HARRY AND HIS WIFE.
Several miles from the Gordon estate, on an old and somewhat decayed
plantation, stood a neat log-cabin, whose external aspect showed both
taste and care. It was almost enveloped in luxuriant wreaths of yellow
jessamine, and garlanded with a magnificent lamarque rose, whose
cream-colored buds and flowers contrasted beautifully with the dark,
polished green of the finely-cut leaves.
The house stood in an enclosure formed by a high hedge of the American
holly, whose evergreen foliage and scarlet berries made it, at all times
of the year, a beautiful object. Within the enclosure was a garden,
carefully tended, and devoted to the finest fruits and flowers.
This little dwelling, so different in its air of fanciful neatness from
ordinary southern cabins, was the abode of Harry's little wife.
_Lisette_, which was her name, was the slave of a French creole woman,
to whom a plantation had recently fallen by inheritance.
She was a delicate, airy little creature, formed by a mixture of the
African and French blood, producing one of those fanciful, exotic
combinations, that give one the same impression of brilliancy and
richness that one receives from tropical insects and flowers. From both
parent races she was endowed with a sensuous being exquisitely quick and
fine,--a nature of everlasting childhood, with all its freshness of
present life, all its thoughtless, unreasoning fearlessness of the
future.
She stands there at her ironing-table, just outside her cottage door,
singing gayly at her work. Her round, plump, childish form is shown to
advantage by the trim blue basque, laced in front, over a chemisette of
white linen. Her head is wreathed with a gay turban, from which escapes,
now and then, a wandering curl of her silky black hair. Her eyes, as
she raises them, have the hazy, dreamy languor, which is so
characteristic of the mixed races. Her little, childish hands are busy,
with nimble fingers adroitly plaiting and arranging various articles of
feminine toilet, too delicate and expensive to have belonged to those in
humble circumstances. She ironed, plaited, and sung, with busy care.
Occasionally, however, she would suspend her work, and, running between
the flower-borders to the hedge, look wistfully along the road, shading
her eyes with her hand. At last, as she saw a man on horseback
approaching, she flew lightly out, and ran to meet him.
"Harry, Harry! You've come, at last. I'm so glad! And what have you got
in that paper? Is it anything for me?"
He held it up, and shook it at her, while she leaped after it.
"No, no, little curiosity!" he said, gayly.
"I know it's something for me," said she, with a pretty, half-pouting
air.
"And why do you know it's for you? Is everything to be for you in the
world, you little good-for-nothing?"
"Good-for-nothing!" with a toss of the gayly-turbaned little head. "You
may well say that, sir! Just look at the two dozen shirts I've ironed,
since morning! Come, now, take me up; I want to ride."
Harry put out the toe of his boot and his hand, and, with an adroit
spring, she was in a moment before him, on his horse's neck, and, with a
quick turn, snatched the paper parcel from his hand.
"Woman's curiosity!" said he.
"Well, I want to see what it is. Dear me, what a tight string! Oh, I
can't break it! Well, here it goes; I'll tear a hole in it, anyhow. Oh,
silk, as I live! Aha! tell me now this isn't for me, you bad thing,
you!"
"Why, how do you know it isn't to make me a summer coat?"
"Summer coat!--likely story! Aha! I've found you out, mister! But, come,
do make the horse canter! I want to go fast. Make him canter, do!"
Harry gave a sudden jerk to the reins, and in a minute the two were
flying off as if on the wings of the wind. On and on they went, through
a small coppice of pines, while the light-hearted laugh rang on the
breeze behind them. Now they are lost to view. In a few minutes,
emerging from the pine woods in another direction, they come sweeping,
gay and laughing, up to the gate. To fasten the horse, to snatch the
little wife on his shoulder, and run into the cottage with her, seemed
the work only of a moment; and, as he set her down, still laughing, he
exclaimed,--
"There, go, now, for a pretty little picture, as you are! I have helped
them get up _les tableaux vivans_, at their great houses; but you are my
tableau. You aren't good for much. You are nothing but a humming-bird,
made to live on honey!"
