THE NEW MOTHER.
The cholera at length disappeared, and the establishment of our old
friend Tiff proceeded as of yore. His chickens and turkeys grew to
maturity, and cackled and strutted joyously. His corn waved its ripening
flags in the September breezes. The grave of the baby had grown green
with its first coat of grass, and Tiff was comforted for his loss,
because, as he said, "he knowed he's better off." Miss Fanny grew
healthy and strong, and spent many long sunny hours wandering in the
woods with Teddy; or, sitting out on the bench where Nina had been wont
to read to them, would spell out with difficulty, for her old friend's
comfort and enlightenment, the half-familiar words of the wondrous story
that Nina had brought to their knowledge.
The interior of the poor cottage bore its wonted air of quaint, sylvan
refinement; and Tiff went on with his old dream of imagining it an
ancestral residence, of which his young master and mistress were the
head, and himself their whole retinue. He was sitting in his tent door,
in the cool of the day, while Teddy and Fanny had gone for wild grapes,
cheerfully examining and mending his old pantaloons, meanwhile
recreating his soul with a cheerful conversation with himself.
"Now, Old Tiff," said he, "one more patch on dese yer, 'cause it an't
much matter what you wars. Mas'r is allers a promising to bring some
cloth fur to make a more 'specable pair; but, laws, he never does
nothing he says he will. An't no trusting in dat 'scription o'
people--jiggeting up and down de country, drinking at all de taverns,
fetching disgrace on de fam'ly, spite o' all I can do! Mighty long time
since he been home, any how! Shouldn't wonder if de cholera'd cotched
him! Well, de Lord's will be done! Pity to kill such critturs! Wouldn't
much mind if he should die. Laws, he an't much profit to de family,
coming home here wid lots o' old trash, drinking up all my chicken-money
down to 'Bijah Skinflint's! For my part, I believe dem devils, when dey
went out o' de swine, went into de whiskey-bar'l. Dis yer liquor makes
folks so ugly! Teddy shan't never touch none as long as dere's a drop o'
Peyton blood in _my_ veins! Lord, but dis yer world is full o'
'spensations! Por, dear Miss Nina, dat was a doin for de chil'en! she's
gone up among de angels! Well, bress de Lord, we must do de best we can,
and we'll all land on de Canaan shore at last."
And Tiff uplifted a quavering stave of a favorite melody:--
"My brother, I have found
The land that doth abound
With food as sweet as manna.
The more I eat, I find
The more I am inclined
To shout and sing hosanna!"
"Shoo! shoo! shoo!" he said, observing certain long-legged, half-grown
chickens, who were surreptitiously taking advantage of his devotional
engrossments to rush past him into the kitchen.
"'Pears like dese yer chickens never will larn nothing!" said Tiff,
finding that his vigorous "shooing" only scared the whole flock in,
instead of admonishing them out. So Tiff had to lay down his work; and
his thimble rolled one way, and his cake of wax another, hiding
themselves under the leaves; while the hens, seeing Tiff at the door,
instead of accepting his polite invitation to walk out, acted in that
provoking and inconsiderate way that hens generally will, running
promiscuously up and down, flapping their wings, cackling, upsetting
pots, kettles, and pans, in promiscuous ruin, Tiff each moment becoming
more and more wrathful at their entire want of consideration.
"Bress me, if I ever did see any kind o' crittur so shaller as hens!"
said Tiff, as, having finally ejected them, he was busy repairing the
ruin they had wrought in Miss Fanny's fanciful floral arrangements,
which were all lying in wild confusion. "I tought de Lord made room in
every beast's head for some sense, but 'pears like hens an't got the
leastest grain! Puts me out, seeing dem crawking and crawing on one leg,
'cause dey han't got sense 'nough to know whar to set down t'oder. Dey
never has no idees what dey's going to do, from morning to night, I
b'lieve! But, den, dere's folks dat's just like 'em, dat de Lord has gin
brains to, and dey won't use 'em. Dey's always settin round, but dey
never lays no eggs. So hens an't de wust critters, arter all. And I
rally don' know what we'd do widout 'em!" said Old Tiff, relentingly,
as, appeased from his wrath, he took up at once his needle and his
psalm, singing lustily, and with good courage,--
"Perhaps you'll tink me wild,
And simple as a child,
But I'm a child of glory!"
"Laws, now," said Tiff, pursuing his reflections to himself, "maybe he's
dead now, sure 'nough! And if he is, why, I can do for de chil'en raal
powerful. I sold right smart of eggs dis yer summer, and de sweet
'tatoes allers fetches a good price. If I could only get de chil'en
along wid der reading, and keep der manners handsome! Why, Miss Fanny,
now, she's growing up to be raal perty. She got de raal Peyton look to
her; and dere's dis yer 'bout gals and women, dat if dey's perty, why,
somebody wants to be marrying of 'em; and so dey gets took care of. I
tell you, dere shan't any of dem fellers dat he brings home wid him have
anyting to say to her! Peyton blood an't for der money, I can tell 'em!
Dem fellers allers find 'emselves mighty onlucky as long as I's 'round!
One ting or 'nother happens to 'em, so dat dey don't want to come no
more. Drefful poor times dey has!" And Tiff shook with a secret chuckle.
"But, now, yer see, dere's never any knowing! Dere may be some Peyton
property coming to dese yer chil'en. I's known sich things happen, 'fore
now. Lawyers calling after de heirs; and den here dey be a'ready fetched
up. I's minding dat I'd better speak to Miss Nina's man 'bout dese yer
chil'en; 'cause he's a nice, perty man, and nat'rally he'd take an
interest; and dat ar handsome sister of his, dat was so thick wid Miss
Nina, maybe she'd be doing something for her. Any way, dese yer chil'en
shall neber come to want 'long as I's above ground!"
