University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
THE PREPARATION.

The excitement produced by the arrival of Tiff, and the
fitting out of Milly to the cottage, had produced a most
favorable diversion in Nina's mind from her own especial
perplexities.

Active and buoyant, she threw herself at once into whatever
happened to come uppermost on the tide of events.
So, having seen the wagon despatched, she sat down to
breakfast in high spirits.

“Aunt Nesbit, I declare I was so interested in that old
man! I intend to have the pony, after breakfast, and ride
over there.”

“I thought you were expecting company.”

“Well, that 's one reason, now, why I 'd like to be off.
Do I want to sit all primmed up, smiling and smirking, and
running to the window to see if my gracious lord is coming?
No, I won't do that, to please any of them. If I
happen to fancy to be out riding, I will be out riding.”

“I think,” said Aunt Nesbit, “that the hovels of these
miserable creatures are no proper place for a young lady
of your position in life.”

“My position in life! I don't see what that has to do
with it. My position in life enables me to do anything I
please — a liberty which I take pretty generally. And, then,
really, I could n't help feeling rather sadly about it, because
that Old Tiff, there (I believe that 's his name), told me that
the woman had been of a good Virginia family. Very likely
she may have been just such another wild girl as I am, and

thought as little about bad times, and of dying, as I do.
So I could n't help feeling sad for her. It really came over
me when I was walking in the garden. Such a beautiful
morning as it was — the birds all singing, and the dew
all glittering and shining on the flowers! Why, aunt, the
flowers really seemed alive; it seemed as though I could
hear them breathing, and hear their hearts beating like
mine. And, all of a sudden, I heard the most wild, mournful
singing, over in the woods. It was n't anything very
beautiful, you know, but it was so wild, and strange! `She
is dead and gone to heaven! — she is dead and gone to
heaven!' And pretty soon I saw the funniest old wagon
— I don't know what to call it — and this queer old black
man in it, with an old white hat and surtout on, and a pair of
great, funny-looking spectacles on his nose. I went to the
fence to see who he was; and he came up and spoke to me,
made the most respectful bow — you ought to have seen it!
And then, poor fellow, he told me how his mistress was
lying dead, with the children around her, and nobody in the
house! The poor old creature, he actually cried, and I felt
so for him! He seemed to be proud of his dead mistress,
in spite of her poverty.”

“Where do they live?” said Mrs. Nesbit.

“Why, he told me over in the pine woods, near the
swamp.”

“O,” said Mrs. Nesbit, “I dare say it 's that Cripps family,
that 's squatted in the pine woods. A most miserable
set — all of them liars and thieves! If I had known who it
was, I 'm sure I should n't have let Milly go over. Such
families ought n't to be encouraged; there ought n't a thing
to be done for them; we should n't encourage them to stay
in the neighborhood. They always will steal from off the
plantations, and corrupt the negroes, and get drunk, and
everything else that 's bad. There 's never a woman of
decent character among them, that ever I heard of; and, if
you were my daughter, I should n't let you go near them.”

“Well, I 'm not your daughter, thank fortune!” said Nina,

whose graces always rapidly declined in controversies with
her aunt, “and so I shall do as I please. And I don't know
what you pious people talk so for; for Christ went with
publicans and sinners, I 'm sure.”

“Well,” said Aunt Nesbit, “the Bible says we must n't
cast pearls before swine; and, when you 've lived to be as
old as I am, you 'll know more than you do now. Everybody
knows that you can't do anything with these people.
You can't give them Bibles, nor tracts; for they can't read.
I 've tried it, sometimes, visiting them, and talking to them;
but it did n't do them any good. I always thought there
ought to be a law passed to make 'em all slaves, and then
there would be somebody to take care of them.”

“Well, I can't see,” said Nina, “how it 's their fault.
There is n't any school where they could send their children,
if they wanted to learn; and, then, if they want to
work, there 's nobody who wants to hire them. So, what
can they do?”

“I 'm sure I don't know,” said Aunt Nesbit, in that tone
which generally means I don't care. “All I know is, that
I want them to get away from the neighborhood. Giving
to them is just like putting into a bag with holes. I 'm sure
I put myself to a great inconvenience on their account to-day;
for, if there 's anything I do hate, it is having things
irregular. And to-day is the day for clear-starching the
caps — and such a good, bright, sunny day! — and to-morrow,
or any other day of the week, it may rain. Always puts
me all out to have things that I 've laid out to do put out
of their regular order. I 'd been willing enough to have
sent over some old things; but why they must needs take
Milly's time, just as if the funeral could n't have got ready
without her! These funerals are always miserable drunken
times with them! And, then, who knows, she may catch
the small-pox, or something or other. There 's never any
knowing what these people die of.”

