 Chapter 7 of Dread, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, by Harriet Beecher Stowe This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dread, Chapter 7, Consultation Oh, Harry, I'm so glad to see you back in such trouble as I've been today. Don't you think this very morning as I was sitting in Aunt Nesbitt's room, Tom Titt brought up these two letters? The one of them is from Clayton and the other from Mr. Carson. And now, see here what Clayton says, I shall have business that will take me in your vicinity next week and it is quite possible, unless I hear from you to the contrary, that you may see me at Canada my next Friday or Saturday. Well then, see here, there's another letter from Mr. Carson, that hateful Carson. Now you see, he hasn't got my letter, says he is coming. What impudence! I'm tired to death of that creature and he'll be here just as certain. Disagreeable people always do keep their promises, he'll certainly be here. Well, Miss Niner, you recollect you said you thought it would be good fun. Oh, Harry, don't bring that up, I beg of you. The fact is, Harry, I've altered my mind about that. You know, I've put a stop to all those foolish things at once and I'm done with them. You know, I wrote to Carson and Emmons both that my sentiments had changed and all that sort of thing that the girls always say. I'm going to dismiss all of them at once and have no more fooling. What? All? Mr. Clayton and all? Well, I don't know exactly. No. Do you know, Harry, I think his letters are rather improving. At least they are different letters from any I've got before. And though I don't think I shall break my heart after him, yet I like to get them. But the other two I'm sick to death of and as for having that creature boring around here, I won't. At any rate, I don't want him and Clayton here together. I wouldn't have them together for the world and I wrote a letter to keep Carson off this morning and I've been in trouble all day. Everybody has plagued me and Nesbitt only gave me one of her mopey lectures about flirting and wouldn't help me in the least. And then, old hundred, I wanted him to get out the carriage and horses for me to go over and put this letter in the office and I never saw such a creature in my life. I can't make him do anything. I should like to know what the use is of having servants if you can't get anything done. Oh, as to old hundred, I understand him and he understands me, said Harry. I never find any trouble with him. But he is a provoking old creature. He stands very much on the dignity of his office. But if you want your letter carried tonight, I can contrive a safer way than that if you'll trust it to me. Ah, well, do take it. Yes, said Harry. I'll send a messenger across on horseback and I have means to make him faithful. Well, Harry, said Nina, catching at his sleeve as he was going out, come back again, won't you? I want to talk to you. During Harry's absence, our heroine drew a letter from her bosom and read it over. Oh, well, he writes, she said to herself, so different from the rest of them. I wish she'd keep away from here. That's what I do. It's a pretty thing to get his letters, but I don't think I want to see him. Oh, dear, I wish I had somebody to talk to about it. Aunt Nesbitt is so cross. I can't. No, I won't care about him. Harry is a kind soul. Ah, Harry, have you sent the letter? Said she eagerly as he entered. I have, Miss Nina, but I can't flatter you too much. I'm afraid it's too late for the male, though there's never any saying when the male goes out within two or three hours. Well, I hope it will stay for me once. If that stupid creature comes, why, I don't know what I shall do. He's so presuming, and he'll squeak about with those horrid shoes of his, and then I suppose it'll all come out one way or another. And I don't know what Clayton will think. But I thought you didn't care what he thought. Well, you know, he's been writing to me all about his family. There's his father, a very distinguished man of a very old family. And he's been writing to me about his sister, the most dreadfully sensible sister he has got, good, lovely, accomplished, and pious. Oh, dear me, I don't know what in the world he ever thought of me for. And do you think there's a post script from his sister written elegantly as can be? As to family, Miss Nina, said Harry. I think the Gordon's can hold up their heads with anybody, and then I rather think you'll like Miss Clayton. Ah, but then Harry is talking about fathers and sisters. It's bringing the thing awfully nearer. It looks so much, you know, as if I really were caught. Do you know Harry? I think I'm just like my pony. You know, she likes to have you come and offer her corn and stroke her neck, and she likes to make you believe she's going to let you catch her. But when it comes to putting a bridal on her, she's off in a minute. Now, that's the way with me. It's rather