Part 12

Nothing now remained to be searched but the plain unpainted bed. It was neatly made up, the coarse brown blankets securely tucked in all around. Charlotte whisked that off and dragged after it the cotton mattress which rested on a “sack bottom,” secured by interlacing cords to the bed frame. There was revealed the hidden secret! Crushed quite flat and sticking to the sacking, long under pressure of the cotton mattress and the tossing and tumbling children, what trick of dainty beauty lay before her? It was so crumpled and smothered, torn and ragged, soiled with fleeces of cotton lint that had sifted through the bed seams, and covered with dust and grime that but for glimpses of its original form and color here and there it would never have been recognized. Charlotte snatched it out and fled to the porch to see if Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann were still down in the orchard. There they lay, prone in the soft grass, happy as only children, and black ones at that, can be. Four little ebony legs kicked up in the air, and the sound of merry shouts reached Charlotte’s ear.

“You’ll fly dem laigs to sum purpose yit, fur I lay I’ll git Marse Jim to giv you a breakdown dat’ll make dem laigs tired,” she said to herself. “You jist lay dar,” she muttered, as she descended the steps. “You needn’t waste your time (it’s a awful short one) lookin’ for aigs dat de ole Dominiker ain’t never laid yit.”

* * * * *

The deep window of the library was wide open, the sash thrown up and an easy lounging chair drawn to the veranda, on which reposed the towering form of the planter, lazily smoking a cigar, and looking off upon the broad, swift river at a passing steamboat, floating so high on its swelling waves that its deck was almost on a line with the top of the grass-covered levee. Its passengers, thronging the “guards” in the fragrance of a fine morning, seemed almost near enough to the spectator on shore to respond to a friendly nod of the head. The delicate lady of the mansion sat silently within, also watching the passing boat.

“I see some one waving a paper from the _Belle Creole_. I believe that’s Green. Yes, he has tied a handkerchief to his crutch, and is waving that.”

The planter rose as he spoke and stood for a moment for a better view. “Here, give me something, quick, to wave back at him.”

At this critical moment Charlotte appeared on the scene. “This will do,” he exclaimed, catching the velvet wreck from the astonished woman’s grasp and tossing it aloft, holding it by the long strings.

“Lord! jist see Marse Jim wid dat bonnet I dun foun’, dat you lost ’fore grinding time, Miss Liza, and whar you spec it was? Right onder Ma’y Ann’s bed.”

“My bonnet! for pity’s sake, only look at it. Look!”

“It don’t look much like a bonnet. It’s more like a red rag to make the turkeys gobble,” replied the master, disdainfully, throwing it to Charlotte.

“My bonnet I paid Olympe twenty dollars for, and never wore it but once; see the satin strings! And just look at the cape at the back! And the feather poppies!”

Charlotte straightened herself up, holding the crumpled bonnet and turning it around to show its proportions. It was of the “skyscraper” shape, made on stiff millinette, that is more easily broken than bent. Mashed sideways, it showed in its flattened state as much of the satin lining as of velvet cover.

“Levi Stucker ain’t no fool. He tole me and William he heard Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann whisperin’ and plannin’ in dere room nights till he was sure dey was a hatchin’ mischief, ef dey hadn’t already hatched more snakes dan dey could kiver, so I ’low’d I’d go and ramshackle dat room o’ theirn, and onder de baid, Marse Jim, ’twixt de sackin’ and de cotton baid, way onder de very middle, I found dis bonnet what I bin lookin’ fur ever since grindin’ time. Now, Marse Jim, dere ain’t no use in talkin’ to dem gals; dere ain’t no use in readin’ no caterkism to ’em, nor in Miss Liza telling no more tales to ’em ’bout dat liar Anifera, or sum sich name. No use in whippin’ ’em, nudder. If I’se whipped dem two niggers once fur not lookin’ fur dis bonnet when I sont ’em to, I’se whipped ’em forty times. Dat didn’t make ’em find what they hid demselves, and it ain’t going to do ’em no good now. Marse Jim, you jist got to skeer de very life outen ’em, and send ’em to de canefields. Dey is rascals and rogues.”

“Well, Charlotte,” he responded, “put the bonnet on this side, out of sight, and bring those children here. I’ll see what I can do.”

As Charlotte left he turned to his tender-hearted wife and told her, “It is important those little negroes should have a lesson that would be of some use. Charlotte is right on the subject of moral suasion as far as those little imps are concerned, so don’t let your kindness and sympathy interfere with my conduct of the case. Keep in the background, and I will give them a lesson they will not soon forget.”

