Mom Beck carried the ironing-board out of the hot kitchen, set the irons
off the stove, and then tiptoed out to the side porch of the little
cottage.
"Is yo' head feelin' any bettah, honey?" she said to the pretty,
girlish-looking woman lying in the hammock. "I promised to step up to
the hotel this evenin' to see one of the chambah-maids. I thought I'd
take the Little Cun'l along with me if you was willin'. She's always
wild to play with Mrs. Wyford's children up there."
"Yes, I'm better, Becky," was the languid reply. "Put a clean dress on
Lloyd if you are going to take her out."
Mrs. Sherman closed her eyes again, thinking gratefully, "Dear, faithful
old Becky! What a comfort she has been all my life, first as my nurse,
and now as Lloyd's! She is worth her weight in gold!"
The afternoon shadows were stretching long across the grass when Mom
Beck led the child up the green slope in front of the hotel.
The Little Colonel had danced along so gaily with Fritz that her cheeks
glowed like wild roses. She made a quaint little picture with such short
sunny hair and dark eyes shining out from under the broad-brimmed white
hat she wore.
Several ladies who were sitting on the shady piazza, busy with their
embroidery, noticed her admiringly. "It's Elizabeth Lloyd's little
daughter," one of them explained. "Don't you remember what a scene there
was some years ago when she married a New York man? Sherman, I believe,
his name was, Jack Sherman. He was a splendid fellow, and enormously
wealthy. Nobody could say a word against him, except that he was a
Northerner. That was enough for the old Colonel, though. He hates
Yankees like poison. He stormed and swore, and forbade Elizabeth ever
coming in his sight again. He had her room locked up, and not a soul on
the place ever dares mention her name in his hearing."
The Little Colonel sat down demurely on the piazza steps to wait for the
children. The nurse had not finished dressing them for the evening.
She amused herself by showing Fritz the pictures in an illustrated
weekly. It was not long until she began to feel that the ladies were
talking about her. She had lived among older people so entirely that
her thoughts were much deeper than her baby speeches would lead one to
suppose.
She understood dimly, from what she had heard the servants say, that
there was some trouble between her mother and grandfather. Now she heard
it rehearsed from beginning to end. She could not understand what
they meant by "bank failures" and "unfortunate investments," but she
understood enough to know that her father had lost nearly all his money,
and had gone West to make more.
Mrs. Sherman had moved from their elegant New York home two weeks ago
to this little cottage in Lloydsborough that her mother had left her.
Instead of the houseful of servants they used to have, there was only
faithful Mom Beck to do everything.
There was something magnetic in the child's eyes.
Mrs. Wyford shrugged her shoulders uneasily as she caught their piercing
gaze fixed on her.
"I do believe that little witch understood every word I said," she
exclaimed.
"Oh, certainly not," was the reassuring answer. "She's such a little
thing."
But she had heard it all, and understood enough to make her vaguely
unhappy. Going home she did not frisk along with Fritz, but walked
soberly by Mom Beck's side, holding tight to the friendly black hand.
"We'll go through the woods," said Mom Beck, lifting her over the fence.
"It's not so long that way."
As they followed the narrow, straggling path into the cool dusk of
the woods, she began to sing. The crooning chant was as mournful as a
funeral dirge.
"The clouds hang heavy, an' it's gwine to rain.
Fa'well, my dyin' friends.
I'm gwine to lie in the silent tomb.
Fa'well, my dyin' friends."
A muffled little sob made her stop and look down in surprise.
"Why, what's the mattah, honey?" she exclaimed. "Did Emma Louise make
you mad? Or is you cryin' 'cause you're so ti'ed? Come! Ole Becky'll
tote her baby the rest of the way."
She picked the light form up in her arms, and, pressing the troubled
little face against her shoulder, resumed her walk and her song.
"It's a world of trouble we're travellin' through,
Fa'well, my dyin' friends."
"Oh, don't, Mom Beck," sobbed the child, throwing her arms around the
woman's neck, and crying as though her heart would break.
"Land sakes, what is the mattah?" she asked, in alarm. She sat down on a
mossy log, took off the white hat, and looked into the flushed, tearful
face.
"Oh, it makes me so lonesome when you sing that way," wailed the Little
Colonel. "I just can't 'tand it! Mom Beck, is my mothah's heart all
broken? Is that why she is sick so much, and will it kill her suah
'nuff?"
