CHAPTER IV
THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE
When the fine weather had taken the kinks out of Judge Gatchell'sjoints, he came to see us--a tall, thin, punctilious, saturnine oldgentleman with frosty Scotch eyes and the complexion of a pair ofwashed khaki trousers. Chaos reigned in Hynds House then, and he wasforced to pick his way, like an elderly and cautious cat, betweenpiled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the most statelymanner he parted the tails of his skirted coat, seated himself uponthe sofa, placed his hat beside him, drew up the knees of his blackbroadcloth trousers, took off and wiped his spectacles with greatthoroughness and deliberation upon a large silk handkerchief,replaced them upon the middle of his Roman nose, cleared his throat,pursed his lips, and drily but clearly talked business.
Great-Aunt Sophronisba would have left a much larger fortune had shebeen less addicted to lawsuits. You wouldn't think an old soul ofalmost a hundred could find very much chance to brew mischief,would you? You didn't know Great-Aunt Sophronisba!
I was informed that the case of Scarlett vs. Geddes had beenautomatically closed by the death of the plaintiff; _but_ I hadinherited along with Hynds House:
The case of Scarlett vs. The Vestry and Pastor of St. Polycarp'sChurch, from whom Mrs. Scarlett sought to recover threepaintings--"Faith," "Hope," and "Charity"--which her father hadcommissioned a visiting artist to paint, and had then presented toSt. Polycarp's, with the stipulation that they should "forever hangin the sacred edifice, reminding the brethren of the CardinalVirtues of the Christian Religion."
They did hang in the church for a century. Then, when the Ladies'Missionary Society was helping "do over" the parsonage, a fadedFaith, a dulled Hope, and a fly-specked Charity were transportedthither. Whereupon suit was immediately brought by the donor'sdaughter, who averred that the church had lost all right and titleto the paintings by an action directly contrary to her father'swill, and insisted that they should be turned over to herself assole heiress. It was a nice little case, and called forth animposing array of counsel. Mrs. Scarlett had added a codicil to herwill, leaving _me_ her claim to the three paintings "fraudulentlywithheld by the pastor and vestrymen of St. Polycarp's Church."
There was, too, the question of the lot on Lafayette Street, betweenZion Church on the one hand, and the Y.M.C.A. on the other. Both hadtried to buy it; and both had been refused with contumely. Instead,that nice old lady ran up extra-sized bill-boards. Every time theZionist brethren looked out of their side windows of a Sunday, theyhad ample opportunity to learn considerable about the art ofadvertising on bill-boards. And if a circus happened to be coming toHyndsville, they could count on every child in their Sunday schoolmissing his lesson, unless the text, by a fortunate chance, happenedto touch upon the prophet Daniel.
And when the Y.M.C.A. people looked out of _their_ side windows,Sophronisba's alluring bill-boards besought them to smoke onlycertain cigarettes and to be sure to look for the trademark on theirplaying-cards. Naturally, this made the Y.M.C.A. secretaries very,very happy.
A weather-beaten picket fence protected the lot upon the streetfront; the bill-boards formed the side attractions; and in thecenter front was the monument, a stone of stumbling and offense. Itwas a neat, plain granite obelisk, which bore this inscription:
This Stone is Erected By the Affection of Sophronisba Hynds Scarlett To Commemorate the Many Virtues of The Most Perfect Gentleman in Hyndsville Her Bloodhound NIPPER
"There should have been an open season for Sophronisba," Alicia saidwith conviction. Then she put her head down and laughed.
The judge looked at her over his glasses, doubtfully. With a slightedge to his voice he referred to the several prosecutions "forwanton and wilful trespassings" upon the closed, barbed-wire lanebehind Hynds House. As the strip in question was not a publicthoroughfare, and Mrs. Scarlett had rock-ribbed titles covering it,she could close it; and she did, greatly to the inconvenience of herimmediate neighbors, particularly Doctor Richard Geddes.