“I can’t imagine what could have induced those children to make way with that bonnet,” said Miss Liza, meditatively, as she looked at the crumpled wreck on the floor.

“Perhaps mischief, perhaps accident. The thing is to make them acknowledge the theft. Entrenched as they are behind a whole barricade of lies and deceit, the thing is to make them capitulate,” replied the husband.

“Cum right in; don’t be modest now. Marse Jim sont fur you,” was heard in Charlotte’s bantering tone, as she appeared in the doorway, half-leading, half-dragging the reluctant culprits, who already began to sniff a coming battle. With some difficulty she marshaled them before the master and stood close at hand ready to offer moral support if the court of inquiry gave any signs of weakening, or to cut off retreat on the part of the little darkies if they became too alarmed to “stand fire.”

“Well, Mary and Martha, where have you been?” inquired Marse Jim, in his blandest and most conciliatory tone.

“Down in de orchard lookin’ for aigs fur Marm Charlotte.” “And we was findin’ some when she hollowed fur us to cum to de house.” “De Dominicker hen got nest in de haige.” “She’s settin’, too.”

“Hold on, hold on, don’t both of you talk at once. I didn’t ask about the hen’s nest. Have you been all over the orchard in the hot sun?”

“Yes, sir.” “Yes, sir, we goes anywhar fur Marm Charlotte.” “She sont us.” “Yes, sir, she sont us fur aigs.” “An’ we was findin’ sum too.” “Dat Dominicker hen——”

With uplifted restraining hand he said: “Hush, don’t both talk at once. Let me talk some. Did you go away down there without your bonnet?”

“We ain’t got no bonnet.” “Me and Ma’y Ann don’t wear bonnets, Marse Jim.”

“Yes, you have a bonnet. Isn’t this your bonnet?” the master said, in his quiet, inquiring tone, holding up before their bulging eyes the dilapidated wreck that they had not dared look at in all the months they had buried it out of sight. Ma’y Ann steadfastly turned her face away from the ghost. She bit her lips, but uttered not a word.

“No, Marse Jim—I—I—er, Marse Jim, I feel sick, sick,” stammered Marthy, as she trembled so she almost fell.

“Sick! Give me your hand.” She quickly recovered, and clasped the tawny paws behind her back. “Give me your hand; let me feel your pulse.” Reluctantly she proffered the hand. “There, now,” he said, letting the limp little hand fall to her side. “You feel chilly, don’t you? Go sit down on that step.” Marthy sidled slowly away, tears welling her eyes and her whole frame shaken with suppressed sobs.

“Stop dat cryin’; nobody ain’t doin’ nuthin’ to you; stop dat foolishness and listen to what Marse Jim is a sayin’ to you two onreasonable rapscallions,” said Charlotte, in a severe tone. She held Mary Ann (who was making ready to fly at the first opportunity) by the back of her neckband.

“Let Martha alone, Charlotte, she is weakening; we’ll talk about the bonnet to Mary Ann, she knows.”

“No, Marse Jim, I ’clar I never see dat bonnet in all my life; I ’clar I never did. I ’clar——”

“Hush,” said the master in a stern voice, “let me ask a question or two, and only answer what I ask.”

“Tell de truth, too,” ejaculated Charlotte, “onless you want de debbil to kotch you.”

“Give me your hand.” The child clutched at her cotton skirt with both hands. He reached out, quietly and forcibly took one skinny little black paw in his firm grasp. Drawing the shrinking, reluctant child toward him, he fixed his eyes upon her averted face. “Now look me right in the eye; everybody does that to people who are talking to them; look me in the eye. What made you hide that bonnet? Look at me when I am talking to you.”

“I didn’t neber see dat bonnet b’fore. I ’clar——”

“Stop, look at me; don’t look at Martha, she’s better.” The child’s eyes dropped. “Don’t look at the floor, look me in the eye.”

“Marse Jim, slap her; make her look at you.”

“Be quiet, Charlotte; she’s going to tell, I want to help her,” replied the imperturbable inquisitor in his blandest tones. Still holding the reluctant hand and drawing the figure more closely to him, he said, “You say you never saw this bonnet? How came it in your bed?”

There was a long pause. The little negro at last gathered herself up, and, with a gleam of inspiration, exclaimed: “Marse Jim, de rats put it dar—de rats runs all over dat floor nights. Me and Marthy Ann jist hears ’em jist toting things all around. Rats put it dar, Marse Jim, big rats.”

