Roxy Plays a Shrewd Trick.
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a
debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
Percy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house-minions from
going down the river, but no wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes. A
profound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could grow up and
be sold down the river! The thought crazed her with horror. If she dozed
and lost herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet
flying to her child's cradle to see if it was still there. Then she
would gather it to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy
of kisses, moaning, crying, and saying, "Dey sha'n't, oh, dey
sha'n't!--yo' po' mammy will kill you fust!"
Once, when she was tucking it back in its cradle again, the other child
nestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood
over it a long time communing with herself:
"What has my po' baby done, dat he couldn't have yo' luck? He hain't
done noth'n'. God was good to you; why warn't he good to him? Dey can't
sell you down de river. I hates yo' pappy; he hain't got no heart--for
niggers he hain't, anyways. I hates him, en I could kill him!" She
paused awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild sobbings again, and
turned away, saying, "Oh, I got to kill my chile, dey ain't no yuther
way,--killin' him wouldn't save de chile fum goin' down de river. Oh, I
got to do it, yo' po' mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey"--she
gathered her baby to her bosom, now, and began to smother it with
caresses--"Mammy's got to kill you--how kin I do it! But yo' mammy ain't
gwine to desert you--no, no; dah, don't cry--she gwine wid you, she
gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey, come along wid mammy; we
gwine to jump in de river, den de troubles o' dis worl' is all over--dey
don't sell po' niggers down the river over yonder."
She started toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it;
midway she stopped, suddenly. She had caught sight of her new Sunday
gown--a cheap curtain-calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy colors and
fantastic figures. She surveyed it wistfully, longingly.
"Hain't ever wore it yet," she said, "en it's jist lovely." Then she
nodded her head in response to a pleasant idea, and added, "No, I ain't
gwine to be fished out, wid everybody lookin' at me, in dis mis'able ole
linsey-woolsey."
She put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass and
was astonished at her beauty. She resolved to make her death-toilet
perfect. She took off her handkerchief-turban and dressed her glossy
wealth of hair "like white folks"; she added some odds and ends of
rather lurid ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally
she threw over her shoulders a fluffy thing called a "cloud" in that
day, which was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the
tomb.
She gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its
miserably short little gray tow-linen shirt and noted the contrast
between its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic irruption of infernal
splendors, her mother-heart was touched, and she was ashamed.
"No, dolling, mammy ain't gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine to
'mire you jist as much as dey does yo' mammy. Ain't gwine to have 'em
putt'n' dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David en Goliah en dem
yuther prophets, 'Dat chile is dress' too indelicate fo' dis place.'"
By this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked
little creature in one of Thomas à Becket's snowy long baby-gowns, with
its bright blue bows and dainty flummery of ruffles.
"Dah--now you's fixed." She propped the child in a chair and stood off
to inspect it. Straightway her eyes began to widen with astonishment and
admiration, and she clapped her hands and cried out, "Why, it do beat
all!--I never knowed you was so lovely. Marse Tommy ain't a bit
puttier--not a single bit."
She stepped over and glanced at the other infant; she flung a glance
back at her own; then one more at the heir of the house. Now a strange
light dawned in her eyes, and in a moment she was lost in thought. She
seemed in a trance; when she came out of it she muttered, "When I 'uz
a-washin' 'em in de tub, yistiddy, his own pappy asked me which of 'em
was his'n."
She began to move about like one in a dream. She undressed Thomas à
Becket, stripping him of everything, and put the tow-linen shirt on him.
She put his coral necklace on her own child's neck. Then she placed the
children side by side, and after earnest inspection she muttered--
"Now who would b'lieve clo'es could do de like o' dat? Dog my cats if it
ain't all I kin do to tell t'other fum which, let alone his pappy."
She put her cub in Tommy's elegant cradle and said--
"You's young Marse Tom fum dis out, en I got to practise and git used to
'memberin' to call you dat, honey, or I's gwine to make a mistake some
time en git us bofe into trouble. Dah--now you lay still en don't fret
no mo', Marse Tom--oh, thank de good Lord in heaven, you's saved, you's
saved!--dey ain't no man kin ever sell mammy's po' little honey down de
river now!"
She put the heir of the house in her own child's unpainted pine cradle,
and said, contemplating its slumbering form uneasily--
"I's sorry for you, honey; I's sorry, God knows I is,--but what kin I
do, what could I do? Yo' pappy would sell him to somebody, some time, en
den he'd go down de river, sho', en I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't stan'
it."
