A WHITE PRESENCE
"Does yer pa want me?" grunted Matty, lifting a tousled black head.
Virginia made a gesture of negation.
"No, he told me to get the hell out," she answered. "So I got! He's
awful sick! I guess mebbe he'll die!"
Matty nodded meaningly.
"Some folks might better 'a' stayed to hum for the past ten years than
be runnin' wild over the country like mad," she observed.
Virginia reached behind the stove and drew Milly Ann from her bed.
"Father"--Jinnie enjoyed using the word and spoke it lingeringly--"says he
wishes he'd stayed here now. You know, my Uncle Jordan, Matty----" She
hesitated to confide in the negro woman what her father had told her. So
she contented herself with:
"He's coming here soon."
Matty rolled her eyes toward the girl.
"I'se sorry for that, honey bunch." Then, without explaining her
words, asked: "Want me to finish about Jonathan Woggles' grandpa
dyin'?"
But Virginia's mind was traveling in another channel.
"Where's Bellaire, Matty?" she demanded.
"Off south," replied the woman, "right bearin' south."
"By train?"
"Yes, the same's walkin' or flying'," confirmed Matty. "Jest the
same."
"Then you can finish the story now, Matty," said Virginia presently.
Matty settled back in her chair, closed her eyes, and began to hum.
"How far'd I tell last night?" she queried, blinking.
"Just to where the white thing was waiting for Grandpa Woggles'
spirit," explained Virginia.
"Oh, yas. Well, round and round that house the white shadder swep',
keepin' time to the howlin' of other spirits in the pine trees----"
"But there aren't any pine trees at Woggles'," objected Virginia.
"Well, they'd be pines if they wasn't oaks," assured Matty. "Oaks or
pines, the spirits live in 'em jest the same."
"I 'spose so," agreed Virginia. "Go on!"
"An' round and round he went, meltin' the snow with his hot feet,"
mused Matty, sniffing the air. "And in the house Betty Woggles set
beside the old man, holdin' his hand, askin' him to promise he
wouldn't die.... Hum! As if a human bein' could keep from the stalkin'
whiteness beckonin' from the graveyard. 'Tain't in human power."
"Can't anybody keep death away, Matty?" inquired Virginia, an
expression of awe clouding her eyes.
She was thinking of the man upstairs whom she but twice had called
"father."
"Nope, not after the warnin' comes to him. Now Grandad Woggles had
that warnin' as much as three days afore the angel clim' the fence and
flopped about his house. But don't keep breakin' in on me, little
missy, 'cause I cain't finish if ye do, and I'se jest reachin' the
thrillin' part."
"Oh, then hurry," urged Jinnie.
"Well, as I was sayin', Betty set by the ole man, starin' into his
yeller face; 'twas as yeller as Milly Ann's back, his face was."
"Some yeller," murmured Virginia, fondling Milly Ann.
"Sure! Everybody dyin' gets yeller," informed Matty.
Virginia thought again of the sick man upstairs. His face was white,
not yellow, and her heart bounded with great hope. He might live yet a
little while. Yes, he surely would! Matty was an authority when she
told of the dead and dying, of the spirits which filled the pine
trees, and it seldom occurred to Virginia to doubt the black woman's
knowledge. She wanted her father to live! Life seemed so dizzily upset
with no Matty, with no Milly Ann, and no--father, somewhere in the
world. Matty's next words, spoken in a sepulchral whisper, bore down
on her with emphasis.
"Then what do ye think, honey bunch?"
"I don't know!" Virginia leaned forward expectantly.
"Jest as Betty was hangin' fast onto her grandpa's spirit, another
ghost, some spots of black on him, come right longside the white one,
wavin' his hands's if he was goin' to fly."
Virginia sat up very straight. Two spirits on the scene of Grandpa
Woggles' passing made the story more interesting, more thrilling. Her
sparkling eyes gave a new impetus to the colored woman's wagging
tongue.
"The white spirit, he sez, 'What _you_ hangin' round here fer?'"
Matty rolled her eyes upward. "This he sez to the black one, mind
you!"
Virginia nodded comprehendingly, keeping her eyes glued on the shining
dark face in front of her. She always dreaded, during the exciting
parts of Matty's nightly stories, to see, by chance, the garden, with
its trees and the white, silent graveyard beyond. And, although she
had no fear of tangible things, she seldom looked out of doors when
Matty crooned over her ghost stories.
Just then a bell pealed through the house.
Matty rose heavily.
"It's yer pa," she grumbled. "I'll finish when I git back."
Through the door the woman hobbled, while Virginia bent over Milly
Ann, stroking her softly with a new expression of gravity on the young
face. Many a day, in fancy, she had dreamed of her father's
homecoming. He was very different than her dreams. Still she hoped the
doctor might have made a mistake about his dying. A smile came to the
corners of her mouth, touched the dimples in her cheek, but did not
wipe the tragedy from her eyes. She was planning how tenderly she
would care for him, how cheerful he'd be when she played her fiddle
for him.
