OLD TIFF.
"I say, Tiff, _do_ you think he will come, to-night?"
"Laws, laws, Missis, how can Tiff tell? I's been a gazin' out de do'.
Don't see nor hear nothin'."
"It's so lonesome!--_so_ lonesome!--and the nights so long!"
And the speaker, an emaciated, feeble little woman, turned herself
uneasily on the ragged pallet where she was lying, and, twirling her
slender fingers nervously, gazed up at the rough, unplastered beams
above.
The room was of the coarsest and rudest cast. The hut was framed of
rough pine logs, filled between the crevices with mud and straw; the
floor made of rough-split planks, unevenly jointed together; the window
was formed by some single panes arranged in a row where a gap had been
made in one of the logs. At one end was a rude chimney of sticks, where
smouldered a fire of pine-cones and brushwood, covered over with a light
coat of white ashes. On the mantel over it was a shelf, which displayed
sundry vials, a cracked teapot and tumbler, some medicinal-looking
packages, a turkey's wing, much abridged and defaced by frequent usage,
some bundles of dry herbs, and lastly a gayly-painted mug of coarse
crockery-ware, containing a bunch of wild-flowers. On pegs, driven into
the logs, were arranged different articles of female attire, and divers
little coats and dresses, which belonged to smaller wearers, with now
and then soiled and coarse articles of man's apparel.
The woman, who lay upon a coarse chaff pallet in the corner, was one who
once might have been pretty. Her skin was fair, her hair soft and
curling, her eyes of a beautiful blue, her hands thin and transparent as
pearl. But the deep, dark circles under the eyes, the thin, white lips,
the attenuated limbs, the hurried breathing, and the burning spots in
the cheek, told that, whatever she might have been, she was now not long
for this world.
Beside her bed was sitting an old negro, in whose close-curling wool age
had began to sprinkle flecks of white. His countenance presented,
physically, one of the most uncomely specimens of negro features; and
would have been positively frightful, had it not been redeemed by an
expression of cheerful kindliness which beamed from it. His face was of
ebony blackness, with a wide, upturned nose, a mouth of portentous size,
guarded by clumsy lips, revealing teeth which a shark might have envied.
The only fine feature was his large, black eyes, which, at the present,
were concealed by a huge pair of plated spectacles, placed very low upon
his nose, and through which he was directing his sight upon a child's
stocking, that he was busily darning. At his foot was a rude cradle,
made of a gum-tree log, hollowed out into a trough, and wadded by
various old fragments of flannel, in which slept a very young infant.
Another child, of about three years of age, was sitting on the negro's
knee, busily playing with some pine-cones and mosses.
The figure of the old negro was low and stooping; and he wore, pinned
round his shoulders, a half-handkerchief or shawl of red flannel,
arranged much as an old woman would have arranged it. One or two
needles, with coarse, black thread dangling to them, were stuck in on
his shoulder; and as he busily darned on the little stocking, he kept up
a kind of droning intermixture of chanting and talking to the child on
his knee.
"So, ho, Teddy!--bub dar!--my man!--sit still!--cause yer ma's sick, and
sister's gone for medicine. Dar, Tiff'll sing to his little man.
'Christ was born in Bethlehem,
Christ was born in Bethlehem,
And in a manger laid.'
Take car, dar!--dat ar needle scratch yer little fingers!--poor little
fingers! Ah, be still, now!--play wid yer pretty tings, and see what yer
pa'll bring ye!"
"Oh, dear me!--well!" said the woman on the bed, "I shall give up!"
"Bress de Lord, no, missis!" said Tiff, laying down the stocking, and
holding the child to him with one hand, while the other was busy in
patting and arranging the bedclothes. "No use in givin' up! Why, Lord
bress you, missis, we'll be all up right agin in a few days. Work has
been kinder pressin', lately, and chil'ns clothes an't quite so
'speckable; but den I's doin' heaps o' mendin'. See dat ar!" said he,
holding up a slip of red flannel, resplendent with a black patch, "dat
ar hole won't go no furder--and it does well enough for Teddy to wear
rollin' round de do', and such like times, to save his bettermost. And
de way I's put de yarn in dese yer stockings an't slow. Den I's laid out
to take a stitch in Teddy's shoes; and dat ar hole in de kiverlet, dat
ar'll be stopped 'fore morning. Oh, let me alone!--he! he! he!--Ye
didn't keep Tiff for nothing, missis--ho, ho, ho!" And the black face
seemed really to become unctuous with the oil of gladness, as Tiff
proceeded in his work of consolation.