"That's what I am!" said the little one. "It takes a great deal of honey
to keep me. I want to be praised, flattered, and loved, all the time. It
isn't enough to have you love me. I want to hear you tell me so every
day, and hour, and minute. And I want you always to admire me, and
praise everything that I do. Now"--
"Particularly when you tear holes in packages!" said Harry.
"Oh, my silk--my new silk dress!" said Lisette, thus reminded of the
package which she held in her hand. "This hateful string! How it cuts my
fingers! I _will_ break it! I'll bite it in two. Harry, Harry, don't you
see how it hurts my fingers? Why don't you cut it?"
And the little sprite danced about the cottage floor, tearing the paper,
and tugging at the string, like an enraged humming-bird. Harry came
laughing behind her, and, taking hold of her two hands, held them quite
still, while he cut the string of the parcel, and unfolded a gorgeous
plaid silk, crimson, green, and orange.
"There, now, what do you think of that? Miss Nina brought it, when she
came home, last week."
"Oh, how lovely! Isn't she a beauty? Isn't she good? How beautiful it
is! Dear me, dear me! how happy I am! How happy _we_ are!--an't we,
Harry?"
A shadow came over Harry's forehead as he answered, with a half-sigh,--
"Yes."
"I was up at three o'clock this morning, on purpose to get all my
ironing done to-day, because I thought you were to come home to-night.
Ah! ah! you don't know what a supper I've got ready! You'll see, by and
by. I'm going to do something uncommon. You mustn't look in that other
room, Harry--you mustn't!"
"Mustn't I?" said Harry, getting up, and going to the door.
"There, now! who's curiosity now, I wonder!" said she, springing nimbly
between him and the door. "No, you shan't go in, though. There, now;
don't, don't! _Be_ good now, Harry!"
"Well, I may as well give up first as last. This is your house, not
mine, I suppose," said Harry.
"Mr. Submission, how meek we are, all of a sudden. Well, while the fit
lasts, you go to the spring and get me some water to fill this
tea-kettle. Off with you now, this minute! Mind you don't stop to play
by the way!"
And, while Harry is gone to the spring, we will follow the wife into the
forbidden room. Very cool and pleasant it is, with its white
window-curtains, its matted floor, and displaying in the corner that
draped feather-bed, with its ruffled pillows and fringed curtains, which
it is the great ambition of the southern cabin to attain and maintain.
The door, which opened on to a show of most brilliant flowers, was
overlaid completely by the lamarque rose we have before referred to; and
large clusters of its creamy blossoms, and wreaths of its dark-green
leaves, had been enticed in and tied to sundry nails and pegs by the
small hands of the little mistress, to form an arch of flowers and
roses. A little table stood in the door, draped with a spotless damasked
table-cloth, fine enough for the use of a princess, and only produced by
the little mistress on festive occasions. On it were arranged dishes
curiously trimmed with moss and vine-leaves, which displayed
strawberries and peaches, with a pitcher of cream and one of whey, small
dishes of curd, delicate cakes and biscuit, and fresh golden butter.
After patting and arranging the table-cloth, Lisette tripped gayly
around, and altered here and there the arrangement of a dish,
occasionally stepping back, and cocking her little head on one side,
much like a bird, singing gayly as she did so; then she would pick a
bit of moss from this, and a flower from that, and retreat again, and
watch the effect.
"How surprised he will be!" she said to herself. Still humming a tune in
a low, gurgling undertone, she danced hither and thither, round the
apartment. First she gave the curtains a little shake, and, unlooping
one of them, looped it up again, so as to throw the beams of the evening
sun on the table.
"There, there, there! how pretty the light falls through those
nasturtions! I wonder if the room smells of the mignonette. I gathered
it when the dew was on it, and they say that will make it smell all day.
Now, here's Harry's book-case. Dear me! these flies! How they do get on
to everything! Shoo, shoo! now, now!" and, catching a gay bandana
handkerchief from the drawer, she perfectly exhausted herself in flying
about the room in pursuit of the buzzing intruders, who soared, and
dived, and careered, after the manner of flies in general, seeming
determined to go anywhere but out of the door, and finally were seen
brushing their wings and licking their feet, with great alertness, on
the very topmost height of the sacred bed-curtains; and as just this
moment a glimpse was caught of Harry returning from the spring, Lisette
was obliged to abandon the chase, and rush into the other room, to
prevent a premature development of her little tea-tableau. Then a small,
pug-nosed, black tea-kettle came on to the stage of action, from some
unknown cupboard; and Harry had to fill it with water, and of course
spilt the water on to the ironing-table, which made another little
breezy, chattering commotion; and then the flat-irons were cleared away,
and the pug-nosed kettle reigned in their stead on the charcoal brazier.
