"And do it p'int dah dess de same in de broad day, an' all day
long?--Pra-aise Gawd! And do it p'int dah in de rain, an' in de stawmy
win' a-fulfillin' of his word, when de ain't a single stah admissible
in de ske-eye?--De Lawd's na-ame be pra-aise'!" Her father, mother,
and brother were all looking at it with her, now, and she glanced from
one to another with long heavings of rapture.
"Miss Maud," said Silas, in a subdued voice, "dat little trick mus' 'a'
cos' you a mint o' money."
"Silas," put in Hester, "you know dass not a pullite question!" But
she was ravening for its answer, and I said I had bought it for
twenty-five cents. They laughed with delight. Yet, when I told
Sidney she might have it, her thanks were but two words, which her lips
seemed to drop unconsciously while she gazed on the trinket.
They all sat down on the steps nearest below me, and presently,
beginning where I had begun with Sidney, I went on to point out the
polar constellations and to relate the age-worn story of Cepheus and
Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the divine Perseus.
"Lawd, my Lawd !" whispered the mother, "was dey--was dey colo'd?"
I said two of them were king and queen of Ethiopia, and a third was
their daughter.
"Chain' to de rock, an' yit sa-ave at las'!" exclaimed Sidney.
While her husband and children still gazed at the royal stars, Hester
spoke softly to me again. "Miss Maud, dass a tryin' sawt o' sto'y to
tell to a bunch o' po' niggehs; did you dess make dat up--fo' us?"
"Why, Hester," I said, "that was an old, old story before this country
was ever known to white folks, or black," and the eyes of all four were
on me as the daughter asked: "Ain't it in de Bi-ible?"
As all but Sidney bade me good night, I heard her say; "I don' care, I
b'lieb dat be'n in de Bible an' git drap out by mista-ake!"
In my room she grew queerly playful, and continued so until she had
drawn off my shoes and stockings. But then abruptly, she took my feet
in her slim black hands, and with eyes lifted tenderly to mine, said:
"How bu'ful 'pon de mountain is dem wha' funnish good tidin's!" She
leaned her forehead on my insteps: "Us bleeged to paht some day, Miss
Maud."
I made a poor effort to lift her, but she would not be displaced.
"Cayn't no two people count fo' sho' on stayin' togetheh al'ays in dis
va-ain worl'," and all at once I found my face in my hands and the salt
drops searching through my fingers; Sidney was kissing my feet and
wetting them with her tears.
At close of the next day, a Sabbath, my uncle and aunt called all their
servants around the front steps of the house and with tears more bitter
than any of Sidney's or mine, told them that by the folly of others,
far away, they had lost their whole fortune at one stroke and must part
with everything, and with them, by sale. Their dark hearers wept with
them, and Silas, Hester, and Sidney, after the rest had gone back to
the quarters, offered the master and mistress, through many a quaintly
misquoted scripture, the consolations of faith.
"I wish we had set you free, Silas," said uncle, "you and yours, when
we could have done it. Your mistress and I are going to town to-morrow
solely to get somebody to buy you, all four, together."
"Mawse Ben," cried the slave, with strange earnestness, "don't you do
dat! Don't you was'e no time dat a-way! You go see what you can
sa-ave fo' you-all an' yone!"
"For the creditors, you mean, Silas," said my aunt; "that's done."
Hester had a question. "Do it all go to de credito's anyhow, Miss
'Liza, no matteh how much us bring?" and when aunt said yes, Sidney
murmured to her mother, "I tol' you dat." I wondered when she had told
her.
Uncle and aunt tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed;
nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after
nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret one bit
'bout dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism in her
eyes that I remembered afterward. "'De Lawd is perwide!'"
"Strange," said my aunt to uncle and me aside, smiling in pity, "how
slight an impression disaster makes on their minds!" and that too I
remembered afterward.
As soon as we were alone in my chamber, Sidney and I, she asked me to
tell her again of the clock in the sky, and at the end of her service
and of my recital she drew me to my window and showed me how promptly
she could point out the pole-star at the centre of the clock's vast
dial, although at our right a big moon was leaving the tree tops and
flooding the sky with its light. Toward this she turned, and lifting
an arm with the reverence of a priestess said, in impassioned monotone:
"'De moon shine full at His comman'
An' all de stahs obey.'"
She kissed my hand as she added good-by. "Why, Sidney!" I laughed,
"you mean good night, don't you?"
She bent low, tittered softly, and then, with a swift return to her
beautiful straightness, said: "But still, Miss Maud, who eveh know when
dey say good night dat it ain't good-by?" She fondled my hand between
her two as she backed away, kissed it fervently again, and was gone.
When I awoke my aunt stood in broad though sunless daylight at the
bedside, with the waking cup of coffee which it was Sidney's wont to
bring. I started from the pillow. "Oh! what--who--wh'--where's
Sidney? Why--how long has it been raining?"
"It began at break of day," she replied, adding pensively, "thank God."
"Oh! were we in such bad need of rain?"
"_They_ were--precisely when it came. Rain never came straighter from
heaven."
"They?"--I stared.
"Yes; Silas and Hester--and Sidney--and Mingo. They must have started
soon after moonrise, and had the whole bright night, with its black
shadows, for going."
"For going where, auntie; going where?"
"Then the rain came in God's own hour," she continued, as if wholly to
herself, "and washed out their trail."