"Oh, Tiff, Tiff! you're a good creature! But you don't know. Here I've
been lying alone day after day, and he off, nobody knows where! And when
he comes, it'll be only a day, and he's off; and all he does don't
amount to anything--all miserable rubbish brought home and traded off
for other rubbish. Oh, what a fool I was for being married! Oh, dear!
girls little know what marriage is! I thought it was so dreadful to be
an old maid, and a pretty thing to get married! But, oh, the pain, and
worry, and sickness, and suffering, I've gone through!--always wandering
from place to place, never settled; one thing going after another,
worrying, watching, weary,--and all for nothing, for I am worn out, and
I shall die!"
"Oh, Lord, no!" said Tiff, earnestly. "Lor, Tiff'll make ye some tea,
and give it to ye, ye poor lamb! It's drefful hard, so 'tis; but
times'll mend, and massa'll come round and be more settled, like, and
Teddy will grow up and help his ma; and I'm sure dere isn't a pearter
young un dan dis yer puppet!" said he, turning fondly to the trough
where the little fat, red mass of incipient humanity was beginning to
throw up two small fists, and to utter sundry small squeaks, to intimate
his desire to come into notice.
"Lor, now," said he, adroitly depositing Teddy on the floor, and taking
up the baby, whom he regarded fondly through his great spectacles;
"stretch away, my pretty! stretch away! ho-e-ho! Lor, if he hasn't got
his mammy's eye, for all dis worl! Ah, brave! See him, missis!" said he,
laying the little bundle on the bed by her. "Did ye ever see a peartier
young un? He, he, he! Dar, now, his mammy should take him, so she
should! and Tiff'll make mammy some tea, so he will!" And Tiff, in a
moment, was on his knees, carefully laying together the ends of the
burned sticks, and blowing a cloud of white ashes, which powdered his
woolly head and red shawl like snow-flakes, while Teddy was busy in
pulling the needles out of some knitting-work which hung in a bag by the
fire.
Tiff, having started the fire by blowing, proceeded very carefully to
adjust upon it a small, black porringer of water, singing, as he did
so,--
"My way is dark and cloudy,
So it is, so it is;
My way is dark and cloudy,
All de day."
Then, rising from his work, he saw that the poor, weak mother had
clasped the baby to her bosom, and was sobbing very quietly. Tiff, as he
stood there, with his short, square, ungainly figure, his long arms
hanging out from his side like bows, his back covered by the red shawl,
looked much like a compassionate tortoise standing on its hind legs. He
looked pitifully at the sight, took off his glasses and wiped his eyes,
and lifted up his voice in another stave:--
"But we'll join de forty tousand, by and by,
So we will, so we will.
We'll join de forty tousand, upon de golden shore,
And our sorrows will be gone forevermore, more, more."
"Bress my soul, Mas'r Teddy! now us been haulin' out de needles from
Miss Fanny's work! dat ar an't purty, now! Tiff'll be 'shamed of ye, and
ye do like dat when yer ma's sick! Don't ye know ye must be good, else
Tiff won't tell ye no stories! Dar, now, sit down on dis yere log; dat
ar's just the nicest log! plenty o' moss on it yer can be a pickin' out!
Now, yer sit still dar, and don't be interruptin' yer ma."
The urchin opened a wide, round pair of blue eyes upon Tiff, looking as
if he were mesmerized, and sat, with a quiet, subdued air, upon his
log, while Tiff went fumbling about in a box in the corner. After some
rattling, he produced a pine-knot, as the daylight was fading fast in
the room, and, driving it into a crack in another log which stood by the
chimney corner, he proceeded busily to light it, muttering, as he did
so,--
"Want to make it more cheerful like."
Then he knelt down and blew the coals under the little porringer, which,
like pine-coals in general, always sulked and looked black when somebody
was not blowing them. He blew vigorously, regardless of the clouds of
ashes which encircled him, and which settled even on the tips of his
eyelashes, and balanced themselves on the end of his nose.
"Bress de Lord, I's dreadful strong in my breff! Lord, dey might have
used me in blacksmissin! I's kep dis yer chimney a gwine dis many a day.
I wonder, now, what keeps Miss Fanny out so long."
And Tiff rose up with the greatest precaution, and glancing every moment
towards the bed, and almost tipping himself over in his anxiety to walk
softly, advanced to the rude door, which opened with a wooden latch and
string, opened it carefully, and looked out. Looking out with him, we
perceive that the little hut stands alone, in the heart of a dense pine
forest, which shuts it in on every side.
Tiff held the door open a few moments to listen. No sound was heard but
the shivering wind, swaying and surging in melancholy cadences through
the long pine-leaves,--a lonesome, wailing, uncertain sound.