"Now, Harry, was ever such a smart wife as I am? Only think, besides all
the rest that I've done, I've ironed your white linen suit, complete!
Now, go put it on. Not in there! not in there!" she said, pushing him
away from the door. "You can't go there, yet. You'll do well enough out
here."
And away she went, singing through the garden walks; and the song,
floating back behind her, seemed like an odor brushed from the flowers.
The refrain came rippling in at the door--
"Me think not what to-morrow bring;
Me happy, so me sing!"
"Poor little thing!" said Harry to himself; "why should I try to teach
her anything?"
In a few minutes she was back again, her white apron thrown over her
arm, and blossoms of yellow jessamine, spikes of blue lavender, and buds
of moss-roses, peeping out from it. She skipped gayly along, and
deposited her treasure on the ironing-table; then, with a zealous,
bustling earnestness, which characterized everything she did, she began
sorting them into two bouquets, alternately talking and singing, as she
did so,--
"Come on, ye rosy hours,
All joy and gladness bring!"
"You see, Harry, you're going to have a bouquet to put into the
button-hole of that coat. It will make you look so handsome! There,
now--there, now,--
'We'll strew the way with flowers,
And merrily, merrily sing.'"
Suddenly stopping, she looked at him archly, and said, "You can't tell,
now, what I'm doing all this for!"
"There's never any telling what you women do anything for."
"Do hear him talk--so pompous! Well, sir, it's for your birthday, now.
Aha! you thought, because I can't keep the day of the month, that I
didn't know anything about it; but I did. And I have put down now a
chalk-mark every day, for four weeks, right under where I keep my
ironing-account, so as to be sure of it. And I've been busy about it
ever since two o'clock this morning. And now--there, the tea-kettle is
boiling!"--and away she flew to the door.
"Oh, dear me!--dear me, now!--I've killed myself, now, I have!" she
cried, holding up one of her hands, and flirting it up in the air. "Dear
me! who knew it was so hot?"
"I should think a little woman that is so used to the holder _might_
have known it," said Harry, as he caressed the little burnt hand.
"Come, now, let me carry it for you," said Harry, "and I'll make the
tea, if you'll let me go into that mysterious room."
"Indeed, no, Harry--I'm going to do everything myself;" and, forgetting
the burnt finger, Lisette was off in a moment, and back in a moment
with a shining teapot in her hand, and the tea was made. And at last the
mysterious door opened, and Lisette stood with her eyes fixed upon
Harry, to watch the effect.
"Superb!--magnificent!--splendid! Why, this is good enough for a king!
And where _did_ you get all these things?" said Harry.
"Oh, out of our garden--all but the peaches. Those old Mist gave
me--they come from Florida. There, now, you laughed at me, last summer,
when I set those strawberry-vines, and made all sorts of fun of me. And
what do you think now?"
"Think! I think you're a wonderful little thing--a perfect witch."
"Come, now, let's sit down, then--you there, and I here." And, opening
the door of the bird-cage, which hung in the lamarque rose-bush, "Little
Button shall come, too."
Button, a bright yellow canary, with a smart black tuft upon his head,
seemed to understand his part in the little domestic scene perfectly;
for he stepped obediently upon the finger which was extended to him, and
was soon sitting quite at his ease on the mossy edge of one of the
dishes, pecking at the strawberries.
"And now, do tell me," said Lisette, "all about Miss Nina. How does she
look?"
"Pretty and smart as ever," said Harry. "Just the same witchy, wilful
ways with her."
"And did she show you her dresses?"
"Oh, yes; the whole."
"Oh, do tell me about them, Harry--do!"
"Well, there's a lovely pink gauze, covered with spangles, to be worn
over white satin."
"With flounces?" said Lisette, earnestly.
"With flounces."
"How many?"
