MARA'S PURPOSE
"Neber had sech luck in all my bawn days," soliloquized Aun' Sheba as she
saw the bottom of her basket early in the day. "All my cus'mers kin' o'
smilin' like de sunshine. Only Marse Clancy grumpy. He go by me like a
brack cloud. I'se got a big grudge against dat ar young man. He use to be
bery sweet on Missy. He mus' be taken wid some Norvern gal, and dat's
'nuff fer me. Ef he lebe my honey lam' now she so po', dar's a bad streak
in his blood and he don' 'long to us any mo'. I wouldn't be s'prised ef
dey hadn't had a squar meal fer a fortnight. I can make blebe dat I wants
to take my dinner 'long o' dem to sabe time, an' den dey'll hab a dinner
wat'll make Missy real peart 'fore she gin to work," and full of her
kindly intentions she bought a juicy steak, some vegetables, a quantity of
the finest flour, sugar, coffee, and some spices.
Mara had slipped out and invested the greater part of her diminished hoard
in the materials essential to her new undertaking. Not the least among
them, as she regarded it, was an account book. When, therefore, Aun' Sheba
bustled in between one and two o'clock, she found some bulky bundles on
the kitchen table over which Mrs. Hunter had already groaned aloud.
"Law sakes, honey, what all dese?" the colored aunty asked.
"They are my start in trade," replied Mara, smiling.
"Den you's gwine to hab a mighty big start, fer I got lots o' tings in dis
basket."
"Why, Aun' Sheba! Did you think I was going to let you furnish the
materials?"
"Ef you furnish de makin' up ob de 'terials what mo' you oughter do, I'd
like ter know?"
"Aun' Sheba, I could cheat you out af your two black eyes."
"Dey see mo' dan you tink, Missy," she replied, nodding sagaciously.
"Yes, I reckon they do, but my eyes must look after your interests as well
as my own. I am going to be an honest partner. Do you see this book?"
"What dat ar got to do wid de pahnaship?"
"You will see. It will prevent you from ever losing a penny that belongs
to you."
"Penny, indeed! As if I'se gwine to stand on a penny!"
"Well, I am. Little as I know about business, I am sure it will be more
satisfactory if careful accounts are kept, and you must promise to tell me
the whole truth about things. That's the way partners do, you know, and
everything is put down in black and white."
"Oh, go 'long wid you, honey, an' hab you own way. All in my pahnaship go
down in black, I s'pose, an' you'se in white. How funny it all am!" and
the old woman sat back in her chair and laughed in her joyous content.
"It is all a very humiliating farce to me," said Mrs. Hunter, looking
severely at the former property.
"Yas'm," said Aun' Sheba, suddenly becoming stolid as a graven image.
"Aunty," said Mara firmly but gently, "the time has come when I must act,
for your sake as well as my own. Nothing will prevent me from carrying out
this plan, except its failure to provide for Aun' Sheba as well as for
ourselves."
"Well, I wash my hands of it, and, if your course becomes generally known,
I shall have it understood that you acted without my approval." And she
rose and left the kitchen with great dignity.
When the door closed upon her, Aun' Sheba again shook in vast and silent
mirth.
"Doan you trubble long o' Missus, honey," she said, nodding encouragingly
at Mara. "She jes' like one dat lib in de dark an' can't see notin'
right." Then in sudden revulsion of feeling she added, "You po' honey
lam', doan you see you'se got to take keer ob her jes' as ef she was a
chile?"
"Yes," said Mara, sadly, "I've been compelled to see it at last."
"Now doan you be 'scouraged. 'Tween us we take keer ob her, an' she be a
heap betteh off eben ef she doan know it. You hab no dinner yit?"
"We were just going to get it as you came."
"Well now, honey, I habn't had a bite nudder, an' I'se gwine to take
dinneh heah ef you'se willin'."
"Why, surely, Aun' Sheba. It's little we have, you but know I'd share my
last crust with you."
Again the guest was bubbling over with good-natured merriment. "We ain't
got to de las' crus' yit, an' I couldn't make my dinneh on a crus' nohow.
Dar's one ting I'se jes' got to 'sist on in de pahnaship. I don't keer
notin' 'bout 'count books and sich, but ef we'se gwine to make a fort'n
you got to hab a heap o' po'er in you'se arms. You got to hab a strong
back and feel peart all ober. Dis de ony ting I 'sist on. Now how you
gwine to be plump and strong?"
"Oh, I'm pretty strong, and I'll get stronger now that I have hope, and
see my way a little."
"Hope am bery good fer 'sert, honey, but we want somep'n solider to start
in on. You jes' set de table in de oder room, an' I'll be de brack raben
dat'll pervide. Now you must min' kase I'se doing 'cording to Scripter,
an' we neber hab no luck 'tall if we go agin Scripter."
"Very well," said Mara, laughing, "you shall have your own way. I see
through all your talk, but I know you'll feel bad if you can't carry out
your purpose. You'll have a better dinner, too."
