will in that
girl. But, pshaw! she had a mother and a line of nonentities behind her.
I forgot that. Is that money all right, Tina?"
"It's all right, Marse John."
Tina was a beautiful woman, with the smoothest brown skin, and black
hair coiled many times around a perfectly shaped head.
The renters never waited long in Mr. Robinson's presence when their
business was ended. But Religion only moved back a little and lingered.
Tina, bringing a cup of cocoa, at last noticed her.
"Why, Religion, you're not gone."
"And why ain't you gone!" screamed the old man.
"I--I'm waiting for the receipt, sir."
"Waiting for the receipt?" he shrieked. "God and fury! things have come
to a pretty pass that a slave wench should wait in my house for a
receipt. Get out of this, or--Bull!"
"Stand still, Religion," cried Tina, as the dog leaped up. "Down, Bull!
Marse John"--and her voice sank to a sweet, soothing tone--"you'd better
not upset yourself so; you'll be sick."
She stroked his face and hair tenderly, and when he lay back quiet in
his chair, worn out with his passion, she beckoned to Religion to follow
her. They went into one of the rooms. The candle burning in it showed a
bed, with posts reaching to the ceiling, and an ancient mahogany chest.
A handful of fire burned in the deep fireplace, and before it crouched
Mack, an old slave of Mr. Robinson's--a miserable idiot, with just mind
enough to perform a very few menial services.
"Trick yer! trick yer!" he piped, in a high thin voice, like an old
woman's. "Done got de blacksnake's head an' de dead baby's hand right
hyar. Trick yer! trick yer! Git out quick!" He kept up the cry while
Tina wrote the receipt, and when she led the way to the door he pattered
after them. "Git out quick, 'fore Tina trick yer. I done hope Tina trick
Min."
Religion turned fiercely. "Has you tricked my sister and brung her to
what she is?"