"Really, I don't remember."
"Don't remember how many flounces? Why, Harry, how stupid! Say, Harry,
don't you suppose she will let me come and look at her things?"
"Oh, yes, dear, I don't doubt she will; and that will save my making a
gazette of myself."
"Oh, when will you take me there, Harry?"
"Perhaps to-morrow, dear. And now," said Harry, "that you have
accomplished your surprise upon me, I have a surprise, in return, for
you. You can't guess, now, what Miss Nina brought for me."
"No, indeed! What?" said Lisette, springing up; "do tell me--quick."
"Patience--patience!" said Harry, deliberately fumbling in his pocket,
amusing himself with her excited air. But who should speak the
astonishment and rapture which widened Lisette's dark eyes, when the
watch was produced? She clapped her hands, and danced for joy, to the
imminent risk of upsetting the table, and all the things on it.
"I do think we are the most fortunate people--you and I, Harry!
Everything goes just as we want it to--doesn't it, now?"
Harry's assent to this comprehensive proposition was much less fervent
than suited his little wife.
"Now, what's the matter with you? What goes wrong? Why don't you rejoice
as I do?" said she, coming and seating herself down upon his knee.
"Come, now, you've been working too hard, I know. I'm going to sing to
you, now; you want something to cheer you up." And Lisette took down her
banjo, and sat down in the doorway under the arch of lamarque roses, and
began thrumming gayly.
"This is the nicest little thing, this banjo!" she said; "I wouldn't
change it for all the guitars in the world. Now, Harry, I'm going to
sing something specially for you." And Lisette sung:--
"What are the joys of white man, here,
What are his pleasures, say?
He great, he proud, he haughty fine
While I my banjo play:
He sleep all day, he wake all night;
He full of care, his heart no light;
He great deal want, he little get;
He sorry, so he fret.
"Me envy not the white man here,
Though he so proud and gay;
He great, he proud, he haughty fine,
While I my banjo play:
Me work all day, me sleep all night;
Me have no care, me heart is light;
Me think not what to-morrow bring;
Me happy, so me sing."
Lisette rattled the strings of the banjo, and sang with such a hearty
abandon of enjoyment that it was a comfort to look at her. One would
have thought that a bird's soul put into a woman's body would have sung
just so.
"There," she said, throwing down her banjo, and seating herself on her
husband's knee, "do you know I think you are like white man in the song?
I should like to know what is the matter with you. I can see plain
enough when you are not happy; but I don't see why."
"Oh, Lisette, I have very perplexing business to manage," said Harry.
"Miss Nina is a dear, good little mistress, but she doesn't know
anything about accounts, or money; and here she has brought me home a
set of bills to settle, and I'm sure I don't know where the money is to
be got from. It's hard work to make the old place profitable in our
days. The ground is pretty much worked up; it doesn't bear the crops it
used to. And, then, our people are so childish, they don't, a soul of
them, care how much they spend, or how carelessly they work. It's very
expensive keeping up such an establishment. You know the Gordons must be
Gordons. Things can't be done now as some other families would do them;
and, then, those bills which Miss Nina brings from New York are
perfectly frightful."
"Well, Harry, what are you going to do?" said Lisette, nestling down
close on his shoulder. "You always know how to do something."
"Why, Lisette, I shall have to do what I've done two or three times
before--take the money that I have saved, to pay these bills--our
freedom-money, Lisette."
"Oh, well, then, don't worry. We can get it again, you know. Why, you
know, Harry, you can make a good deal with your trade, and one thing and
another that you do; and, then, as for me, why, you know, my ironing,
and my muslins, how celebrated they are. Come, don't worry one bit; we
shall get on nicely."
"Ah! But, Lisette, all this pretty house of ours, garden, and
everything, is only built on air, after all, till we are free. Any
accident can take it from us. Now, there's Miss Nina; she is engaged,
she tells me, to two or three lovers, as usual."
"Engaged, is she?" said Lisette, eagerly, female curiosity getting the
better of every other consideration; "she always did have lovers, just,
you know, as I used to."
"Yes; but, Lisette, she will marry, some time, and what a thing that
would be for you and me! On her husband will depend all my happiness for
all my life. He may set her against me; he may not like me. Oh, Lisette!
