Part 2

Her little twins, my foster sisters, Mary-Frances and Arabella, were placed in the care of the "orphan tenders," Mammy Dilsey and Ole-Granny-Aggie, the latter claiming to be more than a hundred years old. A cow was set aside for the especial use of the twins, who soon learned that the tinkle of the cow-bells meant for them a banquet of rich warm milk.

For awhile they were brought up twice a day to the "Gre't House" to see "dar Mammy" and sometimes were permitted to partake of the crumbs that fell from the "rich baby's table," which crumbs they soon disdainfully refused, showing their preference for the libations of "Spotty Sookey," that being the name of their barnyard cow.

III

CHURCH VISITORS

My grandmother's old colonial home, Holiday's Point, so-called because of the many holidays that my grandfather had been accustomed to give his servants, was on the Nansemond River, in Nansemond County.

The county came into existence in 1639, being first called Upper Norfolk. Its name was soon changed to Nansemum, spelled by Captain John Smith "Nansemond." The Dismal Swamp extends along its edge. Its county-seat is Suffolk, the burning of which I, as a child, have often heard described by Ole-Granny-Aggie, an eye-witness, while we would listen with bated breath, hair on end and nerves aquiver.

"No, chillun," she would say, "jedgment day ain't agwine to be no mo' tur'ble to 'sperience dan de burnin' of we-all's county-town by dem furrin Britishers was, en de niggers en de white folks ain't agwine to be no skeerder den, needer."

Then she would describe in her picturesque lingo the firing of the barrels of tar, pitch and turpentine which had been brought from the Dismal Swamp and placed upon the wharf awaiting shipping. The flames carried by a strong wind caught the grass of the dry marshes and spread to the town and the surrounding country and, as Granny-Aggie said, "de ma'shes en de river for miles looked and soun' lak one gre't blazin'-kindle-lighted sheet er steadified thunder and lightnin'--de magazines a 'splodin'--de timbers a cracklin'--de barrels of tar, pitch en turkentine a bustin' en splungin' out dar fire--de sparks a flyin' en a lippin' lak de whole fundament had busted wide open en all de stars in de Heabens was a drappin' out, en ev'ybody runnin' lipperty-clip lak dey thunk de Debil was a movin' de Bad Place down to Nansemon'."

Thus my infancy was surrounded by historic tales and the more ancient traditions that had descended from father to son through generations of dusky retainers.

I was the idol of my dear grandmother and her household and many friends. My playmates were the children of the surrounding plantations--the old homes inherited from colonial days. I had never known any other way of living and experienced a shock of surprise on learning that a little new acquaintance did not reside in the home of her ancestors. I asked my grandmother if that little girl was respectable.

"Of course," she replied. "She is a very nice little girl. What makes you ask?"

"Because her pa and ma rent their home. She told me so herself. She can't be respectable."

My grandmother explained to me that though it was pleasant and desirable to live in the house of our fathers, the absence of that comfort did not necessarily place a person "beyond the pale." But I felt at that time that it was grandmother's charity that caused her to set forth that view, for I thought that people who did not live in their own houses could not be respectable.

Two members of my grandmother's household were "nominated" as "church visitors," Mrs. Mary Hutchins, who was deaf, and whose husband, a sea captain, had been lost in a wreck, and Miss Sophia Wilson who, through a vicious parrot, had lost her sight on the eve of her marriage and had, in consequence, been deserted by her fiancé.

There were poorhouses in those days but no homes for aged women and the members of the church took care of their homeless co-workers. As Mrs. Hutchins and Miss Sophia belonged to the old Glebe Church, they were invited as honored guests by fellow-members. Some years earlier the Episcopal Church had become almost extinct in Virginia and the membership was still very small, so that the visits were correspondingly extended. As my grandmother's home was especially pleasant the guests prolonged their stay indefinitely, suddenly falling too ill to be moved if there was any suggestion of their going elsewhere.