She heard Matty groping up the stairs--heard her pass down the hall
and open the door. Then suddenly she caught the sound of hurried steps
and the woman coming down again. Matty had crawled up, but was almost
falling down in her frantic haste to reach the kitchen. Something
unusual had happened. Virginia shoved Milly Ann to the floor and stood
up. Matty's appearance, with chattering teeth and bulging eyes,
brought Jinnie forward a few steps.
"He's daid! Yer pa's daid!" shivered Matty. "And the house is full of
spirits. They're standin' grinnin' in the corners. I'm goin' hum now,
little missy. I'm goin' to my ole man. You'd better come along fer
to-night."
Jinnie heard the moaning call of the pine trees as the winter's voice
swept through them,--the familiar sound she loved, yet at which she
trembled. Confused thoughts rolled through her mind; her father's fear
for her; his desire that she should seek another home. She could not
stay in Mottville Corners; she could not go with Matty. No, of course
not! Yet her throat filled with longing sobs, for the old colored
woman had been with her many years.
By this time Matty had tied on her scarf, opened the door, and as
Virginia saw her disappear, she sank limply to the floor. Milly Ann
rubbed her yellow back against her young mistress's dress. Virginia
caught her in her arms and drew her close.
"Kitty, kitty," she sobbed, "I've got to go! He said I could take you
and your babies, and I will, I will! I won't leave you here with the
spirits."
She rose unsteadily to her feet and went to the cupboard, where she
found a large pail. Into this she folded a roller towel. She then
lifted the kittens from the box behind the stove and placed them in
the pail, first pressing her lips lovingly to each warm, wriggley
little body. Milly Ann cuddled contentedly with her offspring as the
girl covered them up.
Jinnie had suddenly grown older, for a responsibility rested upon her
which no one else could assume.
To go forth into the blizzard meant she must wrap up warmly. This she
did. Then she wrapped a small brown fiddle in her jacket, took the
pail and went to the door. There she stood, considering a moment, with
her hand on the knob. With no further hesitancy she placed the kittens
and fiddle gently on the floor, and went to the stairs. The thought of
the spirits made her shiver. She saw long shadows making lines here
and there, and had no doubt but that these were the ghosts Matty had
seen. She closed her eyes tightly and began to ascend the stairs,
feeling her way along the wall. At the top she opened reluctant lids.
The library door stood ajar as Matty had left it, and the room
appeared quite the same as it had a few moments before, save for the
long figure of a man lying full length before the grate. That eternal
period, that awful stop which puts a check on human lives, had settled
once and for all the earthly concerns of her father. The space between
her and the body seemed peopled with spectral beings, which moved to
and fro in the dimly lit room. Her father lay on his back, the flames
from the fire making weird red and yellow twisting streaks on his
white, upturned face.
The taut muscles grew limp in the girl's body as she staggered forward
and stood contemplating the wide-open, staring eyes. Then with a long
sigh breathed between quivering lips, she dropped beside the lifeless
man. The deadly forces eddying around her were not of her own making.
With the going of this person, who was her father by nature,
everything else had gone too. All her life's hopes had been dissolved
in the crucible of death. She lay, with her hands to her mouth,
pressing back the great sobs that came from the depths of her heart.
She reached out and tentatively touched her father's cheek; without
fear she moved his head a little to what she hoped would be a more
comfortable position.
"You told me to go," she whispered brokenly, "and I'm going now. You
never liked me much, but I guess one of my kisses won't hurt you."
Saying this, Jinnie pressed her lips twice to those of her dead
father, and got to her feet quickly. She dared not leave the lamp
burning, so within a short distance of the table she drew a long
breath and blew toward the smoking light. The flame flared thrice like
a torch, then spat out, leaving the shivering girl to feel her way
around the room. To the sensitive young soul the dark was almost
maddening. She only wanted to get back to Milly Ann, and she closed
the door with no thought for what might become of the man inside. He
was dead! A greater danger menaced her. He had warned her and she
would heed. As she stumbled down the stairs, her memories came too
swiftly to be precise and in order, and the weird moans of the night
wind drifted intermittently through the wild maze of her thoughts. She
would say good-bye to Molly the Merry, for Molly was the only person
in all the country round who had ever spoken a kindly word to her.
Their acquaintance had been slight, because Molly lived quite a
distance away and the woman had never been to see her, but then of
course no one in the neighborhood approved of the house of Singleton.
Later by five minutes, Virginia left the dark farmhouse, carrying her
fiddle and the pail of cats, and the blizzard swallowed her up.