"Ah! dese yer pine-trees! dey always a talkin'!" said Tiff to himself,
in a sort of soliloquy. "Whisper, whisper, whisper! De Lord knows what
it's all about! dey never tells folks what dey wants to know. Hark! da
is Foxy, as sure as I'm a livin' sinner! Ah! dar she is!" as a quick,
loud bark reverberated. "Ah, ha! Foxy! you'll bring her along!"
caressing a wolfish-looking, lean cur, who came bounding through the
trees.
"Ah, yer good-for-nothing! what makes yer run so fast, and leave yer
missus behind ye? Hark! what's dat!"
The clear voice came carolling gayly from out the pine-trees,
"If you get there before I do--
I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
Whereupon Tiff, kindling with enthusiasm, responded,--
"Look out for me--I'm coming too--
I'm bound for the land of Canaan."
The response was followed by a gay laugh, as a childish voice shouted,
from the woods,--
"Ha! Tiff, you there?"
And immediately a bold, bright, blue-eyed girl, of about eight years
old, came rushing forward.
"Lors, Miss Fannie, so grad you's come! Yer ma's powerful weak dis yer
arternoon!" And then, sinking his voice to a whisper, "Why, now, yer'd
better b'leve her sperits isn't the best! Why, she's that bad, Miss
Fannie, she actually been a cryin' when I put the baby in her arms.
Railly, I'm consarned, and I wish yer pa 'ud come home. Did yer bring de
medicine?"
"Ah, yes; here 'tis."
"Ah! so good! I was a makin' of her some tea, to set her up, like, and
I'll put a little drop of dis yer in't. You gwin, now, and speak to yer
ma, and I'll pick up a little light wood round here, and make up de
fire. Massa Teddy'll be powerful glad to see yer. Hope you's got him
something, too!"
The girl glided softly into the room, and stood over the bed where her
mother was lying.
"Mother, I've come home," said she, gently.
The poor, frail creature in the bed seemed to be in one of those
helpless hours of life's voyage, when all its waves and billows are
breaking over the soul; and while the little new-comer was blindly
rooting and striving at her breast, she had gathered the worn
counterpane over her face, and the bed was shaken by her sobbings.
"Mother! mother! mother!" said the child, softly touching her.
"Go away! go away, child! Oh, I wish I had never been born! I wish you
had never been born, nor Teddy, nor the baby! It's all nothing but
trouble and sorrow! Fanny, don't you ever marry! Mind what I tell you!"
The child stood frightened by the bedside, while Tiff had softly
deposited a handful of pine-wood near the fireplace, had taken off the
porringer, and was busily stirring and concocting something in an old
cracked china mug. As he stirred, a strain of indignation seemed to
cross his generally tranquil mind, for he often gave short sniffs and
grunts, indicative of extreme disgust, and muttered to himself,--
"Dis yer comes of quality marrying these yer poor white folks! Never had
no 'pinion on it, no way! Ah! do hear the poor lamb now! 'nough to break
one's heart!"
By this time, the stirring and flavoring being finished to his taste, he
came to the side of the bed, and began, in a coaxing tone,--
"Come, now, Miss Sue, come! You's all worn out! No wonder! dat ar great
fellow tugging at you! Bless his dear little soul, he's gaining half a
pound a week! Nough to pull down his ma entirely! Come, now; take a
little sup of this--just a little sup! Warm you up, and put a bit of
life in you; and den I 'spects to fry you a morsel of der chicken,
'cause a boy like dis yer can't be nursed on slops, dat I knows! Dere,
dere, honey!" said he, gently removing the babe, and passing his arm
under the pillow. "I's drefful strong in the back. My arm is long and
strong, and I'll raise you up just as easy! Take a good sup on it, now,
and wash dese troubles down. I reckon the good man above is looking down
on us all, and bring us all round right, some time."
The invalid, who seemed exhausted by the burst of feeling to which she
had been giving way, mechanically obeyed a voice to which she had always
been accustomed, and drank eagerly, as if with feverish thirst; and when
she had done, she suddenly threw her arms around the neck of her strange
attendant.
"Oh, Tiff, Tiff! poor old black, faithful Tiff! What should I have done
without you? So sick as I've been, and so weak, and so lonesome! But,
Tiff, it's coming to an end pretty soon. I've seen, to-night, that I
an't going to live long, and I've been crying to think the children have
got to live. If I could only take them all into my arms, and all lie
down in the grave together, I should be so glad! I never knew what God
made me for! I've never been fit for anything, nor done anything!"
Tiff seemed so utterly overcome by this appeal, his great spectacles
were fairly washed down in a flood of tears, and his broad, awkward
frame shook with sobs.
"Law bless you, Miss Sue, don't be talking dat ar way! Why, if de Lord
_should_ call you, Miss Sue, I can take care of the children. I can
bring them up powerful, I tell ye! But you _won't_ be a-going; you'll
get better! It's just the sperits is low; and, laws, why shouldn't dey
be?"