Alas for the transitory nature of human expectations! Even our poor
little Arcadia in the wilderness, where we have had so many hours of
quaint delight, was destined to feel the mutability of all earthly joys
and prospects. Even while Tiff spoke and sung, in the exuberance of joy
and security of his soul, a disastrous phantom was looming up from a
distance--the phantom of Cripps' old wagon. Cripps was not dead, as was
to have been hoped, but returning for a more permanent residence,
bringing with him a bride of his own heart's choosing.
Tiff's dismay--his utter, speechless astonishment--may be imagined, when
the ill-favored machine rumbled up to the door, and Cripps produced from
it what seemed to be, at first glance, a bundle of tawdry, dirty finery;
but at last it turned out to be a woman, so far gone in intoxication as
scarcely to be sensible of what she was doing. Evidently, she was one of
the lowest of that class of poor whites whose wretched condition is not
among the least of the evils of slavery. Whatever she might have been
naturally,--whatever of beauty or of good there might have been in the
womanly nature within her,--lay wholly withered and eclipsed under the
force of an education churchless, schoolless, with all the vices of
civilization without its refinements, and all the vices of barbarism
without the occasional nobility by which they are sometimes redeemed. A
low and vicious connection with this woman had at last terminated in
marriage--such marriages as one shudders to think of, where gross animal
natures come together, without even a glimmering idea of the higher
purposes of that holy relation.
"Tiff, this yer is your new mistress," said Cripps, with an idiotic
laugh. "Plaguy nice girl, too! I thought I'd bring the children a mother
to take care of them. Come along, girl!"
Looking closer, we recognize in the woman our old acquaintance, Polly
Skinflint.
He pulled her forward; and she, coming in, seated herself on Fanny's
bed. Tiff looked as if he could have struck her dead. An avalanche had
fallen upon him. He stood in the door with the slack hand of utter
despair; while she, swinging her heels, began leisurely spitting about
her, in every direction, the juice of a quid of tobacco, which she
cherished in one cheek.
"Durned if this yer an't pretty well!" she said. "Only I want the nigger
to heave out that ar trash!" pointing to Fanny's flowers. "I don't want
children sticking no herbs round my house! Hey, you nigger, heave out
that trash!"
As Tiff stood still, not obeying this call, the woman appeared angry;
and, coming up to him, struck him on the side of the head.
"Oh, come, come, Poll!" said Cripps, "you be still! He an't used to no
such ways."
"Still!" said the amiable lady, turning round to him. "You go 'long!
Didn't you tell me, if I married you, I should have a nigger to order
round, just as I pleased?"
"Well, well," said Cripps, who was not by any means a cruelly-disposed
man, "I didn't think you'd want to go walloping him, the first thing."
"I will, if he don't shin round," said the virago, "and you, too!"
And this vigorous profession was further carried out by a vigorous
shove, which reacted in Cripps in the form of a cuff, and in a few
moments the disgraceful scuffle was at its full height. And Tiff turned
in disgust and horror from the house.
"Oh, good Lord!" he said to himself, "we doesn't know what's 'fore us!
And I's feeling so bad when de Lord took my poor little man, and now I's
ready to go down on my knees to thank de Lord dat he's took him away
from de evil to come! To think of my por sweet lamb, Miss Fanny, as I's
been bringing up so carful! Lord, dis yer's a heap worse dan de
cholera!"
It was with great affliction and dismay that he saw the children coming
forward in high spirits, bearing between them a basket of wild-grapes,
which they had been gathering. He ran out to meet them.
"Laws, yer por lambs," he said, "yer doesn't know what's a coming on
you! Yer pa's gone and married a drefful low white woman, sich as an't
fit for no Christian children to speak to. And now dey's quar'ling and
fighting in dere, like two heathens! And Miss Nina's dead, and dere an't
no place for you to go!"
And the old man sat down and actually wept aloud, while the children,
frightened, got into his arms, and nestled close to him for protection,
crying too.
"What shall we do? what shall we do?" said Fanny. And Teddy, who always
repeated, reverentially, all his sister's words, said, after her, in a
deplorable whimper, "What shall we do?"
"I's a good mind to go off wid you in de wilderness, like de chil'en of
Israel," said Tiff, "though dere an't no manna falling nowadays."
"Tiff, does marrying father make her our ma?" said Fanny.
"No 'deed, Miss Fanny, it doesn't! Yer ma was one o' de fustest old
Virginny families. It was jist throwing herself 'way, marrying him! I
neber said dat ar 'fore, 'cause it wan't 'spectful. But I don't care
now!"
At this moment Cripps' voice was heard shouting:--
"Hallo, you Tiff! Where is the durned nigger? I say, come back! Poll and
I's made it up, now! Bring 'long them children, and let them get
acquainted with their mammy," he said, laying hold of Fanny's hand, and
drawing her, frightened and crying, towards the house.
"Don't you be afraid, child," said Cripps; "I've brought you a new ma."
"We didn't want any new ma!" said Teddy, in a dolorous voice.
"Oh, yes, you do," said Cripps, coaxing him. "Come along, my little man!
There's your mammy," he said, pushing him into the fat embrace of Polly.
"Fanny, go kiss your ma."
Fanny hung back and cried, and Teddy followed her example.
"Confound the durn young uns!" said the new-married lady. "I told you,
Cripps, I didn't want no brats of t'other woman's! Be plague enough when
I get some of my own!"