"There is something to be said for Mrs. Scarlett's methods," saidthe judge dryly. "The Lafayette Street bill-boards are thebest-paying ones in Hyndsville. As to closing the lane, Miss Smith,let me remind you that Doctor Geddes, although an estimable man anda very able physician, is not at all backward in coming forward in aquarrel. He greatly angered my late client."
"Nevertheless, that barbed wire comes down. He may use the lanewhenever he wants to," I decided.
The judge bowed. "And now," he said, politely, "let us take up thecase of Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, if you please. It was Mrs. Scarlett'swish that you should be fully informed concerning Mr. Jelnik'santecedents, that you might be on your guard."
"Against Mr. Jelnik? But, good heavens, why? Why?" I was beginningto get angry. "Let me see: I am to make myself odious to Mr. Jelnik,and I am to refuse to allow a physician to run his car through abarren strip of weeds and sand, because they are her relatives andshe hated her relatives. I am to vex the souls of harmlessChristians with bill-posters of the world, the flesh, and the devil,and I'm to pay taxes on a lot that's been turned into a cemetery fora hound dog. I'm to fight St. Polycarp's Church, for a couple ofchromos I should probably loathe.--I don't like pictures of cardinalvirtues, anyhow. It altogether depends on who possesses them as towhether I can stand for the cardinal virtues themselves."
"Faith looking up, and Charity looking down, and Hope hanging to ananchor, _something_ like Britannia-Rules-the-Waves. Make the churchkeep them, please, Sophy!" begged Alicia.
Judge Gatchell made an odd noise in his throat.
"One of my little granddaughters, taken to Saint Polycarp's by hermother, asked, 'Mamma, who is that big woman up there with thepick-axe?' And they told her," said the Judge, scathingly, "theytold her it was _Hope_!
"When the vestry came to me about the case, I reminded them thatAholah and Aholibah were damned for doting upon paintings on thewall, painted in vermilion, which in plain English is Scarlett!" Acovenanting gleam shot into his frosty eyes, and the old fightingScotch blood showed for a second in his lank cheek. He was a godlyman, and when he saw confusion in the ranks of the Philistines, herejoiced.
"I can't help who was damned," said I. "My job is to live in peacewith my neighbors. St. Polycarp's people may hang their Virtueswherever they please, for all of me."
Did a faint, faint shade of regret flit over the parchment-likeface? It seemed so to me. But he said, composedly:
"You must act according to your best judgment. And now, please, letus go back to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik."
We rather prided ourselves upon the possession of so pleasant aneighbor, and we said so. He had helped us with our garden, and itwas he who selected the spot upon which the resurrected Love shouldbe set up.
"Ah, yes, the statue, brought from Italy by Richard Hynds, a greatgrandfather of his. Did he tell you anything about Richard?" askedthe judge.
"Nothing."
"I shall have to go a long way back, more than a hundred years, tomake you understand," said the judge. "When I was a boy some of theoldest folk here in Hyndsville used to say that Hynds House nevershould have come to Freeman Hynds, Mrs. Scarlett's father; but toRichard Hynds, his elder brother--that same Richard whose initialsare cut in the base of the statue he brought in his pagangodlessness from Italy, and which his brother afterward buried,wishing to remove all trace of him and his follies.
"You are to understand that it was the unwritten law of the Hyndses'that this house should come to the eldest son. Primogeniture is ofcourse foreign to American ideas, but this is an old house, MissSmith. When it was built, American ideas hadn't been born. And theHyndses were a law to themselves.
"The then head of the house was James Hampden Hynds, a man of animmense pride, a rigid sense of duty, and the nicest notions ofhonor. He had two sons, Richard, and the younger brother, Freeman.The daughters do not count: it is with these two sons we areconcerned.
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"From every account Freeman Hynds was a good man, a quiet,God-fearing, methodical man, attentive to his affairs, andmeticulously exact in all his dealings; not warm-hearted, perhaps,but just. But as if the bad blood of the entire family had come to ahead in one man, Richard was born a roisterer and a spendthrift.