Just at this moment a loud barking was heard outside the house, together
with the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses' feet.
"Dar's massa, sure as I'm alive!" said he, hastily laying down the
invalid, and arranging her pillows.
A rough voice called, "Hallo, Tiff! here with a light!"
Tiff caught the pine-knot, and ran to open the door. A strange-looking
vehicle, of a most unexampled composite order, was standing before the
door, drawn by a lean, one-eyed horse.
"Here, Tiff, help me out. I've got a lot of goods here. How's Sue?"
"Missis is powerful bad; been wanting to see you dis long time."
"Well, away, Tiff! take this out," indicating a long, rusty piece of
stove-pipe.
"Lay this in the house; and here!" handing a cast-iron stove-door, with
the latch broken.
"Law, Massa, what on earth is the use of dis yer?"
"Don't ask questions, Tiff; work away. Help me out with these boxes."
"What on arth now?" said Tiff to himself, as one rough case after
another was disgorged from the vehicle, and landed in the small cabin.
This being done, and orders being given to Tiff to look after the horse
and equipage, the man walked into the house, with a jolly, slashing air.
"Hallo, bub!" said he, lifting the two-year-old above his head. "Hallo,
Fan!" imprinting a kiss on the cheek of his girl. "Hallo, Sis!" coming
up to the bed where the invalid lay, and stooping down over her. Her
weak, wasted arms were thrown around his neck, and she said, with sudden
animation,
"Oh, you've come at last! I thought I should die without seeing you!"
"Oh, you an't a-going to die, Sis! Why, what talk!" said he, chucking
her under the chin. "Why, your cheeks are as red as roses!"
"Pa, see the baby!" said little Teddy, who, having climbed over the
bed, opened the flannel bundle.
"Ah! Sis, I call that ar a tolerable fair stroke of business! Well, I
tell _you_ what, I've done up a trade now that will set us up and no
mistake. Besides which, I've got something now in my coat-pocket that
would raise a dead cat to life, if she was lying at the bottom of a
pond, with a stone round her neck! See here! 'Dr. Puffer's Elixir of the
Water of Life!' warranted to cure janders, toothache, earache, scrofula,
speptia, 'sumption, and everything else that ever I hearn of! A
teaspoonful of that ar, morn and night, and in a week you'll be round
agin, as pert as a cricket!"
It was astonishing to see the change which the entrance of this man had
wrought on the invalid. All her apprehensions seemed to have vanished.
She sat up on the bed, following his every movement with her eyes, and
apparently placing full confidence in the new medicine, as if it were
the first time that ever a universal remedy had been proposed to her. It
must be noticed, however, that Tiff, who had returned, and was building
the fire, indulged himself, now and then, when the back of the speaker
was turned, by snuffing at him in a particularly contemptuous manner.
The man was a thick-set and not ill-looking personage, who might have
been forty or forty-five years of age. His eyes, of a clear, lively
brown, his close-curling hair, his high forehead, and a certain
devil-may-care frankness of expression, were traits not disagreeable,
and which went some way to account for the partial eagerness with which
the eye of the wife followed him.
The history of the pair is briefly told. He was the son of a small
farmer of North Carolina. His father, having been so unfortunate as to
obtain possession of a few negroes, the whole family became ever after
inspired with an intense disgust for all kinds of labor; and John, the
oldest son, adopted for himself the ancient and honorable profession of
a loafer. To lie idle in the sun in front of some small grog-shop, to
attend horse-races, cock-fights, and gander-pullings, to flout out
occasionally in a new waistcoat, bought with money which came nobody
knew how, were pleasures to him all-satisfactory. He was as guiltless of
all knowledge of common-school learning as Governor Berkley could
desire, and far more clear of religious training than a Mahometan or a
Hindoo.
In one of his rambling excursions through the country, he stopped a
night at a worn-out and broken-down old plantation, where everything had
run down, through many years of mismanagement and waste. There he stayed
certain days, playing cards with the equally hopeful son of the place,
and ended his performances by running away one night with the
soft-hearted daughter, only fifteen years of age, and who was full as
idle, careless, and untaught, as he.