exciting. You know, these bow and love letters and talking sentiment, going to the opera and taking rides on horseback and all that. But when men get to talking about their fathers and their sisters and to act as if they were sure of me, I'm just like Sylphine. I want to be off. You know, Harry, I think it's a very serious thing that's being married. It's dreadful. I don't want to be a woman grown. I wish I could always be a girl and live just as I have lived and have plenty more girls come and see me and have fun. I haven't been a bit happy lately, not a bit, and I never was unhappy before in my life. Well, why don't you write Mr. Clayton and break it all off if you feel so about it? Well, why don't I? I don't know. I've had a great mind to do it, but I'm afraid I should feel worse than I do now. He's coming just like a great dark shadow over my life, and everything is beginning to feel so real to me. I don't want to take up life in earnest. I read a story once about Undean, and do you know, Harry? I think I feel just as Undean did when she felt her soul coming in her. And is Clayton night held abound, said Harry, smiling? I don't know. What if he should be? Now, Harry, you see the fact is that sensible men get their heads turned by such kind of girls as I am, and they pet us and humor us, but then I'm afraid they're thinking all the while that their turn to rule is coming by and by. They marry us because they think they're going to make us over, and what I'm afraid of is I never can be made over. Don't think I was cut out right in the first place, and there never will be much more of me than there is now. And he'll be comparing me with his patterned sister, and I shan't be any more amiable for that. Now, his sister is what folks called highly educated, you know, Harry. She understands all about literature and everything. As for me, I've just cultivation enough to appreciate a fine horse. That's the extent. And yet, I'm proud. I wouldn't wish to stand second in his opinion, even to his sister. So, there it is. That's the way with us girls. We're always wanting what we know we ought not to have, and are not willing to take the trouble to get. Yes, Nana, if you'll let me speak my mind out frankly. Now, I want to offer one piece of advice. Just be perfectly true and open with Mr. Clayton, and if he and Mr. Carson should come together, just tell him frankly how the matter stands. You are a Gordon, and they say truth always runs in the Gordon blood. And now, Miss Nana, you are no longer a schoolgirl, but a young lady at the head of an estate. He stopped and hesitated. Well, Harry, you needn't stop. I understand you. Got a few grains of scents left, I hope, and haven't got so many friends that I can afford to get angry with you for nothing. I suppose, said Harry thoughtfully, that your aunt will be well enough to be down to the table. Have you told her how matters stand? Who, Aunt Lou? Catch me telling her anything. No, Harry, I've got to stand all alone. I haven't any mother, and I haven't any sister. And Aunt Lou is worse than nobody, because it's provoking to have somebody around that you feel might take an interest and ought to, and don't care a red cent for you. Well, I declare, if I'm not much, if I'm not such a model as Miss Clayton there, how could anyone expect it, when I have just come up by myself? First at the plantation here, and then at that French boarding school. I'll tell you what, Harry, boarding schools are not what they're cried up to be. It's good fun, no doubt, but we never learned anything there. That is to say, we never learned it internally, but had it just rubbed onto us outside. A girl can't help, of course, learning something, and I've learned just what I happened to like and couldn't help, and a deal of that isn't of the most edifying nature besides. Well, we shall see what will come. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by William Jones. DREAD CHAPTER VIII. OLD TIFF I say, Tiff, do you think he will come tonight? Laws, laws, Misses, how can Tiff tell? I has been a-gazing out the door. Don't see, no hear, nothing. It's so lonesome, so lonesome, and the nights so long. And the speaker, an emaciated feeble little woman, turned herself uneasily on the ragged pallet, for she was lying, and twirling her slender fingers nervously, gazed up at the rough, unplastered beams above. The room was of the coarsest and rudest cast. The hut was framed of rough pine logs filled between the crevices with mud and straw. The floor, made of rough split planks, unevenly joined together. The window was formed by some single panes arranged in a row where a gap had been made in one of the logs. At one end was a rude chimney of sticks, where smoldered a fire of pinecombs and brushwood covered over with a light coat of white ashes. On the mantle over it was a shelf, which displayed sundry vials, a cracked teapot and tumbler, some medicinal-looking