Mrs. Hutchins, or "Miss Mary," as we called her, could not hear, but she read the movements of the lips, a circumstance of which Miss Sophia would perversely take advantage by turning away as she spoke, whereupon her friend would thus reproach her:

"Turn your head this way, Sophia Wilson! You don't want me to hear what you are talking about. Begrudging me a little news and I interested in everything, and the Lord knows I haven't a bit of curiosity."

"How do you know what the Lord knows, Mary Hutchins? If you knew half what He knows you wouldn't make so many mistakes. No curiosity, indeed! You're chock full of it. You'd bore a gimlet hole through the earth to see what was on the other side."

"You wouldn't know what was on the other side if there was a tunnel through and somebody shouting it with a fog-horn, and you're so stingy you wouldn't tell me if you did know. Not that it makes any difference; you're not likely to known anything on any side of the earth."

"Humph," was the indignant retort, "if I don't know things why should you be so anxious to see me talk so you could find them out."

"Miss Mary" was saved from the embarrassment of a reply by the timely arrival of my grandmother, who could always apply oil to the waters when they were especially troubled.

A part of my youthful education consisted of the thrilling stories related to me by the captain's faithful relict, whose memory cherished the tales of "moving 'scapes by land and sea" told her in early days by the sailor. Thus I met the man-eaters of the South Seas, shuddered at the gruesome trophies that adorned the persons and huts of the head-hunters of Borneo, beheld the sea-serpent in the rippling waves of the river that flowed below the edge of my grandmother's lawn, and heard many a story of storm and wreck in which the departed sea-captain had performed wonders of skill and bravery.

"Well, Mary Hutchins!" exclaimed Miss Sophia in stern disapproval when I would be lost in rapt attention to these thrilling tales. "What do you mean by putting such notions into that innocent child's head? What do you suppose she will come to when she grows up? A lunatic asylum? Come out of one yourself most likely or you wouldn't get such crazy ideas. Just fancy people wearing other people's heads and hanging them on the wall when they can pick up beautiful shell necklaces right off their own beach and can get wax flowers to put around their houses that look natural and won't ever fade! And as for sea-serpents, you know there never were any."

"Now, Sophia Wilson," Mrs. Hutchins would answer, "the Bible tells us that there are more things in heaven and earth than philosophy ever dreamt of, and we know it's true, and if philosophy can't even dream of the things in heaven and earth, how in the name of common sense are you going to know what's in the waters under the earth? And doesn't it stand to reason that those who go down into the great deep know more about what's in the sea-waves than you do who would be afraid of the wave of a clothes-line on a wash-day?"

In romantic moments Mrs. Hutchins would tell me of the green-haired, flame-eyed, melodious-voiced mermaids that lie in wait to lure unwary seamen to destruction on the rocks, from which danger her sailor had been delivered by the memory of her. Unfortunately, Miss Sophia chanced to be present at one of these sentimental reminiscences.

"You never did have green hair, Mary Hutchins, not even at your prettiest, and that wouldn't be much, and as for flaming eyes, you couldn't scorch a potato, not if your dinner depended on it, and if you ever did sing it must have been worse than a flock of jaybirds. Talk about that old Greek who moved trees when he played! I should think your singing would be enough to make all the woodpiles in Virginia run away. The more you educate that child, Mary Hutchins, the less she knows. The Lord gave her more learning to begin with than she'll ever get from you, and if you go on telling her such trash she'll forget all she ever did know. I heard you yesterday telling her about the ghosts of the children of Israel that keep on crossing the Red Sea. Now I want you to know, Mary Hutchins, that when those Jews crossed the Red Sea once they were on the other side for good and they don't go on walking through that water as if the Lord had nothing to do but take care of them every time they chose to go wading. There is such a thing as trusting the Lord once too often, and the folks that know Him as well as the children of Israel did aren't going to take risks like that on Him. First thing you know you'll have that child seeing ghosts, and you know well enough that people who see ghosts aren't ever likely to see anything that's worth looking at."