The family, whom poverty could not teach to forget their pride, were
greatly scandalized at the marriage; and, had there been anything left
in the worn-out estate wherewith to portion her, the bride,
nevertheless, would have been portionless. The sole piece of property
that went out with her from the paternal mansion was one, who, having a
mind and will of his own, could not be kept from following her. The
girl's mother had come from a distant branch of one of the most
celebrated families in Virginia, and Tiff had been her servant; and,
with a heart forever swelling with the remembrances of the ancestral
greatness of the Peytons, he followed his young mistress in her
mésalliance with long-suffering devotion. He even bowed his neck so far
as to acknowledge for his master a man whom he considered by position
infinitely his inferior; for Tiff, though crooked and black, never
seemed to cherish the slightest doubt that the whole force of the Peyton
blood coursed through his veins, and that the Peyton honor was intrusted
to his keeping. His mistress was a Peyton, her children were Peyton
children, and even the little bundle of flannel in the gum-tree cradle
was a Peyton; and as for him, he was Tiff Peyton, and this thought
warmed and consoled him as he followed his poor mistress during all the
steps of her downward course in the world. On her husband he looked with
patronizing, civil contempt. He wished him well; he thought it proper to
put the best face on all his actions; but, in a confidential hour, Tiff
would sometimes raise his spectacles emphatically, and give it out, as
his own private opinion, "dat dere could not be much 'spected from dat
ar 'scription of people!"
In fact, the roving and unsettled nature of John Cripps's avocations
and locations might have justified the old fellow's contempt. His
industrial career might be defined as comprising a little of everything,
and a great deal of nothing. He had begun, successively, to learn two or
three trades; had half made a horse-shoe, and spoiled one or two
carpenter's planes; had tried his hand at stage-driving; had raised
fighting-cocks, and kept dogs for hunting negroes. But he invariably
retreated from every one of his avocations, in his own opinion a
much-abused man. The last device that had entered his head was suggested
by the success of a shrewd Yankee peddler, who, having a lot of damaged
and unsalable material to dispose of, talked him into the belief that he
possessed yet an undeveloped talent for trade; and poor John Cripps,
guiltless of multiplication or addition table, and who kept his
cock-fighting accounts on his fingers and by making chalk-marks behind
the doors, actually was made to believe that he had at last received his
true vocation.
In fact, there was something in the constant restlessness of this mode
of life that suited his roving turn; and, though he was constantly
buying what he could not sell, and losing on all that he did sell, yet
somehow he kept up an illusion that he was doing something, because
stray coins now and then passed through his pockets, and because the
circle of small taverns in which he could drink and loaf was
considerably larger. There was one resource which never failed him when
all other streams went dry; and that was the unceasing ingenuity and
fidelity of the bondman Tiff.
Tiff, in fact, appeared to be one of those comfortable old creatures,
who retain such a good understanding with all created nature that food
never is denied them. Fish would always bite on Tiff's hook when they
wouldn't on anybody's else; so that he was wont confidently to call the
nearest stream "Tiff's pork-barrel." Hens always laid eggs for Tiff, and
cackled to him confidentially where they were deposited. Turkeys gobbled
and strutted for him, and led forth for him broods of downy little ones.
All sorts of wild game, squirrels, rabbits, coons, and possums, appeared
to come with pleasure and put themselves into his traps and springes; so
that, where another man might starve, Tiff would look round him with
unctuous satisfaction, contemplating all nature as his larder, where
his provisions were wearing fur coats, and walking about on four legs,
only for safe keeping till he got ready to eat them. So that Cripps
never came home without anticipation of something savory, even although
he had drank up his last quarter of a dollar at the tavern. This suited
Cripps. He thought Tiff was doing his duty, and occasionally brought him
home some unsalable bit of rubbish, by way of testimonial of the sense
he entertained of his worth. The spectacles in which Tiff gloried came
to him in this manner; and, although it might have been made to appear
that the glasses were only plain window-glass, Tiff was happily ignorant
that they were not the best of convex lenses, and still happier in the
fact that his strong, unimpaired eyesight made any glasses at all
entirely unnecessary. It was only an aristocratic weakness in Tiff.
Spectacles he somehow considered the mark of a gentleman, and an
appropriate symbol for one who had "been fetched up in the very fustest
families of Old Virginny."
He deemed them more particularly appropriate, as, in addition to his
manifold outward duties, he likewise assumed, as the reader has seen,
some feminine accomplishments. Tiff could darn a stocking with anybody
in the country; he could cut out children's dresses and aprons; he could
patch, and he could seam; all which he did with infinite
self-satisfaction.
Notwithstanding the many crooks and crosses in his lot, Tiff was, on the
whole, a cheery fellow. He had an oily, rollicking fulness of nature, an
exuberance of physical satisfaction in existence, that the greatest
weight of adversity could only tone down to becoming sobriety. He was on
the happiest terms of fellowship with himself; he _liked_ himself, he
believed in himself; and, when nobody else would do it, he would pat
himself on his own shoulder, and say, "Tiff, you're a jolly dog, a fine
fellow, and I like you!" He was seldom without a running strain of
soliloquy with himself, intermingled with joyous bursts of song, and
quiet intervals of laughter. On pleasant days Tiff laughed a great deal.