"He grew up a magnificent young scapegrace, reckless to the point ofmadness, and with that inherent love of risk that is the very breathof life to such men. Despite these defects there is no doubt thathis was one of those personalities that win love without effort. Soof course it was a foregone conclusion that he should win the girlthat his younger brother, among others, adored to distraction.
"His family hoped that his love for his young wife would change himfor the better. But there was something tamelessly wild in RichardHynds. He would have done very well, very well indeed, in the_Golden Hind_ with Drake, or in the _Jesus_ with Morgan. He did notfit in a gentler generation, and a mild life had no charm for him.Gossip buzzed with his name, even in a day when gentlemen werepermitted to behave pretty much as they pleased.
"Up to this time there had never been anything altogetherunpardonable charged against him. But one fine morning the Hyndsjewels were missing. Remember that the Hyndses had always been awealthy and powerful family. The theft of those jewels was notrumpery affair. For generations they had been adding to thatcollection--sometimes a lustrous pearl, sometimes a flawlessemerald; once it was a sapphire that had belonged to a French queen,once a pair of rubies that had hung in the ears of a duchess belovedof King Charles.
"Richard's mother happened to be a meek and quiet body, deeplyreligious, something of a Quakeress, so she wore them but seldom. Itwas upon the occasion of a ball to be given in honor of Freeman'stwenty-first birthday that the question of what jewels his mothershould wear came up, and the strong-box in which they were kept wasopened. Only the settings remained.
"When the clamor quieted and sane questions began to be asked,suspicion fastened upon Richard Hynds. His affairs were chaotic, hisneeds imperative and desperate. He had been heard to ask his motherif she intended wearing what he called 'the Hynds fortune' atFreeman's ball. He knew, of course, where they were kept--in theanteroom of his mother's apartment. It was not only possible buteasy for him to gain access to them.
"Let us consider the case without prejudice: Here is a young man--agambler, a wastrel--with pressing debts, and clamoring creditorsthreatening what might be considered dishonor. Within reach of thisyoung man's hand are certain very valuable properties which he mighteven consider his own, since they would in time descend to him. Hismother's resources are exhausted, his father's heart steeled againstfurther advancements. Cause and effect, you see--debts: missingjewels.
"The case not only formed two factions in public opinion; it splitthe Hynds family itself. His two sisters, and his cousin Jessamine,raised in this house, believed him guilty. His mother and his wifebelieved in his innocence and refused to hear a word against him.These two things only did Richard Hynds salvage in that utter wreckand catastrophe--his mother's faith and his wife's love.
"He lost his father's. This was a man, who, under his pleasantexterior of a landed gentleman, was rigid and inflexible. He hadalready borne a great deal, remember; but this was disgrace, anindelible stain upon a stainless name. Therefore this father, whowas at the same time a just and good man, disinherited his favoritechild and eldest son. House, slaves, lands, money, the greatposition of the head of a powerful family, came to Freeman Hynds,my late client's father, born five years later than his brother, onthe twentieth day of September, 1785--a long time ago! a long timeago!
"Richard was disgraced, and a beggar. And it seemed that the rodthat had lain in pickle for the Hyndses for their pride, was broughtforth to scourge them all. For Richard, desperate, distracted,careless of what happened to him, rode out one day through a peltingrain. Result, congested lungs; the poor wastrel, who had no wish tolive, was soon satisfactorily dead.
"When James Hampden got that news, he rose up from his chair, laidthe book he had been reading--it was Baxter's 'Saint's Rest'--downon the library table and fell as if lightning had struck him.Apoplexy, it was said; a thrust through the heart, I should call it.Richard the sinner was none the less Richard his first-born.
"Hard upon the heels of these two disasters came a third, the caseof Jessamine Hynds. This Jessamine--a highly gifted, imperiouscreature, proud as Lucifer, after the manner of the Hyndses--was anorphan, reared in Hynds House. She was some several years older thanher cousins, to whom she was greatly attached. The trouble so preyedupon her that she became melancholy, and one fine day disappearedand was never afterward found. There was great hue and cry made forher, and men riding hither and yon, for this was a Hynds woman, andher story touched popular imagination, so that she is supposed,"said the lawyer dryly, "to wander around Hynds House o' nights,crying for Richard and searching for the lost jewels.