"Who's been tellin' you such nonsense?" asked the woman, sharply.
"Some ladies at the hotel were talkin' about it. They said that
gran'fathah didn't love her any moah, an' it was just a-killin' her."
Mom Beck frowned fiercely.
The child's grief was so deep and intense that she did not know just
how to quiet her. Then she said, decidedly, "Well, if that's all that's
a-troublin' you, you can jus' get down an' walk home on yo' own laigs.
Yo' mamma's a-grievin' 'cause yo' papa has to be away all the time.
She's all wo'n out, too, with the work of movin', when she's nevah been
used to doin' anything. But her heart isn't broke any moah'n my neck
is."
The positive words and the decided toss Mom Beck gave her head settled
the matter for the Little Colonel. She wiped her eyes and stood up much
relieved.
"Don't you nevah go to worryin' 'bout what you heahs," continued the
woman. "I tell you p'intedly you cyarnt nevah b'lieve what you heahs."
"Why doesn't gran'fathah love my mothah?" asked the child, as they came
in sight of the cottage. She had puzzled over the knotty problem all the
way home. "How can papas not love their little girls?"
"'Cause he's stubbo'n," was the unsatisfactory answer. "All the Lloyds
is. Yo' mamma's stubbo'n, an' you's stubbo'n--"
"I'm not!" shrieked the Little Colonel, stamping her foot. "You sha'n't
call me names!"
Then she saw a familiar white hand waving to her from the hammock, and
she broke away from Mom Beck with very red cheeks and very bright eyes.
Cuddled close in her mother's arms, she had a queer feeling that she had
grown a great deal older in that short afternoon.
Maybe she had. For the first time in her little life she kept her
troubles to herself, and did not once mention the thought that was
uppermost in her mind.
"Yo' great-aunt Sally Tylah is comin' this mawnin'," said Mom Beck, the
day after their visit to the hotel. "Do fo' goodness' sake keep yo'self
clean. I'se got too many spring chickens to dress to think 'bout
dressin' you up again."
"Did I evah see her befo'?" questioned the Little Colonel.
"Why, yes, the day we moved heah. Don't you know she came and stayed so
long, and the rockah broke off the little white rockin'-chair when she
sat down in it?"
"Oh, now I know!" laughed the child. "She's the big fat one with curls
hangin' round her yeahs like shavin's. I don't like her, Mom Beck. She
keeps a-kissin' me all the time, an' a-'queezin' me, an' tellin' me to
sit on her lap an' be a little lady. Mom Beck, I de'pise to be a little
lady."
There was no answer to her last remark. Mom Beck had stepped into the
pantry for more eggs for the cake she was making.
"Fritz," said the Little Colonel, "yo' great-aunt Sally Tylah's comin'
this mawnin', an' if you don't want to say 'howdy' to her you'll have to
come with me."
A few minutes later a resolute little figure squeezed between the
palings of the garden fence down by the gooseberry bushes.
"Now walk on your tiptoes, Fritz!" commanded the Little Colonel, "else
somebody will call us back."
Mom Beck, busy with her extra baking, supposed she was with her mother
on the shady, vine-covered porch.
She would not have been singing quite so gaily if she could have seen
half a mile up the road.
The Little Colonel was sitting in the weeds by the railroad track,
deliberately taking off her shoes and stockings.
"Just like a little niggah," she said, delightedly, as she stretched out
her bare feet. "Mom Beck says I ought to know bettah. But it does feel
so good!"
No telling how long she might have sat there enjoying the forbidden
pleasure of dragging her rosy toes through the warm dust, if she had not
heard a horse's hoof-beats coming rapidly along.
"Fritz, it's gran'fathah," she whispered, in alarm, recognizing the
erect figure of the rider in its spotless suit of white duck.
"Sh! lie down in the weeds, quick! Lie down, I say!" They both made
themselves as flat as possible, and lay there panting with the exertion
of keeping still.
Presently the Little Colonel raised her head cautiously.
"Oh, he's gone down that lane!" she exclaimed. "Now you can get up."
After a moment's deliberation she asked, "Fritz, would you rathah have
some 'trawberries an' be tied up fo' runnin' away, or not be tied up and
not have any of those nice tas'en 'trawberries?"