He laughed when his beans came up, he laughed when the sun came out
after a storm, he laughed for fifty things that you never think of
laughing at; and it agreed with him--he throve upon it. In times of
trouble and perplexity, Tiff talked to himself, and found a counsellor
who always kept secrets. On the present occasion it was not without some
inward discontent that he took a survey of the remains of one of his
best-fatted chickens, which he had been intending to serve up,
piecemeal, for his mistress. So he relieved his mind by a little
confidential colloquy with himself.
"Dis yer," he said to himself, with a contemptuous inclination toward
the newly-arrived, "will be for eating like a judgment, I 'pose. Wish,
now, I had killed de old gobbler! Good enough for him--raal tough, he
is. Dis yer, now, was my primest chicken, and dar she'll jist sit and
see him eat it! Laws, dese yer women! Why, dey does get so sot on
husbands! Pity they couldn't have something like to be sot on! It jist
riles me to see him gobbling down everything, and she a-looking on!
Well, here goes," said he, depositing the frying-pan over the coals, in
which the chicken was soon fizzling. Drawing out the table, Tiff
prepared it for supper. Soon coffee was steaming over the fire, and
corn-dodgers baking in the ashes. Meanwhile, John Cripps was busy
explaining to his wife the celebrated wares that had so much raised his
spirits.
"Well, now, you see, Sue, this yer time I've been up to Raleigh; and I
met a fellow there, coming from New York, or New Orleans, or some of
them northern states."
"New Orleans isn't a northern state," humbly interposed his wife, "is
it?"
"Well, New something! Who the devil cares? Don't you be interrupting me,
you Suse!"
Could Cripps have seen the vengeful look which Tiff gave him over the
spectacles at this moment, he might have trembled for his supper. But,
innocent of this, he proceeded with his story.
"You see, this yer fellow had a case of bonnets just the height of the
fashion. They come from Paris, the capital of Europe; and he sold them
to me for a mere song. Ah, you ought to see 'em! I'm going to get 'em
out. Tiff, hold the candle, here." And Tiff held the burning torch with
an air of grim scepticism and disgust, while Cripps hammered and
wrenched the top boards off, and displayed to view a portentous array of
bonnets, apparently of every obsolete style and fashion of the last
fifty years.
"Dem's fust rate for scare-crows, anyhow!" muttered Tiff.
"Now, what," said Cripps,--"Sue, what do you think I gave for these?"
"I don't know," said she, faintly.
"Well, I gave fifteen dollars for the whole box! And there an't one of
these," said he, displaying the most singular specimen on his hand,
"that isn't worth from two to five dollars. I shall clear, at least,
fifty dollars on that box."
Tiff, at this moment, turned to his frying-pan, and bent over it,
soliloquizing as he did so,--
"Any way, I's found out one ting,--where de women gets dem roosts of
bonnets dey wars at camp-meetings. Laws, dey's enough to spile a work of
grace, dem ar! If I was to meet one of dem ar of a dark night in a
grave-yard, I should tink I was sent for--not the pleasantest way of
sending, neither. Poor missis!--looking mighty faint!--Don't
wonder!--'Nough to scarr a weakly woman into fits!"
"Here, Tiff, help me to open this box. Hold the light, here. Darned if
it don't come off hard! Here's a lot of shoes and boots I got of the
same man. Some on 'em's mates, and some an't; but, then, I took the lot
cheap. Folks don't always warr both shoes alike. Might like to warr an
odd one, sometimes, ef it's cheap. Now, this yer parr of boots is lady's
gaiters, all complete, 'cept there's a hole in the lining down by the
toe; body ought to be careful about putting it on, else the foot will
slip between the outside and the lining. Anybody that bears that in
mind--just as nice a pair of gaiters as they'd want! Bargain, there, for
somebody--complete one, too. Then I've got two or three old
bureau-drawers that I got cheap at auction; and I reckon some on 'em
will fit the old frame that I got last year. Got 'em for a mere song."
"Bless you, massa, dat ar old bureau I took for de chicken-coop!
Turkeys' chickens hops in lively."
"Oh, well, scrub it up--'twill answer just as well. Fit the drawers in.
And now, old woman, we will sit down to supper," said he, planting
himself at the table, and beginning a vigorous onslaught on the fried
chicken, without invitation to any other person present to assist him.
"Missis can't sit up at the table," said Tiff. "She's done been sick
ever since de baby was born." And Tiff approached the bed with a nice
morsel of chicken which he had providently preserved on a plate, and
which he now reverently presented on a board, as a waiter, covered with
newspaper.
"Now, do eat, missis; you can't live on looking, no ways you can fix it.
Do eat while Tiff gets on de baby's nightgown."