She flung herself on her bed and began to think and toss, toss and
think. By and by she sat suddenly upright, for a comforting thought had
flown through her worried mind--
"'Tain't no sin--white folks has done it! It ain't no sin, glory to
goodness it ain't no sin! Dey's done it--yes, en dey was de biggest
quality in de whole bilin', too--kings!"
She began to muse; she was trying to gather out of her memory the dim
particulars of some tale she had heard some time or other. At last she
said--
"Now I's got it; now I 'member. It was dat ole nigger preacher dat tole
it, de time he come over here fum Illinois en preached in de nigger
church. He said dey ain't nobody kin save his own self--can't do it by
faith, can't do it by works, can't do it no way at all. Free grace is de
on'y way, en dat don't come fum nobody but jis' de Lord; en he kin give
it to anybody he please, saint or sinner--he don't kyer. He do jis' as
he's a mineter. He s'lect out anybody dat suit him, en put another one
in his place, and make de fust one happy forever en leave t'other one to
burn wid Satan. De preacher said it was jist like dey done in Englan'
one time, long time ago. De queen she lef' her baby layin' aroun' one
day, en went out callin'; en one o' de niggers roun'-'bout de place dat
was 'mos' white, she come in en see de chile layin' aroun', en tuck en
put her own chile's clo'es on de queen's chile, en put de queen's
chile's clo'es on her own chile, en den lef' her own chile layin' aroun'
en tuck en toted de queen's chile home to de nigger-quarter, en nobody
ever foun' it out, en her chile was de king bimeby, en sole de queen's
chile down de river one time when dey had to settle up de estate. Dah,
now--de preacher said it his own self, en it ain't no sin, 'ca'se white
folks done it. Dey done it--yes, dey done it; en not on'y jis' common
white folks nuther, but de biggest quality dey is in de whole bilin'.
Oh, I's so glad I 'member 'bout dat!"
She got up light-hearted and happy, and went to the cradles and spent
what was left of the night "practising." She would give her own child a
light pat and say humbly, "Lay still, Marse Tom," then give the real Tom
a pat and say with severity, "Lay still, Chambers!--does you want me to
take somep'n' to you?"
As she progressed with her practice, she was surprised to see how
steadily and surely the awe which had kept her tongue reverent and her
manner humble toward her young master was transferring itself to her
speech and manner toward the usurper, and how similarly handy she was
becoming in transferring her motherly curtness of speech and
peremptoriness of manner to the unlucky heir of the ancient house of
Driscoll.
She took occasional rests from practising, and absorbed herself in
calculating her chances.
"Dey'll sell dese niggers to-day fo' stealin' de money, den dey'll buy
some mo' dat don't know de chillen--so dat's all right. When I takes de
chillen out to git de air, de minute I's roun' de corner I's gwine to
gaum dey mouths all roun' wid jam, den dey can't nobody notice dey's
changed. Yes, I gwineter do dat till I's safe, if it's a year.
"Dey ain't but one man dat I's afeard of, en dat's dat Pudd'nhead
Wilson. Dey calls him a pudd'nhead, en says he's a fool. My lan', dat
man ain't no mo' fool den I is! He's de smartes' man in dis town, less'n
it's Jedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard. Blame dat man, he worries me
wid dem ornery glasses o' hisn; I b'lieve he's a witch. But nemmine, I's
gwine to happen aroun' dah one o' dese days en let on dat I reckon he
wants to print de chillen's fingers ag'in; en if he don't notice dey's
changed, I bound dey ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe,
sho'. But I reckon I'll tote along a hoss-shoe to keep off de
witch-work."
The new negroes gave Roxy no trouble, of course. The master gave her
none, for one of his speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so
occupied that he hardly saw the children when he looked at them, and all
Roxy had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter when he came
about; then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums, and he was
gone again before the spasm passed and the little creatures resumed a
human aspect.
Within a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that Mr.
Percy went away with his brother the Judge, to see what could be done
with it. It was a land speculation as usual, and it had gotten
complicated with a lawsuit. The men were gone seven weeks. Before they
got back Roxy had paid her visit to Wilson, and was satisfied. Wilson
took the finger-prints, labeled them with the names and with the
date--October the first--put them carefully away and continued his chat
with Roxy, who seemed very anxious that he should admire the great
advance in flesh and beauty which the babies had made since he took
their finger-prints a month before. He complimented their improvement to
her contentment; and as they were without any disguise of jam or other
stain, she trembled all the while and was miserably frightened lest at
any moment he--
But he didn't. He discovered nothing; and she went home jubilant, and
dropped all concern about the matter permanently out of her mind.