packages, a turkey's wing, much abridged and effaced by frequent usage, some bundles of herbs, and lastly a gaily painted mug of coarse crockery wear containing a bunch of wildflowers. On pegs, driven into the logs, were arranged different articles of female attire and divers' little coats and dresses, which belonged to smaller wearers with now and then soiled and coarse articles of man's apparel. The woman, who lay upon a coarse chaff pallet in the corner, was one who might have been pretty. Her skin was fair, her hair soft and curly, her eyes a beautiful blue, her hands thin and transparent as pearl. But the deep dark circles under the eyes, the thin white lips, the attenuated limbs, the hurried breathing and the burning spots in the cheek told that whatever she might have been, she was now not long for this world. Beside her bed was sitting an old negro in whose close curling wool age had begun to sprinkle flecks of white. His counternuts presented physically one of the most uncommonly specimens of negro features and would have been positively frightful had it not been redeemed by an expression of cheerful kindness which beamed from it. His face was of ebony blackness with a wide upturned nose, with a mouth of portentous size guarded by clumsy lips, revealing teeth which a shark might have envied. The only fine feature was his dark black eyes, which at the present were concealed by a huge pair of plated spectacles, placed very low upon his nose and through which he was directing his sight upon the child's stocking that he was busily darning. At his foot was a rude cradle made of a gum-tree log hollowed out to a trough and wadded by various old fragments of flannel in which slept a very young infant. Another child, of about three years of age, was sitting on the negro's knee, busily playing with some pine cones and mosses. The figure of the old negro was low and stooping and he wore, pinned around his shoulders, a half-hankerchief, or shawl, of red flannel arranged much as an old woman would have arranged it. One or two needles with coarse black thread dangling to them were stuck in on his shoulder, and as he busily darned on the little stocking he kept up a kind of droning intermixture of chanting and talking to the child on his knee. So ho, Teddy! Bub-dar, my man, sit still! Cause your mom was sick and Sish has gone for medicine! There, Tiffle sing to his little man, Christ was born in Bethlehem, Christ was born in Bethlehem, and in a manger laid. Take care, there, that her needle scratch your little fingers, poor little fingers. Ah, be still now, play with your pretty things and see what your pal bring you. Oh, dear me! Well, said the woman on the bed, I shall give up. Brest the Lord, no, Mrs., said Tiff, lying down the stocking and holding the child to him with one hand, while the other was busy and patting and arranging the bed-clothes. No use in giving up while Lord Brest sees Mrs. will be all right again in a few days. Work has been kind to pressin' lately, and children's clothes ain't quite so spectable. But then I's doin' heaps of mending. See, that air? Said he, holding up a slip of red flannel, resplendent with a black patch, that air-hole won't go no further, and it does well enough for Teddy to wear rollin' round the dough, and such like times he'll sleep his better most, and the way I's put the yarn in easier stockings ain't slow. Then I's laid out to make a stitch in Teddy's shoes and that air-hole in the coverlet. That air'll be stopped for a mornin'. Oh, let me loan, he-he-he-he! He didn't keep Tiff for nothing, Mrs. Ho-ho-ho-ho! And the black face seemed really to become unctuous with the oil of gladness, and proceeded in his work of consolation. Oh, Tiff, Tiff, you're such a good creature, but you don't know. Here I've been lying all alone, day after day, and he off nobody knows where, and when he comes it'll be only a day, and he's off, and all he does don't amount to anything. All miserable rubbish brought home and traded off for other rubbish. What a fool I was for being married, oh, dear! Girls little know what marriage is. I thought it was so dreadful to be an old maid, and a pretty thing to get married. But oh, the pain and the worry and sickness and suffering I've gone through, always wandering from place to place, never settled, one thing going after another, worrying, watching, weary, and all for nothing, for I am worn out and I shall die. Oh, Lord, no, said Tiff, honestly. Lord, Tiff'll make you some tea, and give it to you, you poor lamb. It's dreadful hard, so it is, but time's on men, and mass'll come around and be more settled like, and Teddy will grow up and help his maw. And I'm sure there isn't a perder young'n than this here puppet, said he, turning fondly to the trough where the little fat red mass of incipient humanity was beginning to throw up two small fists and to utter sundry small squeaks to intimate his desire to come