"Yeh, yeh, she knows a heap moah'n me," thought Aun' Sheba when alone,
"but I know some tings too, bress her heart. I kin see dat her cheeks am
pale and thin an' dat her eyes am gettin' so big and brack dat her purty
face am like a little house wid big winders. She got quality blood in her
vein, shuah, but habn't got neah 'nuff. Heah's de 'terial wat gibs hope
sometimes better'n preachin," and she whipped out the steak and prepared
it for the broiler. Then she clapped some potatoes into the oven, threw
together the constituents of light biscuit, and put the coffee over the
fire. A natural born cook, she was deft and quick, and had a substantial
repast ready in an amazingly short time. Soon it was smoking on the table,
and then she said with a significant little nod at Mara, "Now I'se gwine
to wait on Missus like ole times."
Mara understood her and did not protest, for she felt the necessity of
humoring her aunt, who quite thawed out at the semblance of her former
state. While the poor lady enlarged on the thought that such should be the
normal condition of affairs, and would be if the world were not wholly out
of joint, she nevertheless dined so heartily as to prove that she could
still enjoy the good things of life if they were provided without personal
compromise on her part. Mara made a silent note of this, and felt more
strongly than ever that her aunt's needs and not her words must control
her actions. After dinner she said, "Come, aunty, you have had much to try
your nerves of late, and there must be much more not in harmony with your
feelings. It can't be helped, but I absolve you of all responsibility, and
I know very well if you had what was once your own, I would not have to
raise my hand. You see I am not seeking relief in the way that is so
utterly distasteful to you, and, when you come to think this plan all
over, you will admit that it is the one that would attract the least
attention, and involve the least change. Now lie down and take a good rest
this afternoon."
"Well," said Mrs. Hunter, with the air of one yielding a great deal, "I
will submit, even though I can not approve, on the one condition that you
have nothing more to say to Mr. Clancy."
A painful flush overspread Mara's features, and she replied in a
constrained voice, "You will have no occasion to worry about Mr. Clancy.
After--" then remembering that Aunt Sheba was within ear-shot, she
concluded, "Mr. Clancy will have nothing to say to me when he knows what
is taking place. When you have thought it over you will see that my plan
makes me independent of every one."
"That is, if you succeed," remarked Mrs. Hunter, "and it will be about the
only thing to be said in its favor."
This degree of toleration obtained, Mara prepared to join Aunt Sheba in
the kitchen, with the purpose of giving her whole thought and energy to
the securing of an independence, now coveted more than ever. In spite of
the influences and misapprehensions of her life which had tended to
separate her from Clancy, when she fully learned that he was affiliating
with those who dwelt as aliens in her thoughts, she had been overborne by
his words and the promptings of her own heart. She was glad, indeed, that
she had not revealed what she now regarded as her weakness, feeling that
it would have complicated matters most seriously. While she had been
compelled to see the folly of seclusion and inaction, the natural result
of a morbid pride which blinds as well as paralyzes, she was by no means
ready to accept his views or go to his lengths. She would have shared
poverty with him gladly if he would continue to be "a true Southerner," in
other words, one who submitted in cold and unrelenting protest to the new
order of things. In accepting this new order, and in availing himself of
it to advance his fortunes and those of his State as he also claimed, he
alienated her in spite of all his arguments, and his avowed love. She felt
that he should take the ground with her that they had suffered too deeply,
and had been wronged too greatly, to ignore the past. They were a
conquered people, but so were the Poles and Alsatians. Were those subject
races ready to take the hands that had struck them and still held them in
thraldom? Their indignant enmity was patriotism, not hate. Now that the
habitual thoughts of her life had been given time to resume their control,
she felt all the more bitterly what seemed a hopeless separation. The
North had not only robbed her of kindred and property, but was now taking
her lover. She knew she loved him, yet not for the sake of her love would
she be false to her deep-rooted feelings and convictions. If he had seen
how nearly she yielded to _him_, not to his views, the previous evening,
it would have been doubly hard to show him in the end that she could never
share in his life, unless he adopted her attitude of passive submission to
what could not be helped.
Others might do as they pleased, but their dignity and personal memories
required this position, and, as she had said to him, she could take no
other course without hypocrisy, revolting alike to her feelings and sense
of honor. His strong words, however, combining with the circumstances of
her lot, had broken the spell of her aunt's influence, and had planted in
her mind the thought that any useless suffering on her part was not
loyalty to the memory of her father and mother. Her new impulse was to
make the most and best of her life as far as she could conscientiously:
and the hope would assert itself that if she were firm he would eventually
be won over to her position. "If he loves as I do," she thought, "he will
be. He, no doubt, is sincere, but he has been beguiled into seeing things
in the light of his immediate interests. Love to me, if it is genuine, and
loyalty to the cause for which his father gave his life, should lead him
to the dignified submission of the conquered and away from all association
with the conquerors that can be avoided. I'll prove to him," was her
mental conclusion, accompanied with a flash of her dark eyes, "that a girl
ignorant of the world and its ways, and with the help only of a former
slave, can earn her bread, and thus show him how needless are his Northern
allies."
Thoughts like these had been swiftly coursing through her mind while
dining, and therefore, when she joined Aun' Sheba in the kitchen, she was
ready to employ every faculty, sharpened to the utmost, in the tasks
before her.
In that humble arena, and by the prosaic method contemplated, she would
assert her unsubdued spirit, and maintain a consistency which should not
be marred, even at the bidding of love, by an insincere acceptance of his
views and associations.