"After the death of James Hampden Hynds, it was discovered that hehad added a singular enough codicil to his will. This codicilprovided that in the event the jewels were found intact, and RichardHynds's innocence thereby incontrovertibly established, Hynds Houseas it stood should revert to him as eldest son, after the custom ofthe family. _But_ until the jewels were recovered, Richard and hisheirs were to have exactly--nothing. And nothing is what Richard andhis heirs got."
"And was he really guilty?" breathed Alicia. Her sympathy wasinstantly with Richard. That is exactly like Alicia, who is sorryfor the fatted calf, and the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, andEsau swindled out of his birthright; had she been one of the wisevirgins she would have trimmed the lamps of all the foolish ones andwaked them up in time.
"In theory," said the judge, "a man is innocent until he is provedguilty. In practice, he is guilty until he can prove his innocence."
"And was nothing, absolutely nothing, ever heard or knownfurther?--nothing that would justify his mother's faith, or comforthis poor young wife's heart?"
"There was but one incident to which even the most credulous couldattach the slightest importance. You shall judge for yourselfwhether it deserved any. Freeman Hynds, riding about the plantationafter his habit, was thrown from his horse and died from theinjuries sustained. He recovered consciousness for a few minutesbefore he died; some said he never really regained it. Be that as itmay, the dying man cried out, in a voice of great anguish andaffliction: '_Richard! Brother Richard! The jewels--the jewels!_' Hestruggled to say more, and failed; looked into the concerned facesaround him, with the awful look of the soul about to depart;struggled to raise himself; and fell back upon his pillow a corpse.
"Some--they were in the majority--said, sensibly enough, that thepain and disgrace of his brother's downfall had haunted the poorgentleman's death-bed, and occasioned that last sad cry. Some fewsaid he had wished to confess a thing heavy upon his conscience, whohad taken his brother's place as Jacob took Esau's. Richard's wife,of course, was of these latter. She went to her grave a passionatebeliever in the innocence of her husband, whom she averred to havebeen a deeply wronged and cruelly used man; and, for heaven's sake,who do you suppose she claimed had wronged him? Freeman! Shecouldn't prove anything; she hadn't the ghost of a clue to hang theghost of an accusation upon; yet, womanlike, she clung to hernotion, and she taught it to her son as one teaches a holy creed.
"The Hyndses were excellent haters. Freeman's daughter, born into anatmosphere of family disruption, abhorred the very memory of heruncle, and hated her uncle's wife, the woman who doubted and ledothers to doubt her father's honesty. This hatred she discovered forRichard's son, who, as he grew older, referred to Freeman as 'myUncle Judas.'
"This second Richard became in time a highly successful physician, aman honored and beloved by this community. There was no wildness in_him_, nor in his son, the third Richard. His granddaughter SarahHynds married Professor Doctor Max Jelnik, the celebrated Viennesealienist, whom she met abroad. Your next-door neighbor is Sarah'sson, born somewhere in Hungary, I believe. B
oth the young man'sparents are dead, and I understand he has led a vagrant andirresponsible life, preferring to rove about rather than follow hisfather's profession, to which he was educated.
"My late client, indeed, held that he had inherited the deplorablecharacteristics of the first Richard. She asserted--she allowedherself great freedom of speech--that you can't make a silk purseout of a sow's ear. It displeased her that he should come toHyndsville. She thought it showed a malignant nature and a peculiarshamelessness that he chose to reside next door to Hynds House, fromwhich his great-great-grandfather had been so ignominously driven.Her first meeting with the young man bred in her an ineradicabledislike."
Now what really happened is this: The fences having been neglected,and in consequence fallen down, and the hedge broken in many places,Mr. Jelnik, just come to Hyndsville, thoughtlessly and perhapsignorantly crossed the sacred Scarlett boundaries. Up-stairs behindher blind, like an ancient spider in her web, the old lady spiedhim. She flung open the window and leaned out.