I was often troubled in my mind between a confidence in "Miss Mary," which I wished to preserve unshaken, and the force of Miss Sophia's arguments.

The germ of pathos latent in my undeveloped mind was fostered by the story of Miss Sophia's lost vision, which ran thus:

She was visiting at the home of a friend who owned a parrot of unusual brightness of mind and independence of character. Its mistress had a little wooden whistle like those you may recall having seen rural schoolboys whittle out and use for the production of music somewhat shrill in tone but well adapted to please the taste of the juvenile artist. The lady would whistle to the bird, which would answer her in tones that obviously fell short of its ambition. The mistress had a whistle like her own made for the parrot who, marvelous to relate, acquired a high degree of skill in its use and was proud of the achievement.

Once when Miss Sophia's fiancé called she wished to entertain him with a display of the bird's accomplishments. Putting her friend's whistle to her lips she approached the cage. The parrot, apparently angry with the usurper for daring to assume the character of its mistress, darted its beak through the wires and plucked out one of the interloper's eyes. From overwork or sympathy the other eye lost its sight. The lover's affection failed before the test of a blind sweetheart and he found a more fortunate lady.

This story was told me as a lesson in refraining from meddling with the possessions of other people. In combination with "Meddlesome Matty" in my school reader it led me to extreme care in avoiding too great familiarity with things that did not belong to me.

I was fascinated not only by the tragic story but by the click-clack of Miss Sophia's teeth falling out of place as she told it to me. She had purchased them by the sacrifice of her collection of gold dollars, the gifts of friends through many years. The extravagance and vanity of this purchase furnished another subject of dispute with "Miss Mary," who was a thrifty soul and pious as well.

"Sophia Wilson," she said, "if the Lord had intended you to have teeth all your life wouldn't He have given you a set that would have lasted to your dying day?"

Miss Sophia retorted with spirit:

"If He wanted me to go without teeth because the ones He made turned out badly, why do you suppose He put people into the world that were smart enough to make new ones? Just answer me that!"

The question being wholly unanswerable, the conversation lapsed.

I found relief from the depression produced by the tragic reminiscences confided to me by going out into the sunlight on the grass-carpeted lawn and walking under the pink and white canopy of the blossoming althea bushes, or Rose of Sharon, as the flowering plant was sometimes called. The negroes had named the althea the "toothbrush tree" because they broke twigs from it and chewed the ends of the tough fiber into brushes softer than the finest hair brush and used them for cleaning their teeth. "Miss Rose Sharon she first started it," they said. "She was a fairy and lived in the tree and the pink and white blossoms are the smile of her pretty face." I thought the fairy magic in the "tooth-brush tree" was what kept the teeth of the negroes so dazzlingly white, and we children always made our toothbrushes of the same material, hoping to achieve a like result.

On the plantation were some "Story Trees," or "Ghost Trees," as the negroes called them. On their trunks were patches of white and gray moss, like fragments of thin veils. Each of the splotches bore a warning or a legend brought by the spirits and written there. The trees were centuries old and held the ancient Bible stories recorded before the alphabet was invented, when the art of reading was among the undiscovered things, and not even the earliest picture-writing had been evolved. It was only the most important messages that the Lord would permit to be confided to the old trees. Some of the spirit records had broken lines and the servants said that the angel's wing was broken as he brought the message down. There was a deep and fearsome scar on one of the "ghost trees" which indicated a tragedy, past or to come, and I used to gaze upon it with awesome wonder, trying to read its dread meaning.

A few years later a great tragedy came and the blackness of it shrouded our whole nation, but whether that was what the old tree prophecy meant I know not.

IV

MY SOLDIER

Everyone has a point of beginning--a period back of which life, to present consciousness, was not. For me this point stands out vividly in memory.