I've seen trouble enough coming of marriages; and I was hoping, you see,
that before that time came the money for my freedom would all be paid
in, and I should be my own man. But, now, here it is. Just as the sum is
almost made up, I must pay out five hundred dollars of it, and that
throws us back two or three years longer. And what makes me feel the
most anxious is, that I'm pretty sure Miss Nina will marry one of these
lovers before long."
"Why, what makes you think so, Harry?"
"Oh, I've seen girls before now, Lisette, and I know the signs."
"What does she do? What does she say? Tell me, now, Harry."
"Oh, well, she runs on abusing the man, after her sort; and she's so
very earnest and positive in telling me she don't like him."
"Just the way I used to do about you, Harry, isn't it?"
"Besides," said Harry, "I know, by the kind of character she gives of
him, that she thinks of him very differently from what she ever did of
any man before. Miss Nina little knows, when she is rattling about her
beaux, what I'm thinking of. I'm saying, all the while, to myself, 'Is
that man going to be my master?' and this Clayton, I'm very sure, is
going to be my master."
"Well, isn't he a good man?"
"She _says_ he is; but there's never any saying what good men will do,
never. Good men think it right sometimes to do the strangest things.
This man may alter the whole agreement between us,--he will have a right
to do it, if he is her husband; he may refuse to let me buy myself;
and, then, all the money that I've paid will go for nothing."
"But, certainly, Harry, Miss Nina will never consent to such a thing."
"Lisette, Miss Nina is one thing, but Mrs. Clayton may be quite another
thing. I've seen all _that_, over and over again. I tell you, Lisette,
that we who live on other people's looks and words, we watch and think a
great deal! Ah! we come to be very sharp, I can tell you. The more Miss
Nina has liked me, the less her husband may like me; don't you know
that?"
"No; Harry, you don't dislike people I like."
"Child, child, that's quite another thing."
"Well, then, Harry, if you feel so bad about it, what makes you pay this
money for Miss Nina? She don't know anything about it; she don't ask you
to. I don't believe she would want you to, if she did know it. Just go
and pay it in, and have your freedom-papers made out. Why don't you tell
her all about it?"
"No, I can't, Lisette. I've had the care of her all her life, and I've
made it as smooth as I could for her, and I won't begin to trouble her
now. Do you know, too, that I'm afraid that, perhaps, if she knew all
about it, she wouldn't do the right thing. There's never any knowing,
Lisette. _Now_, you see, I say to myself, 'Poor little thing! she
doesn't know anything about accounts, and she don't know how I feel.'
But, if I should _tell_ her, and she shouldn't care, and act as I've
seen women act, why, then, you know I couldn't think so any more. I
don't _believe_ she would mind you; but, then, I don't like to try."
"Harry, what does make you love her so much?"
"Don't you know, Lisette, that Master Tom was a dreadful bad boy, always
wilful and wayward, almost broke his father's heart; and he was always
ugly and contrary to her? I'm sure I don't know why; for she was a sweet
little thing, and she loves him now, ugly as he is, and he is the most
selfish creature I ever saw. And, as for Miss Nina, she isn't
selfish--she is only inconsiderate. But I've known her do for him, over
and over, just what I do for her, giving him her money and her jewels to
help him out of a scrape. But, then, to be sure, it all comes upon me,
at last, which makes it all the more aggravating. Now, Lisette, I'm
going to tell you something, but you mustn't tell anybody. Nina Gordon
is my sister!"
"Harry!"
"Yes, Lisette, you may well open your eyes," said Harry, rising
involuntarily; "I'm Colonel Gordon's oldest son! Let me have the comfort
of saying it once, if I never do again."
"Harry, who told you?"
"_He_ told me, Lisette--he, himself, told me, when he was dying, and
charged me always to watch over her; and I have done it! I never told
Miss Nina; I wouldn't have her told for the world. It wouldn't make her
love me; more likely it would turn her against me. I've seen many a man
sold for nothing else but looking too much like his father, or his
brothers and sisters. I was given to her, and my sister and my mother
went out to Mississippi with Miss Nina's aunt."
"I never heard you speak of this sister, Harry. Was she pretty?"