into notice. Lord Nile, said he, adroitly depositing Teddy on the floor and taking up the baby whom he regarded fondly through his great spectacles. Stretch away, my pretty, stretch away! Ho-ee-ho! Lord, if he hasn't got his mammy's eye for all this world! Ah, brave! See him, Mrs., said he, laying the little bundle on the bed by her. Did you ever see a perder young'n? Hee-hee-hee-hee! There! No, his mammy should take him, so she should, and Tiff'll make mammy some tea, so he will. And Tiff, in a moment, was on his knees, carefully laying together the ends of the burned sticks and blowing the cloud of white ashes, which powdered his woolly head and red shawl like snowflakes, while Teddy was busy in pulling the needles out of some knitting work which hung in a bag by the fire. Tiff, having started the fire by blowing, proceeded very carefully to adjust upon it a small black pouringer of water, singing as he did so, my way is dark and cloudy, so it is, so it is, my way is dark and cloudy all the day. Then, rising from his work, he saw that the poor weak mother had clasped the baby to her bosom and was sobbing very quietly. Tiff, as he stood there, with his short, square, ungainly figure, arms hanging out from his side like bows, his back covered by the red shawl, looked much like a compassionate tortoise standing on his hind legs. He looked pitifully at the sight, took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, and lifted up his voice in another stave. But we'll join the forty thousand by and by, so we will, so we will. We'll join the forty thousand upon the golden shore, and the sorrows will be gone forever more, more, more. Bress my soul, Massa-Teddy, now it's been hauling out the needles from Miss Fanny's work. That air ain't purting now. Tiff will be ashamed of you, and you do like that when your mom is sick. Don't you know you must be good? Else Tiff won't tell you no stories. There now, sit down on this year's log. That air's just the nicest log, plenty of moss on it you can be picking out. Now you sit still there and don't be interrupting your mom. The urchin opened a wide round pair of blue eyes upon Tiff, looking as if he were mesmerized and sat with a quiet subdued air upon his log, while Tiff went fumbling about in a box in the corner. After some rattling he produced a pine-nut. As the daylight was fading fast in the room and driving it into a crack in another log, which stood by the chimney corner, he proceeded busily to light it, muttering as he did so, we want to make it more cheerful like. Then he knelt down and blew the coals under the little poringer which, like pine coals in general, always soaked and looked back when somebody was not blowing them. He blew vigorously regardless of the clouds of ashes which encircled him, and which settled even on the tips of his eyelashes and balanced themselves on the end of his nose. Brass to Lord, eyes dreadful, strong in my breath. Lord, they might have used me in black smithson. Eyes kept this year, chimney-guine, best many a day. I wonder now what keeps Miss Fanny out so long. And Tiff rose up with the greatest precaution and glanced at every moment toward the bed and almost tipping herself over in his anxiety to walk softly. Advanced to the rude door, which opened with a wooden latch and string, opened it carefully and looked out. Looking out with him, we perceive that the little hut stands alone in the heart of a dense pine forest which shuts it in on every side. Tiff held the door open a few moments to listen. No sound was heard, but the shivering wind, swaying and surging in melancholy cadences through the long pine-leaves, a lonesome, wailing, uncertain sound. Ah, these year, pantries, they always a-talking, said Tiff to himself, in a sort of soliloquy. Whisper, whisper, whisper. The Lord knows what it's all about. They never tells folks what they want to know. Hark! Does Foxy, as sure as I'm a living sinner, dare she is? As a quick loud bark reverberated, ah ha, Foxy, you'll bring her along? Creshing a wolfish-looking lean kerf who came bounding through the trees. Ah, you're good for nothing. What makes you run so fast and leave your missus behind ya? Hark! What's that? A clear voice came Caroline Gailey from out the pine-trees. If you get there before I do, I'm bound for the land of Canaan. Whereupon Tiff, kindling with enthusiasm, responded, Look out for me, I'm coming too. I'm bound for the land of Canaan. The response was followed by a gay laugh as a childish voice shouted from the woods. Ha! Tiff, you dare? And immediately a bold bright blue-eyed girl of about eight years old came rushing forward. Lord Miss Fanny, so glad you've come, your mom's powerful week this year afternoon. And then, singing his voice to a whisper, Why now? You'd better believe her spirits isn't the best. Why, she's that bad, Miss Fanny. She's actually been a cryin' when I put the baby in her arms. Really, I'm