Ann Sutherland Leighton was one of those rare religionists that
occasionally bloom in a most unaccountable manner on a family tree
having its roots in the turf rather than clinging to Plymouth Rock.
Isaac Sutherland, her father, had been knowing in horse-flesh, and would
have looked askance on the Reverend Orme Leighton as a suitor had he not
also been knowing in men. The truth was that in Leighton the man was
bigger than the parson, and to the conceded fact that all the world
loves a lover he added the prestige of the less-bandied truth that all
the world loves a fighter. He, also, knew horse-flesh. He finally won
Ann's father over on the day when Ike Sutherland learned to his cost
that the Reverend Orme could discern through the back of his head that
distension of the capsular ligament of the hock commonly termed a bog
spavin.
Ann did not share her husband's extreme views. It was a personal loyalty
that had brought her uncomplaining to a far country, unbuoyed by the
Reverend Orme's dreams of a new state, but seeking with an inward
fervidness some scene of lasting peace wherewith to blot out the memory
of long years of turmoil and wholesale bereavement.
To her those first years in Consolation Cottage were long--long with the
weight of six thousand miles from home. Then, with the suddeness of
answered prayer, a light came into her darkness. He was named Shenton.
Mammy's broad, homesick face broke into an undying smile. "Sho is mo'
lak ole times, Mis' Ann, havin' a young Marster abeout." And when, two
years later, on a Christmas day, Natalie was born, Mammy mixed smiles
with tears and sobbed, "Oh, Mis' Ann, sho is mo' an' _mo'_ lak ole
times."
She, too, had her clinging memories of halls, now empty, that echoed
once to the cries and gurgling laughter of a race in full flower.
As Ann sat one evening on the embowered veranda looking away to the
north, a child within the circle of each arm, the old aching in her
breast was stilled. The restless Leighton paused in his stride to gaze
through fiery, but gloomy, eyes upon his fair-haired baby daughter and
his son, pale, crowned with dark curls, and cried, with a toss of his
own dark mane: "As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are
children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of
them!"
This realization of the preciousness of children in adversity paved the
way for the reception of one who was to come to them from under the
shadow of a family cloud, a certain mysterious personage of tender
years, Lewis Leighton, by name.
For weeks the name of Lewis Leighton had been whispered about the house,
first by the grown-ups and finally, when the Reverend Orme and his wife
had come to the great decision, by the children. The children knew
nothing of the great decision nor did they know the sources of their
sudden joy. Their spirits were reaching out to clasp this new thread in
life at an age when all new threads are golden.
On the appointed day the Reverend Orme went to the nearest seaport to
meet the youthful voyager and convoy him home. As evening drew near,
great was the excitement at Consolation Cottage. To Natalie and to
Shenton, the sudden arrival of an entirely new brother, not in
swaddling-clothes, but handed down ready-made from the shelf, was an
event that loomed to unusual proportions. At last the great gate swung
open, and a cab rattled its leisurely way up the drive.
In an instant the children were on their feet, jumping up and down and
clapping their hands. "Mother," shouted Shenton, "they're coming!"
Little Natalie clambered in stumbling haste up the steps and clutched
Mrs. Leighton's skirts. "Muvver," she cried, in an agony of ecstasy,
"they're _coming!_"
"Yes, yes, dear; I see. Oh, look how you've rumpled your dress! What
will Lewis say to that? Come, Shenton, give mother your hand." Slowly
she led them down the steps, her eyes fixed on the approaching cab.
The Reverend Orme sprang out and up to meet them. He kissed his wife and
children. Shenton clung to his arm.
"O Dad," he cried, "didn't you bring him?"
"Bring him? I should say I did. Here, step out, young man."
A chubby face above a blouse, a short kilt and fat legs, appeared from
the shadows of the cab. Grave eyes passed fearlessly over the group on
the steps until they settled on the broad black face of Mammy.
"Bad nigger!"
Mrs. Leighton gasped and arrested herself in the very movement of
welcome. Mammy's genial face assumed a terrible scowl, her white eyes
bulged, and her vast arms went suddenly akimbo.
"Wha' 's that yo' say, yo' young Marster?" she thundered.
"Go--go--_good_ nigger," stuttered the chubby face and smiled. With that
he was swept from the cab into Mrs. Leighton's arms, and Mammy, grinning
from ear to ear, caught him by one fat leg and demanded in soft negro
tones:
"Wha' fo' you call yo' mammy 'bad niggah,' young Marster? Ho! ho!
'Go--go--_good_ niggah!' Did yo' hea' him, Mis' Ann?"
Shenton and Natalie jumped up and down, with, cries of "Please, Mother,"
and "Muvver, oh, _please!_" Mrs. Leighton set Lewis on his feet between
them. Shenton held out his hand. "How d' ye."
"How do do," replied Lewis, gravely. Natalie was plucking at his arm. He
turned to her. They were almost of a size, but to Natalie he towered an
inch above her. She held up her lips, and he kissed them. Then they
stood and stared at each other. Natalie's short forefinger found its way
to her mouth.
"My dwess is wumpled," she said.
"I got a dog at home," declared Lewis--"a _big_ dog."