University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
SAM AND ADAH.

With heavy eyes and aching head Adah worked day
after day upon the dress, which 'Lina had coaxed her to
make, saying both to her and Aunt Eunice that, as she
wished to surprise Hugh with a sight of herself in full array,
they were not to tell him that the dress was new, but
suffer him to think it the old pink silk which she was fixing.

“I hardly suppose he'd know the difference,” she said,
“but if you can arrange it not to work when he is here, I
wish you would.”

'Lina could be very gracious when she chose, and as
she saw a way by which Adah might be useful to her, she
chose to be so now, and treated the unsuspecting girl so
kindly, that Adah promised to undertake the task, which
proved a harder one than she had anticipated. Anxious
to gratify 'Lina, and keep what she was doing a secret
from Hugh, who came to the cottage often, she was obliged
to work early and late, bending over the dress by the
dim candle light, until her head seemed bursting with
pain, and rings of fire danced before her eyes. She never
would have succeeded but for Uncle Sam, who proved a
most efficient member of the household, fitting in every
niche and corner, until Aunt Eunice wondered how she
had ever lived without him. Particularly did he attach
himself to Willie, relieving Adah from all care, and thus
enabling her to devote every spare moment to the party
dress.

“You's workin' yourself to death,” he said to her, as
late on Saturday night she sat bending to the tallow candle,

her hair brushed back from her forehead and a purplish
glow upon her cheek.

“I know I'm working too hard,” Adah replied, and leaning
back in her chair she closed her eyes wearily, while
Sam, gazing admiringly at her continued “You 'minds
me some of de young lady in Virginny. Has I ever tole
you 'bout her?”

“No, who was she?” Adah said, and Sam replied,

“She's what teached me the way to God. She took
my dried-up-hand in dem little soft ones of hern, white as
cotton bats, and lead me up to de narrow gap. She push
me in and say, `Go on now, Sam. You've got in de
right track, that leads to glory hallelujah.' Didn't word it
just dem words, be sure, but that's the heft of the meaning.
I tell you Sam was mighty nigh as shipwrecked as
dat Pollo somebody what Miss Ellis read about in the
good book.

“Miss who?” Adah asked, and Sam replied,

“Miss Ellis. I done forget de other name. Ellis they
call her way down thar whar Sam was sold, when dat
man with the big splot on his forerd steal me away and
sell me in Virginny. Miss ever hearn tell o' dat?”

“Big what?” Adah asked, and Sam replied, “Big
scar or mark kinder purple, on his forrid, right clus to the
har.”

Adah shuddered, for the one she knew as her guardian
was marked in that way, and she asked Sam to tell her
more of the man with the splot.

Delighted to tell the story which he never tired of telling,
Sam, in his own peculiar dialect, related how four
years before, a man calling himself Sullivan had appeared
in the neighborhood of his former master's plantation,
ingratiating himself into the good graces of the negroes,
and secretly offering to conduct any to the land of freedom
who would put themselves under his protection.

“I had an idee,” Sam said, “that freedom was sweet as

bumble bees' honey and I hankered to get a taste, so me
and two more fools steal away from the old cabin one
rainy night, and go with Mas'r Sullivan, who strut round
mighty big, with his three niggers, tellin' us not to say
one word ef we not want to be cotched. We thinks he's
takin' a bee line for Canada, when fust we knows we's in
ole Virginny, and de villain not freein' us at all. He sells
us. Me he most give away, 'case I was old, and the
mas'r who buy some like Mas'r Hugh, he sorry for ole
shaky nigger. Sam tell him on his knees how he comed
from Kaintuck, but Mas'r Sullivan say he bought 'em far,
and that the right mas'r sell 'em sneakin like to save raisin
a furse, and he show a bill of sale. They believe him
spite of dis chile, and so Sam 'long to anodder mas'r.”

“Mas'r Fitzhugh live on big plantation—and one day she
comed, with great trunk, a visitin'. She'd been to school
with Miss Mabel, Mas'r Fitzhugh's daughter.

“They all think heap of Miss Ellis, and I hear de blacks
tellin' how she berry rich, and comed from way off thar
whar white niggers live — Masser-something.”

“Massachusetts,” suggested Adah.

“Yes; that's the very mas'r. I'se got mizzable memory,
and I disremembers her last name. The folks call her
Ellis, and the blacks Miss Ellis.”

“A queer name for a first one,” Adah thought, while
Sam continued,

“She jest like bright angel, in her white gownds and
dem long curls, and Sam like her so much. She talk to
Sam, too, and her voice so sweet, just like falling water
when the moon is shining on it. Sam very sick, want to
go home so much, and lie all day in his little cabin, when
she come in, holdin' up her skirts so dainty like, and set
right down with me. Ki, wasn't her little hand soft
though when she put it on my head and said, `Poor Sam,
Ellis is sorry.' Sam cry berry much then; cry so loud
Miss Mabel hear, and come in, tellin' Miss Ellis, `Pooh

he's only homesick; says he was stole from Kentucky,
but papa don't believe him. Do come out of this hole,
but Miss Ellis not go. She say, `Then he needs comforting,'
and she do that very thing. She talk so good, she
ax Sam all 'bout it, and Sam feel she b'lieve him. She
promise to write to Mas'r Brown and tell him whar I is.
I didn't cry loud then — heart too full. I cry whimperin'
like, and she cry too. Then she tell me about God, and
Sam listen, oh, listen so much, for that's what he want to
hear so long. Miss Nancy, in Kentuck, be one of them
that reads her pra'rs o' Sundays, and ole mas'r one that
hollers 'em. Sam liked that way best, seemed like gettin'
along and make de Lord hear, but it don't show Sam the
way, and when the ministers come in, he listen, but them that
reads and them that hollers only talk about High and
Low — Jack and the Game, or something, Sam misremembers
so bad; got mizzable memory. He only knows he
not find the way, till Miss Ellis tell him of Jesus, once a
man and always God. It's very queer, but Sam believe
it and then she sing, `Come unto me.'