To please her old friend, the woman made a feint of eating, but, while
Tiff's back was turned to the fire, busied herself with distributing it
to the children, who had stood hungrily regarding her, as children will
regard what is put on to a sick mother's plate.
"It does me good to see them eat," she said, apologetically once, when
Tiff, turning round, detected her in the act.
"Ah, missis, may be! but _you've_ got to eat for _two_, now. What dey
eat an't going to dis yer little man, here. Mind dat ar."
Cripps apparently bestowed very small attention on anything except the
important business before him, which he prosecuted with such devotion
that very soon coffee, chicken, and dodgers, had all disappeared. Even
the bones were sucked dry, and the gravy wiped from the dish.
"Ah, that's what I call comfortable!" said he, lying back in his chair.
"Tiff, pull my boots off! and hand out that ar demijohn. Sue, I hope
you've made a comfortable meal," he said, incidentally, standing with
his back to her, compounding his potation of whiskey and water; which
having drank, he called up Teddy, and offered him the sugar at the
bottom of the glass. But Teddy, being forewarned by a meaning glance
through Tiff's spectacles, responded, very politely,--
"No, I thank you, pa. I don't love it."
"Come here, then, and take it off like a man. It's good for you," said
John Cripps.
The mother's eyes followed the child wishfully; and she said, faintly,
"Don't John!--don't!" And Tiff ended the controversy by taking the glass
unceremoniously out of his master's hand.
"Laws bless you, massa, can't be bodered with dese yer young ones dis
yer time of night! Time dey's all in bed, and dishes washed up. Here,
Tedd," seizing the child, and loosening the buttons of his slip behind,
and drawing out a rough trundle-bed, "you crawl in dere, and curl up in
your nest; and don't you forget your prars, honey, else maybe you'll
never wake up again."
Cripps had now filled a pipe with tobacco of the most villainous
character, with which incense he was perfuming the little apartment.
"Laws, massa, dat ar smoke an't good for missis," said Tiff. "She done
been sick to her stomach all day."
"Oh, let him smoke! I like to have him enjoy himself," said the
indulgent wife. "But, Fanny, you had better go to bed, dear. Come here
and kiss me, child; good-night,--good-night!"
The mother held on to her long, and looked at her wishfully; and when
she had turned to go, she drew her back, and kissed her again, and said,
"Good-night, dear child, good-night!"
Fanny climbed up a ladder in one corner of the room, through a square
hole, to the loft above.
"I say," said Cripps, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and looking at
Tiff, who was busy washing the dishes, "I say it's kind of peculiar that
gal keeps sick so. Seemed to have good constitution when I married her.
I'm thinking," said he, without noticing the gathering wrath in Tiff's
face, "I'm a-thinking whether steamin' wouldn't do her good. Now, I got
a most dreadful cold when I was up at Raleigh--thought I should have
given up; and there was a steam-doctor there. Had a little kind of
machine, with kettle and pipes, and he put me in a bed, put in the
pipes, and set it a-going. I thought, my soul, I should have been
floated off; but it carried off the cold, complete. I'm thinking if
something of that kind wouldn't be good for Miss Cripps."
"Laws, massa, don't go for to trying it on her! She is never no better
for dese yer things you do for her."
"Now," said Cripps, not appearing to notice the interruption, "these yer
stove-pipes, and the tea-kettle,--I shouldn't wonder if we could get up
a steam with them!"
"It's my private 'pinion, if you do, she'll be sailing out of the
world," said Tiff. "What's one man's meat is another one's pisin, my
old mis's used to say. Very best thing you can do for her is to let her
alone. Dat ar is my 'pinion."
"John," said the little woman, after a few minutes, "I wish you'd come
here, and sit on the bed."
There was something positive, and almost authoritative, in the manner in
which this was said, which struck John as so unusual, that he came with
a bewildered air, sat down, and gazed at her with his mouth wide open.
"I'm so glad you've come home, because I have had things that I've
wanted to say to you! I've been lying here thinking about it, and I have
been turning it over in my mind. I'm going to die soon, I know."
"Ah! bah! Don't be bothering a fellow with any of your hysterics!"
"John, John! it isn't hysterics! Look at me! Look at my hand! look at my
face! I'm so weak, and sometimes I have such coughing spells, and every
time it seems to me as if I should die. But it an't to trouble you that
I talk. I don't care about myself, but I don't want the children to grow
up and be like what we've been. You have a great many contrivances; do,
pray, contrive to have them taught to read, and make something of them
in the world."
"Bah! what's the use? I never learnt to read, and I'm as good a fellow
as I want. Why, there's plenty of men round here making their money,
every year, that can't read or write a word. Old Hubell, there, up on
the Shad plantation, has hauled in money, hand over hand, and he always
signs his mark. Got nine sons--can't a soul of them read or write, more
than I. I tell you there's nothing ever comes of this yer larning. It's
all a sell--a regular Yankee hoax! I've always got cheated by them damn
reading, writing Yankees, whenever I've traded with 'em. What's the
good, I want to know! You was teached how to read when you was
young--much good it's ever done you!"