I was staying with my grandmother, for since she took me home in the "settin'-aig-basket," she had lovingly asserted her claim. My time was divided between the two homes, hers and my father's. My tall handsome father and my beautiful little mother sat on the front veranda, my brother Thomas playing near them on the grass. It was in cherry time and I saw "Uncle Charles" coming up the slope carrying a forked stick on which hung a great cluster of black-heart cherries edged with bright red ones that he had gathered for them to take home.

Suddenly my attention was diverted from the cherries to a horse pounding down the lane and stopping at the gate, where a barefoot boy tumbled off. He had ridden bareback, with plow-hames for a bridle, as if the horse had been hastily taken from the field.

"Come quick as you can, please, ma'am!" cried the boy. "Mrs. Pitt is dying!"

The rockaway was drawn to the door by old Starlight, my grandmother took her seat within, and I watched Pery driving off, following them with my eyes to the end of the lane, where they were lost to view in the highway.

Poor Mrs. Pitt left four children to be apportioned among the members of her church, little Sara falling to my grandmother's care. The next morning my old mammy broke this news to me, ending with:

"Well, I sposin' it's all right, but de li'l gal don't b'long to de quality, en how de Pitts come to membership in de silk-stockin' Chu'ch is beyonst me."

My mammy's idea of the Episcopal Church dated from the days when its members were noted for ornamentation in dress, and to her it was always "de silk-stockin' Chu'ch." The lack of silken qualifications did not lessen her determination to do her duty by the little girl who, in her opinion, was so frail that she was doomed to an early death. In her desire to fulfill her obligations mammy exhorted me to "ack lak a sister-in-law to her, as you can't ack lak a sho' 'nough bloodified sister." She expressed her opinion that it was not for nothing that she had been dreaming about snakes and about wasps building their nests in the beehives and made gloomy predictions of "haunts" and spirits that would prowl around and creep through the keyholes because of this unfortunate child. Warned by my wondering eyes that she was trespassing on forbidden ground, she stopped short, saying:

"G'long, honey, and play wid yo' new French chany set. I done talk to myself 'twel I got a mis'ry in my haid."

The privilege of playing with my dear little set of imported china was granted only when I had been particularly good or some one else particularly indiscreet.

That evening little "Sary Lizbef" came. She was a shy, frail, bow-legged child, with sandy hair, pale blue eyes, and warts on her fingers. I took possession of her, wanting to give her everything I had, happy in my self-abnegation, having a tender feeling for her because of her lack of the vigor possessed by the other children I knew and because there gloomed over me mammy's assertion, "She's 'bleeged to die, anyhow."

One morning Aunt Serena came in to make known to my grandmother her suspicions that the little girl had whooping cough, adding the warning: "So you hyer me, ole Missus, you better stop she and li'l Missus mingulatin' wid one anudder." The diagnosis proving correct, my grandmother stopped our "mingulatin'" by taking me to Old Point Comfort to visit her friend, Mrs. Boykin, a sister of Mr. John Y. Mason. At first I was troubled about my only girl playmate; white girl, I mean, for Mary Frances and Arabella, my little colored foster sisters, had been my maids and playmates all my life and I was strongly attached to them, like a princess dispensing laws and giving them their parts to play in the drama of child-life. Only a Southern child can understand these relations and the sentiments born of them.

The charms of Old Point soon dispelled my grief and I was happy, being a favorite not only with the children but with the older guests, who found me useful in amusing the little ones, to whom I taught the fancy steps I had learned from my dancing-master and the original songs and dances of the negroes on the plantation. Alas! in due course of time I developed whooping cough and was thrust into the gulf of social ostracism. Instead of the accustomed hearty welcome, I was greeted with, "Run away, little girl, my little children cannot play with you now." I was a sensitive child, and this sudden change was like a January freeze in midsummer, but I soon discovered that my mammy's advice, "Ef you kyan't be happy den be happy as you kin be," strictly followed, insured contentment in the long run. She pointed out the advantage of being sociable with myself, in that I should have no interference from others, but warned me to be careful not to play too long at one game or I would surely have "one of dem tur'ble low-sperited spells yo' gramma calls 'on yo' ear,'" the latter phrase being mammy's version of "ennui."

