MADAM,--If you value your daughter's happiness, keep her at home for
the next day or two.
This note he dried by sprinkling it with sand from a box near at hand,
signed with his own name, and, with a fine courtesy, addressed to "Mrs.
Molly Walden." Having first carefully sealed it in an envelope, he
stepped to the open door, and spied, playing marbles on the street near
by, a group of negro boys, one of whom the judge called by name.
"Here, Billy," he said, handing the boy the note, "take this to Mis'
Molly Walden. Do you know where she lives--down on Front Street, in
the house behind the cedars?"
"Yas, suh, I knows de place."
"Make haste, now. When you come back and tell me what she says, I'll
give you ten cents. On second thoughts, I shall be gone to lunch, so
here's your money," he added, handing the lad the bit of soiled paper
by which the United States government acknowledged its indebtedness to
the bearer in the sum of ten cents.
Just here, however, the judge made his mistake. Very few mortals can
spare the spring of hope, the motive force of expectation. The boy
kept the note in his hand, winked at his companions, who had gathered
as near as their awe of the judge would permit, and started down the
street. As soon as the judge had disappeared, Billy beckoned to his
friends, who speedily overtook him. When the party turned the corner
of Front Street and were safely out of sight of Judge Straight's
office, the capitalist entered the grocery store and invested his
unearned increment in gingerbread. When the ensuing saturnalia was
over, Billy finished the game of marbles which the judge had
interrupted, and then set out to execute his commission. He had nearly
reached his objective point when he met upon the street a young white
lady, whom he did not know, and for whom, the path being narrow at that
point, he stepped out into the gutter. He reached the house behind the
cedars, went round to the back door, and handed the envelope to Mis'
Molly, who was seated on the rear piazza, propped up by pillows in a
comfortable rocking-chair.
"Laws-a-massy!" she exclaimed weakly, "what is it?"
"It's a lettuh, ma'm," answered the boy, whose expanding nostrils had
caught a pleasant odor from the kitchen, and who was therefore in no
hurry to go away.
"Who's it fur?" she asked.
"It's fuh you, ma'm," replied the lad.
"An' who's it from?" she inquired, turning the envelope over and over,
and examining it with the impotent curiosity of one who cannot read.
"F'm ole Jedge Straight, ma'm. He tole me ter fetch it ter you. Is
you got a roasted 'tater you could gimme, ma'm?"
"Shorely, chile. I'll have Aunt Zilphy fetch you a piece of 'tater
pone, if you'll hol' on a minute."
She called to Aunt Zilphy, who soon came hobbling out of the kitchen
with a large square of the delicacy,--a flat cake made of mashed sweet
potatoes, mixed with beaten eggs, sweetened and flavored to suit the
taste, and baked in a Dutch oven upon the open hearth.
The boy took the gratuity, thanked her, and turned to go. Mis' Molly
was still scanning the superscription of the letter. "I wonder," she
murmured, "what old Judge Straight can be writin' to me about. Oh,
boy!"
"Yas 'm," answered the messenger, looking back.
"Can you read writin'?"
"No 'm."
"All right. Never mind."
She laid the letter carefully on the chimney-piece of the kitchen. "I
reckon it's somethin' mo' 'bout the taxes," she thought, "or maybe
somebody wants to buy one er my lots. Rena'll be back terreckly, an'
she kin read it an' find out. I'm glad my child'en have be'n to school.
They never could have got where they are now if they hadn't."