concerned, and I wish your pod come home. Did you bring the medicine? Oh, yes, here it is. Ah, so good. I was makin' her some tea to set her up like. And I'll put a little drop of this here in it. You go on now, and speak to your mom. And I'll pick up a little light wood around here, and make up the fire. Massa Teddy'll be powerful glad to see her. I hope you's got him something, too. The girl glided softly into the room and stood over the bed where her mother was lying. Mother, I've come home, said she gently. The poor, frail creature in the bed seemed to be in one of those helpless hours of life's voyage when all its waves and billows are breaking over the soul. And while the little newcomer was blindly rooting and striving at her breast, she had gathered the worn counterpaint over her face, and the bed was shaken by her sobbing. Mother, mother, mother, said the child softly touching her. Go away, go away, child. Oh, I wish I had never been born. Oh, she wished you had never been born, nor Teddy, nor the baby. It's all nothing but trouble and sorrow. Fanny, don't you ever marry? Mind what I tell you. The child stood frightened by the bedside while Tiff had softly deposited a handful of pine wood near the fireplace, had taken off the poor inch and was busily stirring and concocting something in an old, cracked china mug. As he stirred, a strain of indignation seemed to cross his generally tranquil mind, for he often gave short snips and grunts indicative of extreme disgust and mutter to himself. This year comes a quality marrying these poor white folks. Never had no opinion on it, no way. Ah, do hear the poor lamb now, enough to break one's heart. By this time, the stirring and flavoring, being finished to his taste, he came to the side of the bed and began in a coaxing tone. Come now, Miss Sue, come. You's all worn out. No wonder that our great fellow tugging at you. Bless this dear little soul. He's gaining half a pound a week enough to pull down his maw entirely. Come now, take a little sup of this, just a little sup. Warm you up and put a bit of life in you. And then I suspect to fry you a morsel of their chicken. Cause a boy like this, you can't be nursed on slops, that I know. Dare, dare, honey, said he, gently moving the babe, and passing his arm under the pillow. I has dreadful strong in the back. My arm is long and strong, and I'll raise you up as easy. Take it good sup on it now and watch these troubles down. I reckon the good man above is looking down on us all and bringing us all round right some time. The invalid, who seemed exhausted by the burst of feeling to which she had been giving way, mechanically obeyed a voice to which she had always been accustomed and drank eagerly as if with feverish thirst, and when she had done she suddenly threw her arms around the neck of her strange attendant. Oh, Tiff, Tiff, poor old black faithful Tiff, what should I have done without you? So sick as I've been and so weak and so lonesome, but Tiff, it's coming to an end pretty soon. I've seen tonight that I ain't going to live long, and I've been crying to think the children have got to live. If I could only take them all into my arms and all lie down in the grave together, I should be so glad. I never knew what God made me for. I've never been fit for anything, nor done anything. Tiff seemed so utterly overcome by this appeal. His great spectacles were fairly washed down in a flood of tears, and his broad awkward frame shook with sobs. Law bless you, Miss Sue. Don't be talking that airway. Why, if the Lord should call you, Miss Sue, I can take care of the children. I can bring them up powerful, I tell you. But you won't be going. You'll get better. It's just the spirit is low. And Laws, why shouldn't they be? Just at this moment a loud barking was heard outside the house together with a rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses feet. Dara's Massa, sure as I'm alive, said he hastily laying down the invalid and arranging her pills. A rough voice called, Hello, Tiff, here with a light? Tiff caught the pine-knot and ran to open the door. A strange-looking vehicle of a most unexampled composite order was standing before the door drawn by a lean, one-eyed horse. Here, Tiff, help me out. I've got a lot of goods here. Mrs. is powerful, bad, been wanting to see you this long time. Well, away, Tiff. Take this out. Indicating a long rusty piece of stove-pot. Lay this in the house and here, handing a cast-iron stove door with the latch broken. Law, Massa, what on earth is the use of this here? Don't ask questions, Tiff. Work away. Help me out with these boxes. What on earth, Nile? Said Tiff to himself, as one rough case after another was discourse from the vehicle and landed in the small cabin. This being done and orders being given to Tiff to look after the horse and equipage, the man walked into the house with a jolly, slashing air. Hello, Bub, said he, looking