"Who are you that prowl about other peoples' yards like a thievishcat?" she demanded peremptorily.
The young man looked up, uncovering his beautiful head.
"I am Nicholas Jelnik. And I pray your pardon, Madame: I did notmean to intrude," and he made as if to go.
"Jelnik!" said she, in a hoarse and croaking voice. "Jelnik! Aha! Iknow your breed! I smell the blood in you--bad blood! rotten badblood! You've a bad face, young man: a scoundrelly face, the face ofa fellow whose grandfather robbed his house and shamed his name! Andwhy have you come near Hynds House, at this hour of the day? He, he,he! _I_ know, _I_ know!"
Lost in astonishment, Jelnik remained staring up at her. Theapparition of this venerable vixen, who had hated Richard's son andnow hated him of a later generation, who had seen those that hadtalked to Richard himself in his ill-fated lifetime, so stirred hisimagination that it deprived him of utterance. All he could do wasto stand still and stare and stare and stare. He had never seenanybody so old--she was nearly a hundred, and looked a thousand--andhe stared at the old, old, wrinkled, yellow face, the unhuman face,in which the beady black eyes burned with wicked fire; at the nearlybald head, thinly covered with a floating wisp or so of wool-likewhite hair; at the claw-like, shriveled, yellow hands, the stringyneck, the whole sexless meager wreck of what had been a woman. Itwas a stare made up of wonder, and instinctive dislike, and humanpity, and young disgust. She raised her voice:
"Did you not see those signs? Scoundrel, puppy, foreign-born poacher,didn't you see my sign-boards?" And as she looked down athim--Richard's blood alive and red in a youthful and beautiful body:and _she_ what she was--she fell into one of those futile anddreadful fits of rage to which the evil old are subject; and mumbledwith her skinny bags of lips, and shook and nodded her deathly head,and waved her claw-like hands, screeching insults and abuse.
The pity died out of Jelnik's face. He regarded her with hisfather's eyes, the calm, impersonal, passionless gaze of the trainedalienist. She was an unlovely exhibition, to be studied critically.In some subtle manner she understood, for she jerked herself out ofher anger, and fell silent, regarding him with a glance asbrilliantly, deadly bright as a tarantula's. The cold, relentlesshate of that glance chilled him. He forced himself to bow to heragain, and to beat a dignified retreat, when his inclination was totake to his heels like a school-boy caught pilfering apples.
The next morning a bailiff presented Mr. Nicholas Jelnik with anotice forbidding him to enter the grounds of Hynds House withoutthe written permission of the owner, and threatening prosecutionshould he disobey.
"The Hyndses, as I have said, are good haters," finished JudgeGatchell.
"And so she left Hynds House to me," said I without, I am afraid,much gratitude.
"It was hers, to dispose of as she chose." The lawyer spoke crisply."If you have any scruples, dismiss them. My late client understoodthat it was far better for the estate to fall into the hands of asensible woman like yourself than into the keeping of a young manwith what foolish people like to call the artistic temperament,which in plain English means a person who can't earn his salt in anyuseful, sensible business.
"You doubt this? Let us consider this same artistic temperament andits results," continued the judge, making a wry face. "Once or twiceit has been my bad fortune to meet it. One trifling scamp I have inmind, painted. A house, a fence, a barn, even a sign-board? Not atall, but messes he called 'The Sea,' one doesn't know why, save thatthe things slightly resembled raw oysters. However, the women ravedover him. His laundress and his landlady had good cause to rave!
"He wrote, too. A text-book, a title, a will, a deed, a businessletter? Far from it! He wrote _poetry_, if you please! The littlewretch wrote _poetry_! That's what the artistic temperament leads aman to! Bah! I hate, I despise, I abhor, the artistic temperament!"
We looked at the judge, open-mouthed. "Who would have thought theold man to have had so much blood in him?"