“Dat’s a lie,” said Charlotte, positively. “Nary rat on dat floor. Marse Jim, you jist foolin’ way your time on dese niggers.”

The baffled master turned toward the crouching figure on the steps. She was still trembling, her face buried in her hands. He saw she was ready to confess, but he was determined Mary Ann should acknowledge also.

“Have you a mammy, Mary Ann?” he inquired.

“No, Marse Jim; I ain’t got no mammy; I ain’t never had no mammy, and my daddy, he’s daid, and I ain’t——”

“Hush, I didn’t ask all that. If you haven’t a mammy there’s no one to care if you die. I am sure I don’t want little girls round the house that steal and lie. Nobody else would have you; nobody would buy you, and I can’t keep you here. It’s come to a pretty pass when a lady can’t lay her bonnet on the bed without you two little imps taking it and hiding it for months, and lying about it right straight along. You have no mammy to cry for you, and I don’t want you, and Miss Liza don’t want you. What can be done with you?”

Martha sobbed, on the veranda step, and Mary looked defiant, but no response came to that repeated inquiry. After a pause, Mary Ann bridled up; the matter in question seemed to be taking a broader range; the bonnet seemed to be merging in generalities, and might in time sink into the other question of what can be done with them. Martha’s courage also revived, so she could respond to the inquiry of her parentage.

“I ain’t neber had no daddy, and my mammy she’s married to long Phil now.”

The planter shifted his legs, looked abroad in a meditative way, then turned to the charge.

“Well, now, you girls want to tell us all you know about this,” holding up again before them the battered brim and crushed poppies and long, dingy ribbons. Martha buried her face again, and Mary was suddenly interested in the gambols of a squirrel in the pecan tree. Neither culprit would look at the evidence of their guilt. “What will become of you? I can’t keep you and nobody will buy a rogue; nobody wants you.”

“My mammy wants me, Marse Jim,” whimpered the scared Martha.

“No, your mother is Nancy, isn’t she? She’s a good woman and don’t want a rogue and a liar tied to her all her days.” Another long pause. “Come here, Martha, both of you stand by Charlotte and hold her hands. I will give you one more chance. Which—one—of—you—stole—that bonnet? Did both of you do it together? Who hid it? What made you do it?” There was a pause between the questions, not one word of response. Martha’s tears dropped on her little naked foot, while Mary Ann looked vacantly at the nimble squirrel in apparent indifference, not a muscle of her face giving any evidence of emotion.

“Marse Jim,” said Charlotte, whose impatience increased as she saw signs of action on the part of the inquisitor. “Marse Jim, what you gwine to do? It’s no use er whippin’ dese gals; dere hides is like cowhide and whippin’ ain’t no good noways fur liars. Killin’ is good for such.”

The planter rose from his chair, straightened his tired limbs and kicked the bonnet out of his way. “Bring them along, Charlotte. I’ll see what I can do.”

Charlotte, with a firm grasp of each child, followed the tall leader, who, as he turned into the hall, tossed a nod and a significant wink to his wife. She obediently rose and followed. In all the interview the mistress had remained a passive but interested spectator, feeling sure that at a critical moment a signal from her husband would afford her an opportunity to intervene. The master led his followers straight to the well-house, under whose vine-clad arbor reposed the dripping bucket, attached by a windlass to an endless chain.

“I think it best to drown them,” he quietly remarked. The little group filled the arbor. William and Billy, the gardener; Delia, the laundress; Lucy, the maid; Sawny, the “woodpile boy” and Oliver, who “went wid de buggy,” attracted by the spectacle, gathered around the outskirts. The story of the finding of the long lost bonnet had spread over the yard and premises; fragments had even wafted to “the quarters,” with the mysterious rapidity and certainty that always attended a household event in the old plantation days.

“Mary Ann first,” said the master, as catching her suddenly and firmly by the neckband of her dress and imprisoning her struggling legs by wrapping her skirts tightly around them, he held her over the well-hole, head a little down. The struggles and writhings of the child were of no avail in the grasp of the strong man. “I want you to tell the truth and promise never to tell another lie before I drop you down this well.” The child squirmed and screamed in the relentless clutch, swearing entire ignorance of the whole matter. Charlotte felt she must pile on the agony, so she saw “de debbil down dar wid his pitchfork, ready to ketch her.” That vision was too much for the now thoroughly alarmed little darky.

“I tuck it, Marse Jim, I tuck it,” she screamed.

“Will you ever steal again?” still holding her over the well, where in her own little reflection in the placid water she was convinced to her dying day she had seen “de debbil.”