the two-year-old above his head. Hello, Fan, imprinting a kiss on the cheek of his girl. Hello, Sis, coming up to the bed where the invalid lay and stooping down over her. Her weak, wasted arms were thrown around his neck and she said with sudden animation, oh, you've come at last. I thought I should die without seeing you. Oh, you ain't a gon' to die, Sis. Why, what talk? Said he, chucking her under the chin. Why, your cheeks are as red as roses. Pa, see the baby, said little Teddy, who, having climbed over the bed, opened the flannel bundle. Ah, Sis, I call that air a tolerable, fair stroke of business. Well, I tell you what. I've done up a trade now that will set us up and no mistake. Besides which, I've got something now in my coat pocket that would raise a dead cat to life if she was laying at the bottom of a pond with a stone around her neck. See here, Dr. Puffer's elixir of the water of life. Warranted to cure genders, toothaches, earrakes, scruffula, septia, assumption, and everything else I ever heard of. A teaspoon of that air mourned in night, and in a week you'll be round again as pert as a cricket. It was astonishing to see the change which the entrance of this man had wrought upon the invalid. All her apprehensions seemed to have vanished. She set up on the bed, following his every movement with her eyes, and apparently placing full confidence in the new medicine, as if it were the first time that ever a universal remedy had been proposed to her. It must be noticed, however, that Tiff, who had returned and was building the fire, was now and then, when the back of the speaker was turned, by snuffing at him in a particularly contemptuous manner. The man was a thick set and not ill-looking personage who might have been forty or forty-five years of age. His eyes of a clear, lively brown, his close curling hair, his high forehead, and a certain devil-may-care frankness of expression, were traits not disagreeable and meant some way to account for the partial eagerness with which the eye of the wife followed him. The history of the pair is briefly told. He was the son of a small farmer of North Carolina. His father, having been so unfortunate as to obtain possession of a few Negroes, the whole family became ever after inspired with an intense disgust for all kinds of labor. And John, the oldest son, adopted for himself the ancient and honorable profession of a loafer. To lie idle in the sun in front of some small grog shop, to attend horse races, cockfights and gander pullings, to flout out occasionally in a new waistcoat, bought with money which came nobody knew how, were pleasures to him all satisfactory. He was as guiltless of all knowledge of common-school learning as Governor Berkeley could desire and far more clear of religious training than a Mohammedan or a Hindu. In one of his rambling excursions through the country, he stopped at night at a worn-out and broken-down old plantation where everything had run down through many years of mismanagement and waste. There he stayed certain days, plain courage with the equally hopeful son of the place, and ended his performances by running away one night with a soft-hearted daughter, only fifteen years of age, and who was full as idle, careless, and untaught as he. The family whom poverty could not teach to forget their pride, were greatly scandalized at the marriage, and had there been anything left in the worn-out estate wherewith to portion her, the bride nevertheless would have been portionless. The sole piece of property that went out with her from the paternal mansion was one who, having a mind in will of his own, could not be kept from following her. The girl's mother had come from a distant branch of one of the most celebrated families in Virginia, and Tiff had been her servant, and with the heart forever swelling with the remembrances of the ancestral greatness of the patent, he followed his young mistress in her mezaleance with long-suffering devotion. He even bowed his neck so far as to acknowledge, for his master, a man whom he considered by position infinitely his inferior. For Tiff, though crooked and black, never seemed to cherish the slightest doubt that the whole force of the patent blood coursed through his veins, and that the patent honor was entrusted to his keeping. His mistress was a patent, and her children were patent children, and even the little bundle of flannel in the gum-tree cradle was a patent. And as for him, he was Tiff patent, and this thought warmed and consoled him as he followed his poor mistress during all the steps of her downward course in the world. On her husband he looked with patronizing civil contempt. He wished him well. He thought it proper to put the best face on all his actions, but in a confidential hour Tiff would sometimes raise his spectacles emphatically and give it out as his own private opinion that there could not be much spake did from that prescription