"Sure enough! Sick day and night, moving about from place to place, sick
baby crying, and not knowing what to do for it no more than a child! Oh,
I hope Fanny will learn something! It seems to me, if there was some
school for my children to go to, or some church, or something--now, _if
there is_ any such place as heaven, I should like to have them get to
it."
"Ah! bah! Don't bother about that! When we get keeled up, that will be
the last of us! Come, come, don't plague a fellow any more with such
talk! I'm tired, and I'm going to sleep." And the man, divesting himself
of his overcoat, threw himself on the bed, and was soon snoring heavily
in profound slumber.
Tiff, who had been trotting the baby by the fire, now came softly to the
bedside, and sat down.
"Miss Sue," he said, "it's no 'count talking to him! I don't mean
nothing dis'pectful, Miss Sue, but de fac is, dem dat isn't _born_
gentlemen can't be 'spected fur to see through dese yer things like us
of de old families. Law, missis, don't you worry! Now, jest leave dis
yer matter to old Tiff! Dere never wasn't anything Tiff couldn't do, if
he tried. He! he! he! Miss Fanny, she done got de letters right smart;
and I know I'll come it round mas'r, and make him buy de books for her.
I'll tell you what's come into my head, to-day. There's a young lady
come to de big plantation, up dere, who's been to New York getting
edicated, and I's going for to ask her about dese yer things. And, about
de chil'en's going to church, and dese yer things, why, preaching, you
know, is mazin' unsartain round here; but I'll keep on de lookout, and
do de best I can. Why, Lord, Miss Sue, I's bound for the land of Canaan,
myself, the best way I ken; and I'm sartain I shan't go without taking
the chil'en along with me. Ho! ho! ho! Dat's what I shan't! De chil'en
will have to be with Tiff, and Tiff will have to be with the chil'en,
wherever dey is! Dat's it! He! he! he!"
"Tiff," said the young woman, her large blue eyes looking at him, "I
have heard of the Bible. Have you ever seen one, Tiff?"
"Oh, yes, honey, dar was a big Bible that your ma brought in the family
when she married; but dat ar was tore up to make wadding for de guns,
one thing or another, and dey never got no more. But I's been very
'serving, and kept my ears open in a camp-meeting, and such places, and
I's learnt right smart of de things that's in it."
"Now, Tiff, can you say anything?" said she, fixing her large, troubled
eyes on him.
"Well, honey, dere's one thing the man said at de last camp-meeting. He
preached 'bout it, and I couldn't make out a word he said, 'cause I an't
smart about preaching like I be about most things. But he said dis yer
so often that I couldn't help 'member it. Says he, it was dish yer way:
'Come unto me, all ye labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest.'"
"Rest, rest, rest!" said the woman, thoughtfully, and drawing a long
sigh. "Oh, how much I want it! Did he say _that_ was in the Bible?"
"Yes, he said so; and I spects, by all he said, it's de good man above
dat says it. It always makes me feel better to think on it. It 'peared
like it was jist what I was wanting to hear."
"And I, too!" she said, turning her head wearily, and closing her eyes.
"Tiff," she said, opening them, "where I'm going, may be I shall meet
the one who said that, and I'll ask him about it. Don't talk to me more,
now. I'm getting sleepy. I thought I was better a little while after he
came home, but I'm more tired yet. Put the baby in my arms--I like the
feeling of it. There, there; now give me rest--_please_ do!" and she
sank into a deep and quiet slumber.
Tiff softly covered the fire, and sat down by the bed, watching the
flickering shadows as they danced upward on the wall, listening to the
heavy sighs of the pine-trees, and the hard breathing of the sleeping
man. Sometimes he nodded sleepily, and then, recovering, rose, and took
a turn to awaken himself. A shadowy sense of fear fell upon him; not
that he apprehended anything, for he regarded the words of his mistress
only as the forebodings of a wearied invalid. The idea that she could
actually die, and go anywhere, without him to take care of her, seemed
never to have occurred to him. About midnight, as if a spirit had laid
its hand upon him, his eyes flew wide open with a sudden start. Her
thin, cold hand was lying on his; her eyes, large and blue, shone with a
singular and spiritual radiance.
"Tiff," she gasped, speaking with difficulty, "I've seen the one that
said _that_, and it's all true, too! and I've seen all why I've suffered
so much. He--He--He is going to take me! Tell the children about Him!"
There was a fluttering sigh, a slight shiver, and the lids fell over the
eyes forever.