“Neber, neber, ’fore God, neber agin.”

“Never tell another lie if I let you off?”

“Neber, Marse Jim; neber’s long as I lib. Please the Lord and Miss Liza, I’ll be a good little nigger; neber lie agin if you’ll lemme off dis time.”

While that harrowing scene was being enacted with the most determined and refractory of the little witches, and the spectators on the outskirts were convulsed with laughter—every one of them had at one time or another been suspected of the theft—Martha, the tearful, was on her knees, holding despairingly to Miss Liza’s skirts and imploring her “Jist to save me dis time, I’ll be good, I’ll neber tell anoder lie. I’se got a mammy dat will cry fur me, and I don’t want ter die. Oh! save me frum de debbil,” she screamed, when Charlotte’s voice proclaimed him at the bottom of the well. “Don’t let de debbil have your good little nigger.”

Confessions and promises being obtained, Mary Ann was placed upon her feet. Four little black legs flew down the backyard; two little guinea-blue skirts flipped over the cowyard fence and two little dusky spots vanished in the distance. William called after them to “clip it ’fore de debbil gits outen dat well.” Charlotte held her sides with outbursts of laughter that had been held in painful restraint.

“De debbil done skeer ’em more en Marse Jim,” Sawny remarked, as he shambled back to the woodpile.

“I think, my dear,” said the planter, linking his arm into that of his wife and returning to the library with her, “I think those children had a lesson that may last them all their lives. They had to be scared into a confession.”

“I hated to see them badgered,” she replied. “I dropped a few tears over Martha myself—perhaps,” with a smile, “she thought I was scared too.”

Charlotte came in and picked up the wreck. “Miss Liza, I’se goin’ to take dis bonnet, jist as it is, all tousled up and mashed and I’m gwine to make Ma’y Ann war it one day and Marthy Ann de next clean till dey gits sick o’ bonnets; dey shall war it till de chillen come home Sat-day. I ’spose dere’ll be sum laffin’ done when de chillen sees Ma’y Ann wid dat bonnet tied on her haid.”

Another winter had come and gone, and June was again filling the old plantation with its intoxicating odors and delicious melody. The little room on the back porch was darkened by a heavy curtain at the only window. A table drawn up by the rough wooden bed, made gay by a patchwork quilt, held a few medicine bottles, a cup and spoon; also a tumbler of pink and white roses. The quiet mistress moved about noiselessly, occasionally putting her cool hand upon the brow of the little sick negro, or gently stroking the thin, black fingers that lay listlessly upon the bright coverlet.

“Miss Liza, whar Ma’y Ann?” The lady turned her face from the questioner. After a moment’s hesitation she replied, cheerfully: “She’s all right, Martha.”

“Miss Liza, whar is she? Whar Ma’y Ann?”

“She’s down by the quarters now,” was the unsatisfactory response. The weary patient closed her eyes for a few moments, but it was evident that with the first consciousness, following a severe illness, the child’s thoughts turned to her old companion.

“She ain’t bin here sence I was tuk sick.” After a pause, “I want ter talk to Ma’y Ann ’bout sumthin’.”

“Tell me,” said the mistress, soothingly, “what it was you wanted to see Mary for.”

Both the little negroes had been ill of scarlet fever. The children of the household had not been allowed for weeks to come home for their Saturday holidays. Martha fell ill first, and Mary was removed into the room formerly occupied by Levi Stucker, where she soon fell a victim to the disease. The mistress and Charlotte only were allowed to minister to the invalids. Mary, the robust one of the two, the more mischievous, the one apparently better equipped for a struggle with disease, succumbed, after a few days of delirium. The busy hands were stilled, the flying feet arrested, the voluble tongue silenced, at the touch of the Angel of Death. The little body was carried past the “quarters” and beyond, to the negroes’ “burying ground,” where it lay in peaceful shadows of the trees the romping children loved so well. Martha lingered long on the mysterious border, fitfully fighting an apparently hopeless battle, the more tenderly and faithfully nursed by Mammy Charlotte, as the warm-hearted, childless woman realized the frail tenure of life held by the little negro whom she had ruled in varying moods of sternness and tenderness, untempered with judgment. With the fretful peevishness of convalescence, the sick child whined repeated desires to know “Whar Ma’y Ann?”

“What is it you want to tell Mary Ann to-day, when she is not here? Can’t you tell me?” said the patient watcher.