“They die of just such things as we do,” said Nina.
“They have that in common with us, at any rate.”

“Yes; but there 's no reason for risking our lives, as I
know of — especially for such people — when it don't do
any good.”

“Why, aunt, what do you know against these folks?
Have you ever known of their doing anything wicked?”

“O, I don't know that I know anything against this
family in particular; but I know the whole race. These
squatters — I 've known them ever since I was a girl in
Virginia. Everybody that knows anything knows exactly
what they are. There is n't any help for them, unless, as I
said before, they were made slaves; and then they could be
kept decent. You may go to see them, if you like, but I
don't want my arrangements to be interfered with on their
account.”

Mrs. Nesbit was one of those quietly-persisting people,
whose yielding is like the stretching of an India-rubber
band, giving way only to a violent pull, and going back to
the same place when the force is withdrawn. She seldom
refused favors that were urged with any degree of importunity;
not because her heart was touched, but simply
because she seemed not to have force enough to refuse;
and whatever she granted was always followed by a series
of subdued lamentations over the necessity which had
wrung them from her.

Nina's nature was so vehement and imperious, when
excited, that it was a disagreeable fatigue to cross her.
Mrs. Nesbit, therefore, made amends by bemoaning herself
as we have seen. Nina started up, hastily, on seeing
her pony brought round to the door; and, soon arrayed in
her riding-dress, she was cantering through the pine woods
in high spirits. The day was clear and beautiful. The floor
of the woodland path was paved with a thick and cleanly
carpet of the fallen pine-leaves. And Harry was in attendance
with her, mounted on another horse, and riding but a
very little behind; not so much so but what his mistress
could, if she would, keep up a conversation with him.

“You know this Old Tiff, Harry?”

“O, yes, very well. A very good, excellent creature, and
very much the superior of his master, in most respects.”

“Well, he says his mistress came of a good family.”

“I should n't wonder,” said Harry. “She always had a
delicate appearance, very different from people in their circumstances
generally. The children, too, are remarkably
pretty, well-behaved children; and it 's a pity they could n't
be taught something, and not grow up and go on these miserable
ways of these poor whites!”

“Why don't anybody ever teach them?” said Nina.

“Well, Miss Nina, you know how it is: everybody has
his own work and business to attend to — there are no
schools for them to go to — there 's no work for them to do.
In fact, there don't seem to be any place for them in society.
Boys generally grow up to drink and swear. And, as for
girls, they are of not much account. So it goes on from
generation to generation.”

“This is so strange, and so different from what it is in the
northern states! Why, all the children go to school there
— the very poorest people's children! Why, a great many
of the first men, there, were poor children! Why can't
there be some such thing here?”

“O, because people are settled in such a scattering way,
they can't have schools. All the land that 's good for anything
is taken up for large estates. And, then, these poor
folks that are scattered up and down in between, it 's nobody's
business to attend to them, and they can't attend to
themselves; and so they grow up, and nobody knows how
they live, and everybody seems to think it a pity they are
in the world. I 've seen those sometimes that would be glad
to do something, if they could find anything to do. Planters
don't want them on their places — they 'd rather have their
own servants. If one of them wants to be a blacksmith, or
a carpenter, there 's no encouragement. Most of the large
estates have their own carpenters and blacksmiths. And
there 's nothing for them to do, unless it is keeping dogs
to hunt negroes; or these little low stores where they sell

whiskey, and take what 's stolen from the plantations.
Sometimes a smart one gets a place as overseer on a plantation.
Why, I 've heard of their coming so low as actually
to sell their children to traders, to get a bit of bread.”

“What miserable creatures! But do you suppose it can
be possible that a woman of any respectable family can have
married a man of this sort?”

“Well, I don't know, Miss Nina; that might be. You
see, good families sometimes degenerate; and when they get
too poor to send their children off to school, or keep any
teachers for them, they run down very fast. This man is
not bad-looking, and he really is a person who, if he had had
any way opened to him, might have been a smart man, and
made something of himself and family; and when he was
young and better-looking, I should n't wonder if an uneducated
girl, who had never been off a plantation, might have
liked him; he was fully equal, I dare say, to her brothers.
You see, Miss Nina, when money goes, in this part of the
country, everything goes with it; and when a family is not
rich enough to have everything in itself, it goes down very
soon.”

“At any rate, I pity the poor things,” said Nina. “I
don't despise them, as Aunt Nesbit does.”