Before I had reached this danger-point fate brought me a companion who more than filled the vacancy left by the defection of my former playmates. I had seen a solitary officer on the sands, reading, or looking at the ships as they came and went, or watching the waves as they dashed to sudden death against the shore. He figured in my imagination as the "Good Prince" in the fairy stories my grandmother told me.

He did not look as tall as the men of my family, but he carried himself so erectly and walked with such soldierly dignity that I was sure that any "Good Prince" might have envied him his stately appearance. I noted that his hair, which hung in shining waves almost to his shoulders, was the same color as my own and I pulled one of my curls around to look at it and make sure of the accuracy of the comparison. Even at that early age I had a liking for dainty hands and feet and I noticed his small feet as he paced the sands and the delicate hand that was raised to his cap in salute to an officer who passed. The grace of his hands was well set off by the cambric ruffles that edged his sleeves. My childish eyes took in the neatness and perfect fit of his attire which set off his distinguished form. I thought him quite the handsomest soldier I had ever seen, and was surprised one day to hear somebody say that he had fought in the Mexican war. It seemed impossible to me. How could anyone so immaculate and so beautiful to look upon have really fought and killed people? I had never been near enough to see his eyes, but imagined that they must be brilliant stars like those to which I said good-night just before I cuddled down to invite sweet dreams.

My attention would probably not have been drawn so particularly to my soldier, for I had already begun to call him _my_ soldier, had he been surrounded by dancing, chattering companions and formed a part of the gay life of Old Point Comfort. I should have observed him only as a brilliant feature of the cruel world that had chosen to condemn me to exile. But in his solitude I felt that we were comrades in sad experience. I knew of only one calamity that could so set apart a human being from his fellow creatures as to bar him from association with his kind. The symptoms were unmistakable and I at once recognized the melancholy officer as a co-victim of whooping cough and gave him the tender pity of one who knew all about his misfortune.

One morning I was skipping along, chattering as usual, inquiring about the little girl whose spiteful tongue had been pulled out by a springbok, asking if the bluejay _really_ did carry tales to the devil, and other queries pertinent to my stage of development, when my grandmother stopped to speak to a friend. I rambled on until I came to a spreading umbrella under which my soldier lay on the sands reading. He was so absorbed in his book that he did not see me till I crawled under the umbrella and looked into his face with, I suppose, all the sympathy that I felt and asked him anxiously if he had the whooping cough, telling him of my mammy's infallible remedy for that malady and assuring him of her willingness to apply it to his case. Then he looked at me, courteously raising his cap and smiling, and I saw that his eyes were gray, shot with changeful lights, twinkling blue with mirthfulness as he gave me a polite good morning. This recalled me to a realization of the demands of good society and I got up and curtsied, wishing _him_ "Good morning" and inquiring concerning his health. He arose and with knightly grace returned my greeting, pointing to a seat for me on the sand, and resumed his own place. Returning to the query with which I had opened the interview he asked why I had taken him for a victim of so juvenile an ailment. I feelingly related my own experience and dwelt upon the oppressive isolation of one so afflicted and said that as he did not associate with other officers nor dance with young ladies and had to swim and read all by himself, as I did, I thought it must be because he was suffering from the same misfortune as that which had deprived me of social pleasures.

He looked at me with a shade of sadness in his face and then I saw that his eyes could be very dark, like the sky sometimes at night when the moon had gone to bed and the stars were only little shimmery specks of light in the darkness piled velvety soft. He told me that he did not have the whooping cough but he had something worse, a broken heart, and he did not like to make others sad with his sorrow.