"There have been times," admitted the judge, subsiding, "when Iradically disagreed with my late client; when I opposed herstrongly. But when she willed her whole estate to you, Miss Smith,instead of to Nicholas Jelnik, I heartily approved. Understand, Ihave no personal bias, no animosity against this young man; but heis, I am told, more or less of an artist, and one might as wellleave an estate to an anarchist at once. I have expressed thisopinion to the town at large, and I seldom express my opinionpublicly," finished the old jurist stiffly.
I heard that opinion with mingled emotions.
"But we like Mr. Jelnik," I said at last. "The injunction againsthim doesn't hold water. Personally, I feel like apologizing to him."
"Oh, no! One can't afford to cuddle an old vendetta, as Abishagdry-nursed old King David. I always _hated_ Abishag!" Alicia saidnaively.
"My late client," said the judge enigmatically, "hadn't counted on_you_." He almost succeeded in looking human when he said it, andhis eyes upon Alicia weren't at all frosty. Then he folded hispapers, replaced them in his wallet, wiped his glasses, shot hiscuffs, hoped we'd find Hynds House all we'd hoped, hoped the townwould be to our liking, hoped he could be of further service to us,bowed creakily, and took his departure.
"Sophy," said Alicia, after a long pause, "if ever I had torechristen this house, I'd call it Hornets' Nest."
* * * * *
We had not attended church on our first Sunday, because we were tootired. But on our second Sunday we plucked up heart of grace andwent to St. Polycarp's.
The old town wore an air of Sabbath peace and quietness infinitelysoothing to the spirit. People passed and repassed us. We knew theyknew who we were. The old gentlemen, indeed, bowed to us withstately uncoverings of the head; the rest regarded us with the sortof impersonal and perfunctory interest one bestows uponuninteresting passing strangers. Nobody spoke to us, though the eyesof the young men were not unaware of Alicia's fairness.
In a great city, of course, one takes that sort of thing forgranted; but in this small town, where everybody knew and spoke toeverybody else, the effect was chilling.
"Talk about the sunny South!" murmured Alicia. "Why, my teeth wantto chatter!"
During the services I was conscious of covert glances in ourdirection, but whenever a pair of feminine eyes met mine, they slidoff like lizards and glided another way, with calculated Christianindifference. They weren't hostile, nor unfriendly: they were justdeliberately indifferent. Nobody had the faintest notion of beingheedful of us strangers among them; and I should be sorry for angelswho expected to be entertained unawares in South Carolina!
When the congregation had filed out and gone about its leisurelybusiness, the minister and his wife came forward to greet us. Theywere a bit nervous, remembering the diabolic uproar about Faith,Hope, and Charity. Mr. Haile was a mild-mannered little man of thesaved-sheep type, with box-plaited teeth and a bleating voice. Hiswife had the worried face and the anxious eyes of the minister'shelpmeet, and the painfully ready smile for newcomer
s who might, ormight not, prove desirable parishioners.
She wanted to be nice to us as a Christian woman to women, but nottoo nice as the minister's wife of a church whose members lookedupon us as interlopers. I had deputed Judge Gatchell to inform thetrustees that the suit was dropped. I suppose Mrs. Haile was timidabout broaching the delicate subject, for she ignored it with anervous intensity that made me feel sorry for her. She and Mr. Hailewould call just as soon as it was convenient for us to receivevisitors; and then they shook hands with us, and I think theybreathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh, Sophy! And we've got to keep on going there!--next Sunday, andSunday after next Sunday, and maybe every Sunday after that until wedie! Perhaps after a while some of them will bow to us, or maybeeven say, 'How do you do?' _but_ we'll feel as if we'd been put incold storage every time we enter that door!" wailed Alicia.
"It is our Father's house," I reminded her.
"But I don't want to be made to feel like a spanked child, inanybody's house!" Alicia said, resentfully.
"You say that because you're Irish."
"You say I say it because I'm Irish because you're English." Thenshe screwed up her mouth like a coral button, and squinted her eyes:"I'm Irish, and you're English, and we're both American. Sophy,let's join my Irish and your English to our Yankee, and teach thistown a lesson!"
"Barkis is willin'. But in the meantime let's go home and see whatMary Magdalen has for lunch."