Here Nina, observing the path clear and uninterrupted
for some distance under the arching pines, struck her horse
into a canter, and they rode on for some distance without
speaking. Soon the horse's feet splashed and pattered on
the cool, pebbly bottom of a small, shallow stream, which
flowed through the woods. This stream went meandering
among the pines like a spangled ribbon, sometimes tying
itself into loops, leaving open spots — almost islands of
green — graced by its waters. Such a little spot now
opened to the view of the two travellers. It was something
less than a quarter of an acre in extent, entirely surrounded
by the stream, save only a small neck of about four feet,
which connected it to the main land.

Here a place had been cleared and laid off into a garden,

which, it was evident, was carefully tended. The log-cabin
which stood in the middle was far from having the appearance
of wretchedness which Nina had expected. It was
almost entirely a dense mass of foliage, being covered with
the intermingled drapery of the Virginia creeper and the
yellow jessamine. Two little borders, each side of the house,
were blooming with flowers. Around the little island the
pine-trees closed in unbroken semi-circle, and the brook
meandered away through them, to lose itself eventually in
that vast forest of swampy land which girdles the whole
Carolina shore. The whole air of the place was so unexpectedly
inviting, in its sylvan stillness and beauty, that
Nina could not help checking her horse, and exclaiming,

“I 'm sure, it 's a pretty place. They can't be such very
forsaken people, after all.”

“O, that 's all Tiff's work,” said Harry. “He takes
care of everything outside and in, while the man is off after
nobody knows what. You 'd be perfectly astonished to see
how that old creature manages. He sews, and he knits,
and works the garden, does the house-work, and teaches the
children. It 's a fact! You 'll notice that they have n't the
pronunciation or the manners of these wild white children;
and I take it to be all Tiff's watchfulness, for that creature
has n't one particle of selfishness in him. He just identifies
himself with his mistress and her children.”

By this time Tiff had perceived their approach, and came
out to assist them in dismounting.

“De Lord above bless you, Miss Gordon, for coming to
see my poor missis! Ah! she is lying dere just as beautiful,
just as she was the very day she was married! All her
young looks come back to her; and Milly, she done laid
her out beautiful! Lord, I 's wanting somebody to come
and look at her, because she has got good blood, if she be
poor. She is none of your common sort of poor whites,
Miss Nina. Just come in; come in, and look at her.”

Nina stepped into the open door of the hut. The bed
was covered with a clean white sheet, and the body, arrayed

in a long white night-dress brought by Milly, lay there so
very still, quiet, and life-like, that one could scarcely realize
the presence of death. The expression of exhaustion,
fatigue, and anxiety, which the face had latterly worn, had
given place to one of tender rest, shaded by a sort of mysterious
awe, as if the closed eyes were looking on unutterable
things. The soul, though sunk below the horizon of
existence, had thrown back a twilight upon the face radiant
as that of the evening heavens.

By the head of the bed the little girl was sitting, dressed
carefully, and her curling hair parted in front, apparently
fresh from the brush; and the little boy was sitting beside
her, his round blue eyes bearing an expression of subdued
wonder.

Cripps was sitting at the foot of the bed, evidently much
the worse for liquor; for, spite of the exhortation of Tiff, he
had applied to the whiskey-jug immediately on his departure.
Why not? He was uncomfortable — gloomy; and
every one, under such circumstances, naturally inclines
towards some source of consolation. He who is intellectual
reads and studies; he who is industrious flies to business; he
who is affectionate seeks friends; he who is pious, religion;
but he who is none of these — what has he but his whiskey?
Cripps made a stupid, staring inclination toward Nina and
Harry, as they entered, and sat still, twirling his thumbs and
muttering to himself.

The sunshine fell through the panes on the floor, and there
came floating in from without the odor of flowers and the
song of birds. All the Father's gentle messengers spoke
of comfort; but he as a deaf man heard not — as a blind
man did not regard. For the rest, an air of neatness had
been imparted to the extreme poverty of the room, by the
joint efforts of Milly and Tiff.

Tiff entered softly, and stood by Nina, as she gazed. He
had in his hand several sprays of white jessamine, and he
laid one on the bosom of the dead.

“She had a hard walk of it,” he said, “but she 's got
home! Don't she look peaceful? — poor lamb!”

The little, thoughtless, gay coquette had never looked on
a sight like this before. She stood with a fixed, tender
thoughtfulness, unlike her usual gayety, her riding-hat hanging
carelessly by its strings from her hands, her loose hair
drooping over her face.

She heard some one entering the cottage, but she did not
look up. She was conscious of some one looking over her
shoulder, and thought it was Harry.

“Poor thing! how young she looks,” she said, “to have
had so much trouble!” Her voice trembled, and a tear stood
in her eye. There was a sudden movement; she looked up,
and Clayton was standing by her.

She looked surprised, and the color deepened in her
cheek, but was too ingenuously and really in sympathy with
the scene before her even to smile. She retained his hand
a moment, and turned to the dead, saying, in an under-tone,
“See here!”