of people. In fact, the roving and unsettled nature of John Cripp's avocations and locations might have justified the old fellow's contempt. His real career might be defined as comprising a little of everything and a great deal of nothing. He had begun successively to learn two or three trades, had half made a horseshoe, and spoiled one or two carpenters' planes, had tried his hand at stage-driving, had raised fighting cocks and kept dogs for hunting negroes, but he invariably retreated from every one of his avocations. In his own opinion, a much abused man. The last device that had entered his head was suggested by the success of a shrewd Yankee peddler who, having a lot of damaged and unsaleable material to dispose of, talked him into the belief that he possessed yet an undeveloped talent for trade, and poor John Cripp's guiltless of multiplication or addition table and who kept his cock-fighting accounts on his fingers and by making chalk marks behind the doors actually was made to believe that he had at last received his true vocation. In fact there was something in the constant restlessness of this mode of life that suited his roving turn and though he was constantly buying what he could not sell and losing on all that he did sell, somehow he kept up an illusion that he was doing something because stray coins now and then passed through his pockets and because the circle of small taverns in which he could drink and loaf was considerably larger. There was one resource which never failed him when all other streams went dry and that was the unceasing ingenuity and fidelity of the bondman Tiff. Tiff in fact appeared to be one of those comfortable old creatures who retained such a good understanding with all created nature that food never is denied them. Fish would always bite on Tiff's hook when they weren't on anybody else's so that he was one confidently to call the nearest stream Tiff's pork barrel. Hens always laid eggs for Tiff and tackled to him confidentially where they were deposited. Turkeys gobbled and strutted for him and led forth for him broods of downy little ones. All sorts of wild game, squirrels, rabbits, goons, and possums appeared to come with pleasure and put themselves into his traps and springs so that where another man might starve Tiff would look round him with anxious satisfaction contemplating all nature as his larder where his provisions were wearing fur coats and walking about on four legs only for safe keeping until he got ready to eat them so that Crips never came home without anticipation of something's savory even although he had drunk up his last quarter of a dollar at the tavern. This suited Crips. He thought Tiff was doing his duty and occasionally brought him home some unsalable bit of rubbish by way of testimonial of the sense he entertained his worth. The spectacles in which Tiff gloried came to him in this manner and although it might have been made to appear that the glasses were only plain window glass Tiff was happily ignorant that they were not the best of convex lenses and still happier in the fact that his strong unimpaired eyesight made any glasses at all entirely unnecessary. It was only an aristocratic weakness in Tiff. Spectacles he somehow considered the mark of a gentleman and an appropriate symbol for one who had been fetched up by the very fussed families in old Virginia. He deemed them more particularly appropriate as in addition to his manifold outward duties he likewise assumed as the reader has seen some feminine accomplishments. Tiff could darn a stocking with anybody in the country. He could cut out children's dresses and aprons. He could patch and he could seam all of which he did with infinite self-satisfaction. Notwithstanding the many crooks and crosses in his lot Tiff was on the whole a cheery fellow. He had an oily, rollicking fullness of nature and exuberance of physical satisfaction in existence that the greatest weight of adversity could only tone down to becoming sobriety. He was on the happiest of terms of fellowship with himself. He liked himself. He believed in himself. And when nobody else would do it he would pat himself on his own shoulder and say Tiff, you're a jolly dog, a fine fellow and I like you. He was seldom without a running strain of soliloquy with himself, intermingled with joyous bursts of song and quiet intervals of laughter. On pleasant days Tiff laughed a great deal. He laughed when his beans came up. He laughed when the sun came out after a storm. He laughed for fifty things that you never think of laughing at. And it all agreed with him. He throwed upon it. In times of trouble and perplexity Tiff talked to himself and found a consular who always kept secrets. On the present occasion it was not without some inward discontent that he took a survey of the remains of one of his best-fatted chickens which he had been intending to serve up piecemeal for his mistress. So he relieved