"Lisette, she was beautiful, she was graceful, and she had real genius.
I've heard many singers on the stage that could not sing, with all their
learning, as she did by nature."
"Well, what became of her?"
"Oh, what becomes of such women always, among us! Nursed, and petted,
and caressed; taught everything elegant, nothing solid. Why, the woman
meant well enough that had the care of her,--Mrs. Stewart, Colonel
Gordon's sister,--but she couldn't prevent her son's wanting her, and
taking her, for his mistress; and when she died there she was."
"Well."
"When George Stewart had lived with her two or three years, he was taken
with small-pox. You know what perfect horror that always creates. None
of his white acquaintances and friends would come near his plantation;
the negroes were all frightened to death, as usual; overseer ran off.
Well, then Cora Gordon's blood came up; she nursed him all through that
sickness. What's more, she had influence to keep order on the place; got
the people to getting the cotton crops themselves, so that when the
overseer came sneaking back, things hadn't all gone to ruin, as they
might have done. Well, the young fellow had more in him than some of
them do; for when he got well he left his plantation, took her up to
Ohio, and married her, and lived with her there."
"Why didn't he live with her on his plantation?" said Lisette.
"He couldn't have freed her there; it's against the laws. But, lately,
I've got a letter from her saying that he had died and left to her and
her son all his property on the Mississippi."
"Why, she will be rich, won't she?"
"Yes, if she gets it. But there's no knowing how that will be; there are
fifty ways of cheating her out of it, I suppose. But, now, as to Miss
Nina's estate, you don't know how I feel about it. I was trusted with
it, and trusted with her. She never has known, more than a child, where
the money came from, or went to; and it shan't be said that I've brought
the estate in debt, for the sake of getting my own liberty. If I have
one pride in life, it is to give it up to Miss Nina's husband in good
order. But, then, the _trouble_ of it, Lisette! The trouble of getting
anything like decent work from these creatures; the ways that I have to
turn and twist to get round them, and manage them, to get anything done.
They hate me; they are jealous of me. Lisette, I'm just like the bat in
the fable; I'm neither bird nor beast. How often I've wished that I was
a good, honest, black nigger, like Uncle Pomp! Then I should know what I
was; but, now, I'm neither one thing nor another. I come just near
enough to the condition of the white to look into it, to enjoy it, and
want everything that I see. Then, the way I've been educated makes it
worse. The fact is, that when the fathers of such as we feel any love
for us, it isn't like the love they have for their white children. They
are half-ashamed of us; they are ashamed to show their love, if they
have it; and, then, there's a kind of remorse and pity about it, which
they make up to themselves by petting us. They load us with presents and
indulgences. They amuse themselves with us while we are children, and
play off all our passions as if we were instruments to be played on. If
we show talent and smartness, we hear some one say, aside, 'It's rather
a pity, isn't it?' or, 'He is too smart for his place.' Then, we have
all the family blood and the family pride; and what to do with it? I
feel that I am a Gordon. I feel in my very heart that I'm like Colonel
Gordon--I know I am, and, sometimes, I know I look like him, and that's
one reason why Tom Gordon always hated me; and, then, there's another
thing, the hardest of all, to have a sister like Miss Nina, to feel she
_is_ my sister, and never dare to say a word of it! She little thinks,
when she plays and jokes with me, sometimes, how I feel. I have eyes and
senses; I can compare myself with Tom Gordon. I know he _never would_
learn anything at any of the schools he was put to; and I know that when
his tutors used to teach me, how much faster I got along than he did.
And yet he must have all the position, and all the respect; and, then,
Miss Nina so often says to me, by way of apology, when she puts up with
his ugliness, 'Ah! well, you know, Harry, he is the only brother I have
got in the world!' Isn't it too bad? Colonel Gordon gave me every
advantage of education, because I think he meant me for just this place
which I fill. Miss Nina was his pet. He was wholly absorbed in her, and
he was frightened at Tom's wickedness; and so he left me bound to the
estate in this way, only stipulating that I should buy myself on
favorable terms before Miss Nina's marriage. She has always been willing
enough. I might have taken any and every advantage of her
inconsiderateness. And Mr. John Gordon has been willing, too, and has
been very kind about it, and has signed an agreement as guardian, and
Miss Nina has signed it too, that, in case of her death, or whatever
happened, I'm to have my freedom on paying a certain sum, and I have got
his receipts for what I have paid. So that's tolerably safe. Lisette, I
had meant never to have been married till I was a free man; but,
somehow, you bewitched me into it. I did very wrong."