“I see,” he said. “Can I be of service?”

“The poor thing died last night,” said Nina. “I suppose
some one might help about a funeral. Harry,” she
said, walking softly towards the door, and speaking low,
“you provide a coffin; have it made neatly.”

“Uncle,” she said, motioning Tiff towards her, “where
would they have her buried?”

“Buried?” said Tiff. “O, Lord! buried!” And he covered
his face with his hard hands, and the tears ran through
his fingers.

“Lord, Lord! Well, it must come, I know, but 'pears
like I could n't! Laws, she 's so beautiful! Don't, to-day!
don't!”

“Indeed, Uncle,” said Nina, tenderly, “I'm sorry I
grieved you; but you know, poor fellow, that must come.”

“I 's known her ever since she 's dat high!” said Tiff.
“Her har was curly, and she used to war such pretty red
shoes, and come running after me in de garden. `Tiff, Tiff,'

she used to say — and dar she is now, and stroubles brought
her dar! Lord, what a pretty gal she was! pretty as you
be, Miss Nina. But since she married dat ar,” pointing
with his thumb over his shoulder, and speaking confidentially,
“everything went wrong. I 's held her up — did all
I could; and now here she is!”

“Perhaps,” said Nina, laying her hand on his, “perhaps
she 's in a better place than this.”

“O, Lord, dat she is! She told me dat when she died.
She saw de Lord at last, — she did so! Dem 's her last
words. `Tiff,' she says, `I see Him, and He will give me
rest. Tiff,' she says, — I 'd been asleep, you know, and I
kinder felt something cold on my hand, and I woke up right
sudden, and dar she was, her eyes so bright, looking at me
and breathing so hard; and all she says was, `Tiff, I 've
seen Him, and I know now why I 've suffered so; He 's
gwine to take me, and give me rest!'”

“Then, my poor fellow, you ought to rejoice that she is
safe.”

“'Deed I does,” said Tiff; “yet I 's selfish. I wants to
be dere too, I does — only I has de chil'en to care for.”

“Well, my good fellow,” said Nina, “we must leave you
now. Harry will see about a coffin for your poor mistress;
and whenever the funeral is to be, our carriage will come
over, and we will all attend.”

“Lord bless you, Miss Gordon! Dat ar too good on ye!
My heart 's been most broke, tinking nobody cared for my
poor young mistress! you 's too good, dat you is!”

Then, drawing near to her, and sinking his voice, he said:
“`Bout de mourning, Miss Nina. He an't no 'count, you
know — body can see how 't is with him very plain. But
missis was a Peyton, you know; and I 's a Peyton, too. I
naturally feels a 'sponsibility he could n't be 'spected fur to.
I 's took de ribbons off of Miss Fanny's bonnet, and done
de best I could trimming it up with black crape what Milly
gave me; and I 's got a band of black crape on Master
Teddy's hat; and I 'lowed to put one on mine, but there

was n't quite enough. You know, missis, old family servants
always wars mourning. If missis just be pleased to
look over my work! Now, dis yer is Miss Fanny's bonnet.
You know I can't be spected for to make it like a milliner.”

“They are very well indeed, Uncle Tiff.”

“Perhaps, Miss Nina, you can kind of touch it over.”

“O, if you like, Uncle Tiff, I 'll take them all home, and
do them for you.”

“The Lord bless you, Miss Gordon! Dat ar was just
what I wanted, but was most 'fraid to ask you. Some gay
young ladies does n't like to handle black.”

“Ah! Uncle Tiff, I 've no fears of that sort; so put it in
the wagon, and let Milly take it home.”

So saying, she turned and passed out of the door where
Harry was standing, holding the horses. A third party
might have seen, by the keen, rapid glance with which his
eye rested upon Clayton, that he was measuring the future
probability which might make him the arbiter of his own
destiny — the disposer of all that was dear to him in life.
As for Nina, although the day before a thousand fancies and
coquetries would have colored the manner of her meeting
Clayton, yet now she was so impressed by what she had witnessed,
that she scarcely appeared to know that she had
met him. She placed her pretty foot on his hand, and let
him lift her on to the saddle, scarcely noticing the act, except
by a serious, graceful inclination of her head.

One great reason of the ascendency which Clayton had
thus far gained over her, was that his nature, so quiet,
speculative, and undemonstrative, always left her such perfect
liberty to follow the more varying moods of her own.
A man of a different mould would have sought to awake
her out of the trance — would have remarked on her abstracted
manner, or rallied her on her silence. Clayton
merely mounted his horse and rode quietly by her side,
while Harry, passing on before them, was soon out of sight.