Clouds.
Alas for Daph! She was soon to find life was not all sunshine in her
northern home. The lovely May weather, which had been like a pleasant
welcome to the strangers, suddenly vanished, and was succeeded by dark
clouds, pouring rain, and keen easterly winds. Daph was glad to keep
the children wrapped in the bed-clothes, while she racked her ingenuity
to find means of amusing them. Charlie took a wash-basin for a drum,
and the pewter spoon with which he beat it was a constant and patient
sufferer. Louise was not so easily pleased; she began to miss her
mother sorely, and tried poor Daph, by pleading piteously to see her
“own dear mamma.”
Daph had tried to banish from her mind all thoughts of her master and
mistress, for the bare imagination of what they might have suffered
made her wild with distress. She said to herself, “What for Daph go to
tink about tings, jus as likely nebber was at all! Daph makes out de
great Lord could n’t save massa and Miss Elize all hisself, widout Daph
to help him! Foolish darky! She better cheer up, and take care ob de
childen, ’stead o’ jus whimper, whimper, like a sick monkey.”
Daph had to go through a course of consolation, similar to the above,
very frequently, to enable her to maintain her cheerfulness; but the
piteous questionings of the little Louise well-nigh overcame all the
poor negro’s philosophy.
“I’se tell you what it is, Miss Lou,” poor Daph said, desperately, at
last, “I’se jus tell you what it is; de great Lord is a-takin care ob
your mamma, and if you’s a good girl, you’ll jus see her some day, and
if you is not, de great Lord will nebber, nebber bring you together!”
Daph’s manner, as well as her words, had some effect upon Louise, and
she tried to content herself with watching the rain streaming down the
window-panes, and was soon in a sufficiently cheerful mood to march
up and down the room, to the sound of Charlie’s music, greatly to his
satisfaction.
The dreary weather without was not all that Daph had to contend with;
she found she had an enemy within the house, whose attacks it was far
more difficult to meet.
The little woman, whose angry voice had attracted Daph’s attention at
first, kept her humble lodger familiar with its harsh tones. Daph’s
appearance was the signal for a volley of complaints, as to the noise
made by the children, the marks left on the floor by Daph’s feet, as
she returned from the well, the unpleasantness of “seeing other folks
so much at home in one’s own house,” etc., etc.
Daph never had a chance to get any further than, “deed, Miss Ray!” in
her attempts at self-justification, for the opening of her mouth was
sure to produce another tirade on the “impudence of certain people,
that nobody knew anything about.”
The demure-looking little girl was generally a silent spectator of
these attacks, but now and then she was forced to cry out, “O, mother!
don’t!” which protest was generally met by a sharp box of the ear, and
a “take that, Mary, and learn to be quiet!” If Mary Ray had learned
any lesson, it certainly was to be quiet. She rarely spoke, and her
footsteps were almost as noiseless as the fall of the winter snow.
Daph soon found out that Mrs. Ray considered Mary especially guilty, in
having presumed to live, when her brother, a fine healthy boy, had been
snatched away by sudden disease.
The loss of her husband, and consequent poverty, had somewhat soured
Mrs. Ray’s temper, but her last bereavement seemed to have made her
all acidity. She constantly reproached Mary for being a useless girl,
always in her mother’s sight, when the dear boy, on whom she had hoped
to lean, had been taken from her.
Daph’s keen sympathies were soon warmly enlisted for little Mary, who
had really begun to believe she was quite in fault for continuing to
cumber the earth, when nobody wanted her here.
Daph never passed Mary without a cheerful word, and she contrived to
show the child many trifling acts of kindness, which went directly to
her heart.
At one time Daph, with her strong arm, lifted Mary’s heavy pail of
water, at another, she took her pitcher to the milkman in a pouring
rain; and one day, when she could think of no other way of showing
her interest, she secretly bestowed on the little girl one of the few
oranges which still remained of the store brought from the ship.
Mary’s sorrowful face, Mrs. Ray’s harsh voice, the penetrating chill
in the air, and the monotonous life she led in the single room, made
it hard for Daph to bear up cheerfully, and, but for the children, she
would have withdrawn to a corner, and moped all the time. She managed
to keep up her spirits during the day, but when the little ones were
asleep, she had her own sad, wakeful hours. More than a week had
passed in this dreary way. Daph saw her treasured store of money fast
diminishing, under the necessary expenditure for supplying the simple
wants of her little establishment, and she already saw, too plainly,
that the whole party must soon have a new outfit of clothing, or they
would be disgraced by their rags and uncleanliness.
The children were quietly slumbering near her; she had extinguished the
candle, that it might not waste its feeble light, and, with her head on
her hand, she began to consider seriously the situation in which she
found herself. The present was dark enough, but what was she to think
of the gloomy future!
Where should she look for the work she would so willingly do? How
could she leave her little charge, even if that work were found?
A sense of utter helplessness came over the poor negro, and hot tears
poured down her cheeks.
A sudden thought struck her; there was One all-powerful, and to Him she
would go. She fell on her knees, and uttered her first simple prayer:
“Will de great Lord gib poor Daph something for do?”
Overpowered by the effort she had made, and fearful there was something
presuming in a poor creature like herself daring to speak to the being
she so reverenced, Daph sank down on the floor, in a position of silent
humility. A conviction that she had been heard and forgiven for the
boldness of her prayer stole over her, and she stretched herself as
usual on the bare floor, and was soon in a sound sleep.