We walked slowly, enjoying the calm, lovely late-summer day.Hyndsville at its best was a big, green, sprawling old town, aquaint, unpainted, leisurely, flowery, bird-haunted place, withglorious trees, and do-as-they-please, independent gardens. Nobodyever seemed to be in a hurry, and at first we used to wonder howthey ever got anything done, or kept pace with the moving world; yetthey did. Only, they did it without haste and without noise. Andthey were _always_ polite. Though they should take your substance,your reputation, or even, perhaps, your life, they would do it likeladies and gentlemen.
We paused a while, just inside the big brick-pillared gate, andlooked up the oak-arched garden path toward our house. Of course onecan't expect an old fortress of a brick house that's been neglectedfor more than three quarters of a century to look spick and spaninside of a brief fortnight, but already Hynds House was sitting up,so to speak, and taking notice.
Life had begun to flow back into it. Mary Magdalen had brought a dogwith her--a yellow dog of unknown ancestry, of shamefaced demeanor,a ropy tail, splay feet, and a rolling eye; named, she and heavenalone knew why, Beautiful Dog.
He shunned Alicia and me because we were white people: Beautiful Dogwas intuitively aware that colored people's dogs must meet whitepeople with suspicion, aloofness, and reserve. When we fatuouslysought to make friends with him, he tucked his tail between hislegs, and shivered as if we made goose-flesh come out on his spine;and once when I took him by his rope collar he fell down andshrieked. But just let Mary Magdalen roll out an unctious, "Whah isyuh, Beaut'ful Dawg?" and his ears and tail went up, he curveted,and made uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from earto ear.
Doctor Geddes's Mandy had brought over the black kittens and theirmother. Mary Magdalen made sure of their staying at home by thesimple process of buttering their paws. In South Carolina, when youwant a cat to stay in your house, you butter its paws and let itlick the butter off leisurely, the while you whisper in its leftear: "_Stay in my house for keeps, cat!_" The cat will everthereafter play Ruth to your Naomi.
Our cat was Mrs. Belinda Black, and her children were Potty Blackand Sir Thomas More Black, this last being a creature of noble mienand a meditative turn of mind.
"Homage and praise to Bast, the cat-headed, the wise one, the greatgoddess!" purred Alicia, stroking Mrs. Belinda Black's satiny head."And may Sekhet the Cat of the Sun aid me, a devotee at her shrine,to butter the paws of some two-legged cats in Hyndsville!"
"You-all's dinnah 's waitin'." Mary Magdalen stubbornly held to thenotion that any meal eaten between breakfast and night was dinner;lunch being sandwiches and fried chicken taken out of a basket atchurch picnics and eaten out of one's hand, or lap, for choice."What was de text to-day, Miss Sophy? Ah sort o' likes to chaw easyon a mout'ful o' text whilst Ah 'm washin' up mah dishes."
We gave her the text, which happened to be one that fills everynegro's heart with undiluted joy: "O ye dry bones, hear the word ofthe Lord." And we had the satisfaction of hearing her rolling out,to the clatter of pans and pots:
"Dry bones in de valley, Ma-a-ah, La-a-awd! Whut yuh gwine do wid dem dry bones, Ma-ah-ah La-a-a-w-wd"
while we went up-stairs to change our frocks. We were still sharingone room then, finding it more convenient. And there, in front ofour door, in a nest of ferns and mosses, was a great cluster of wildflowers, summer's last and autumn's first children. They had beengathered in no ordered garden, but taken from the skirts of thefields and the bosom of the woods; and Carolina the opulent, thebeautiful, the free-handed, does not deck herself niggardly.
Alicia's face that had been so wistful lighted with a sudden joy.She gave a happy cry:
"Ariel!" she cried, "Ariel! Oh, what a heavenly thing, what a_human_ thing to do! And to-day, too, just when we need a little bitof friendliness!" She looked around with a queer, shy smile.
"Ariel!" she called, "Ariel, no matter who comes, or goes, or whathappens in Hynds House, _we_ believe in you. Don't leave us, Ariel!Maker of music, bringer of blossoms, stay!"