“Oh, so fine, the very rafters hold their breff, and Sam
find the way. Sam feel the hand she say was stretched
out for him. He grasp it tight. He never let it go,
never cease thankin' God that `Come unto me' mean just
such an ole nigger as Sam, or that Miss Ellis was sent to
him. She teach me `Our Father,' and I say it every day,
and I 'members her, too, and now I puts her and Mas'r
Hugh in de same words. Seems ef they make good span,
only Mas'r Hugh not so fixed up as she, but he's good.”

“Where is Miss Ellis now?” Adah asked, and Sam
replied,

“Gone home. Gone to Masser — what you say once
— but not till letter come to her from Mas'r Brown,
sayin' Sam was stealed, and 'fore long Mas'r Brown come
on hisself after me and the others. Miss Ellis so glad,
and Mas'r Fitzhugh, too. Sam not much 'count, he say,

and let me go easy, that's the way I come home. Miss
Ellis gived me five dollars and then ask what else. I
look at her and say, `Sam wants a spear or two of yer
shinin' har,' and Miss Mabel takes shears and cut a little
curl. I'se got 'em now. I never spend the money,' and
from an old leathern wallet Sam drew a bill and a soft
silken curl which he laid across Adah's hand.

“And where is Sullivan?” asked Adah, a chill creeping
over her as she remembered how about four years ago
the man she called her guardian was absent for some
time, and came back to her with colored hair and whiskers.

“Oh, he gone long before, nobody know whar. Sam
b'lieves, though, he hear they cotch him, but misremembers,
got such mizzable memory.”

“You said he had a mark?” Adah continued. And
Sam replied, “Yes, queer mark, — must of been thar
when he was borned, showd better when he's cussin mad.
You ever seen him?”

“I do not know,” and Adah half groaned aloud at the sad
memories which Sam's story had awakened within her.

She could scarcely doubt that Sullivan the negro-stealer,
and Redfield, her guardian, were the same, but where
was he now, and why had he treated her so treacherously,
when he had always seemed so kind? Why did
everybody desert her? What had she done to deserve
so sad a fate? All the old bitter anguish was welling up
again, and desirous of being alone, she bade Sam leave
her, as it was growing late.

“Miss Adah prays,” the old man answered, “Won't
she say Our Father with Sam?”

Adah could not refuse, and falling on her knees she
joined her voice with that of Sam's in that most beautiful
of all prayers — the one our Saviour taught. Sam
did not know it correctly, but God heard him all the
same; heard too, the strangely-worded petition that “He

would bless Mas'r Hugh, Miss Ellis, and Miss Adah, and
fotch 'em all right some time.

Surely Hugh's sleep was sweeter that night for the
prayer breathed by the lowly negro, and even the wild
tumult in Adah's heart was hushed by Sam's simple,
childlike faith that God would bring all right at last.

Early on Monday afternoon 'Lina, taking advantage
of Hugh's absence, came over for her dress, finding much
fault, and requiring some of the work to be done
twice ere it suited her. Without a murmur Adah obeyed,
but when the last stitch was taken and the party dress
was gone, her overtaxed frame gave way, and Sam himself
helped her to her bed, where she lay moaning, with
the blinding pain in her head, which increased so fast
that she scarcely saw the tempting little supper which
Aunt Eunice brought, asking her to eat. Of one thing,
however, she was conscious, and that of the dark form
bending over her pillow and whispering soothingly the
passage which had once brought Heaven to him, “Come
unto me, and I will give you rest.”

Dear old Sam! there was a world of kindness in his
breast, and if he could he would gladly have taken
Adah's suffering upon himself.

The night had closed in dark and stormy, and the wintry
rain beat against the windows; but for this he did
not hesitate a moment when at midnight Aunt Eunice,
alarmed at Adah's rapidly increasing fever, asked if he
could find his way to Spring Bank, and in a few moments
the old, shriveled form was out in the darkness, groping
its way over the fences, and through the pitfalls, stumbling
often, and losing his hat past recovery, so that the snowy
hair was dripping wet when Spring Bank was reached and
he stood upon the porch.

In much alarm Hugh dressed himself and hastened to
the cottage. But Adah did not know him and only talked
of dresses and parties, and George, whom she begged to

come back and restore her good name. The dresses and
the party were enigmas to Hugh, and as Aunt Eunice kept
silent for fear of his wrath, he gathered nothing from Sam's
muttered jumble about, “working herself blind for Miss
'Lina over dar.” He knew she must have medical advice,
and giving a few directions to Aunt Eunice he went himself
for the family physician and then returned to Spring
Bank in quest of his mother, who, he was sure, would not
hesitate to brave the storm for Adah's sake.