"Oh, pshaw! pshaw!" interrupted Lisette. "I an't going to hear another
word of this talk! What's the use? We shall do well enough. Everything
will come out right,--you see if it don't, now. I was always lucky, and
I always shall be."
The conversation was here interrupted by a loud whooping, and a clatter
of horse's heels.
"What's that?" said Harry, starting to the window. "As I live, now, if
there isn't that wretch of a Tomtit, going off with that horse! How came
he here? He will ruin him! Stop there! hallo!" he exclaimed, running out
of doors after Tomtit.
Tomtit, however, only gave a triumphant whoop, and disappeared among
the pine-trees.
"Well, I should like to know what sent him here!" said Harry, walking up
and down, much disturbed.
"Oh, he's only going round through the grove; he will be back again,"
said Lisette; "never fear. Isn't he a handsome little rogue?"
"Lisette, you never can see trouble anywhere!" said Harry, almost
angrily.
"Ah! yes I do," said Lisette, "when you speak in that tone! Please
don't, Harry! What should you want me to see trouble for?"
"I don't know, you little thing," said Harry, stroking her head fondly.
"Ah, there comes the little rascal, just as I knew he would!" said
Lisette. "He only wanted to take a little race; he hasn't hurt the
horse;" and, tripping lightly out, she caught the reins, just as Tomtit
drove up to the gate; and it seemed but a moment before he was over in
the garden, with his hands full of flowers.
"Stop, there, you young rascal, and tell me what sent you here!" said
Harry, seizing him, and shaking him by the shoulder.
"Laws, Massa Harry, I wants to get peaches, like other folks," said the
boy, peeping roguishly in at the window, at the tea-table.
"And he shall have a peach, too," said Lisette, "and some flowers, if
he'll be a good boy, and not tread on my borders."
Tomtit seized greedily at the peach she gave him, and, sitting flat down
where he stood, and throwing the flowers on the ground beside him, began
eating it with an earnestness of devotion as if his whole being were
concentrated in the act. The color was heightened in his brown cheek by
the exercise, and, with his long, drooping curls and eyelashes, he
looked a very pretty centre to the flower-piece which he had so promptly
improvised.
"Ah, how pretty he is!" said Lisette, touching Harry's elbow. "I wish he
was mine!"
"You'd have your hands full, if he was," said Harry eying the intruder
discontentedly, while Lisette stood picking the hulls from a fine bunch
of strawberries which she was ready to give him when he had finished the
peach.
"Beauty makes fools of all you girls," said Harry, cynically.
"Is that the reason I married you?" said Lisette, archly. "Well, I know
I could make him good, if I had the care of him. Nothing like coaxing;
is there, Tom?"
"I'll boun' there an't!" said Tom, opening his mouth for the
strawberries with much the air of a handsome, saucy robin.
"Well," said Harry, "I should like to know what brought him over here.
Speak, now, Tom! Weren't you sent with some message?"
"Oh laws, yes!" said Tom, getting up, and scratching his curly head.
"Miss Nina sent me. She wants you to get on dat ar horse, and make
tracks for home like split foot. She done got letters from two or three
of her beaux, and she is dancing and tearing round there real awful. She
done got scared, spects; feard they'd all come together."
"And she sent you on a message, and you haven't told me, all this time!"
said Harry, making a motion as though he was going to box the child's
ears; but the boy glided out of his hands as if he had been water, and
was gone, vanishing among the shrubbery of the garden; and while Harry
was mounting his horse, he reappeared on the roof of the little cabin,
caricoling and dancing, shouting at the topmost of his voice,--
"Away down old Virginny,
Dere I bought a yellow girl for a guinea."
"I'll give it to you, some time!" said Harry, shaking his fist at him.
"No, he won't, either," cried Lisette, laughing. "Come down here,
Tomtit, and I'll make a good boy of you."