“I jist want ter see her; I’se gwine ter tell you ’bout dat bonnet, Miss Liza, and she ain’t here, and I mout die; sometimes folkses dies of broke laigs, and my laigs is broke. I want Ma’y Ann ter know I ain’t goin’ outen dis world wid dat bonnet on my soul.”

The mistress drew closer to the bedside, stroked and patted the attenuated hand in a soothing way to quiet and compose the restless invalid.

“Maybe it’s jist as good Ma’y Ann ain’t here, Miss Liza. I kin tell de tale better’n when she is here to jine in.” After a pause, apparently to marshal her thoughts more clearly, the child proceeded: “Dat time Miss Ellen cum here, she tuk outen her trunk a red bonnet, and she sed she had two on ’em jist alike, dat her chillen had wore out, and she fotched ’em fur me and Ma’y Ann. I was in dar and seed de bonnet, and you tuk hit, don’t you ’member, Miss Liza? You tuk hit and sed no, Ma’y Ann and me had no use fur bonnets, and you know’d two pore little white gals at your church dat didn’t have none, and you was goin’ ter give ’em to dem. I went out and tole Ma’y Ann all ’bout hit, and she ’low’d if we had bonnets we cud go to church too. Well, we talked tergedder ’bout dose bonnets, and we plan we’d take ’em ennyhow, fust time we seed ’em. Well, one night Ma’y Ann runned right in here, in dat very door. I was in here den. I shet de door and stood against it, and onder her apern she had de bonnet. She didn’t find only one, but she grabbed dat. I tole her dat was the bery one Miss Ellen took outen her trunk, and me and Ma’y Ann, we tried it on our haids, ’fore dat bery piece o’ lookin’ glass stickin’ on de wall dere, and we ’greed ter watch till we kotch de udder one, so we hid it in dat trunk dar, behind you, Miss Liza, and ev’ry day we tried hit on. I want ter tell you all ’bout hit ’fore Ma’y Ann gits back frum de quarters. I dun know how long we kep’ hit in dat trunk, ontil one day dere was a awful fuss, eberybody skeered up, lookin’ fur your bonnet, dat was missin’. Me and Ma’y Ann was glad. We couldn’t find one of our bonnets now your’n wuz gone, too.”

“Didn’t you know you had taken my bonnet?” said the mistress, who was at last seeing through the mystery.

“Jist let me tell you de whole thing, Miss Liza. I bin layin’ here long time thinkin’ de straight uv hit, so Ma’y Ann can’t bodder me when I telled it to you. Ma’y Ann is dat sondacious she most make you b’lieve anythin’. No, Miss Liza, we never thought dat till one day I hear Miss Ellen say how nice dem red bonnets she brung did look on de Quiggins gals at church. Den Marm Charlotte, she begun agin ’bout your bonnet bein’ missed and she searchin’ fur hit all de time, and I hear her tell Sawny it wuz red and had black flowers on hit. Me and Ma’y Ann took de bonnet outen de trunk dat night and dere wuz de black flowers, jist like she sed, den we know’d you had give Miss Ellen’s bonnets to the Quigginses, and Ma’y Ann had stole your’n. We hefted dis baid and put de bonnet under hit, and, please Gord, Miss Liza, I neber seed dat bonnet agin till Marse Jim shuck hit at us dat day.”

“Why didn’t you come tell me what you had done, and why you had done it, when you first found it out?”

“Miss Liza, we was afeerd. Marm Charlotte kep’ sayin’ whoever had dat bonnet wud be hung, and de odder negroes talked back. Thank de Lord, dey never seed hit, so Ma’y Ann and me didn’t dar let on.”

“Didn’t you expect it would be found out some day?”

“Yes’em, I ’spec we did.”

XXX

WHEN LEXINGTON WON THE RACE

Every Kentucky woman loves a horse, and when Lexington was entered in the great State stake in 1854 a crowd of the _crême de la crême_ of the Blue Grass country clamored to be present at the race. The St. Charles Hotel, then in the hands of those genial hosts, Messrs. Hall and Hildreth, was crowded for the event, beyond its capacity, for when that Kentucky contingent of women, unheralded and unexpected, swarmed into its broad parlor and halls, even the servants’ quarters, so near the roof that the only light admitted was skylight, were put into requisition. There was enough Blue Grass blood in my family to compel a rush to the city, and we had a “sky parlor,” right next to the one occupied by Gen. John H. Morgan (simply “John” then. He won his spurs and title a decade or so later) and his Kentucky wife. It took us “forever and a day” to mount the stairs to our roosts, and we were so tired when we arrived that we actually found the quarters acceptable.