his mind by a little confidential colloquy with himself. This year he said to himself with a contemptuous inclination toward the newly arrived will be for eating like a judgment, I suppose, which now had killed the old gobbler. Good enough for him, real tough he is. This year now was my primest chicken and art she'll just sit and see him eat it. Lost easier women why they does get so sought on husbands pity they couldn't have something like to be sought on. It just aroused me to see him gobbling down everything and she a looking on. Well, here goes, said he, depositing the frying pan over the coals in which the chicken was soon fizzling. Drawing out the table Tiff prepared it for supper. Soon the coffee was steaming over the fire and corn dodgers baking in the ashes. Meanwhile John Cripps was busy explaining to his wife the celebrated wares that had so much raised his spirits. Well, now you see, Sue, this airtime I've been up to Raleigh and I met a fellow there come from New York or New Orleans or some northern states. New Orleans isn't a northern state, humbly interposed his wife, is it? Well, knew something, who the devil cares? Don't you be interrupting me, you Sue's. Could Cripps have seen the vengeful look which Tiff gave him over the spectacles at this moment he might have trembled for his supper, but innocent of this he proceeded with his story. You see, this year Filla had a case of bonnets just at the height of the fashion. They come from Paris, the capital of Europe, and he sold them to me for a mere song. Ah, you ought to see him. I'm going to get him out. Tiff hold the candle here. And Tiff held the burning torch with an air of grim skepticism and disgust while Cripps hammered and wrenched the top boards off and displayed to view a portentous array of bonnets apparently of every obsolete style and fashion of the last fifty years. Dem's first rate for Scarecrow's anyhow. Mother Tiff. Now what? said Cripps. Sue, what do you think I gave for these? I don't know, she said, frankly. So I gave fifteen dollars for the whole box and there ain't one of these, said he, displaying the most singular specimen in his hand, that isn't worth two to five dollars. I shall clear at least fifty dollars on that box. Tiff, at this moment, turned to his frying pan and bent over it, soliloquizing as he did so. Anyway, I's found out one thing. Where the women gets them roosts of bonnets, they wears at camp meetings. Lost is enough to spoil a work of grace, dim-air. If I was to meet one of them air of a dark night in a graveyard, I should think I was sent for, not the pleasantest way of sending either. Poor Mrs., look in mighty faint. I don't wonder. Enough to scare a weakly woman into fits. Here, Tiff, help me to open this box. Hold the light here. Darned if it don't come off hard. Here's a lot of shoes and boots I got of the same man. Some of them's mates and some ain't. But then I took the lot cheap. Folks don't always wear both shoes alike. Might like to wear an odd one sometimes, if it's cheap. Now, this year, a pair of boots is ladies, gators, all complete, except there's a hole in the lining down by the toe. But I ought to be careful about putting it on, unless the foot will slip between the outside and the lining. Anybody that bears that in mind, just as nice a pair of gators as they'd want, bargain there for somebody, complete one too. Then I've got two or three old bureau drawers that I got cheap at auction, and I reckon some on them will fit the old frame that I got last year. Got them for a mere song. Bless you, Massa. Our old bureau I took for the chicken coop. Turkey's chickens hops in lively. Oh, well, scrub it up. Twill answer just as well. Fit the drawers in. And now, old woman, we will sit down to supper," said he, planting himself at the table and beginning a vigorous onslaught on the fried chicken without invitation to any other person present to assist him. Mrs. Kent said up at the table, said Tiff. She's done been sick ever since the baby was born. And Tiff approached the bed with a nice morsel of chicken, which he had providently preserved on a plate, which he now reverently presented on a board as a waiter covered with newspaper. Now, do eat, Mrs. You can't live on looking. No ways you can fix that. Do eat while Tiff gets on the baby's nightgown. To please her old friend, the woman made a faint of eating. But while Tiff's back was turned to the fire, busied herself with distributing it to the children who had stood hungrily regarding her, as children will regard that that is put on a sick mother's plate. It does me good to see them eat, she said apologetically once, when Tiff turning around detected her in the act. Oh, Mrs. may be, but you've got to eat for two now. What they eat ain't going to diss your little man here. Mind that air? Crips apparently bestowed a very small attention on anything except the important business before him, which he prosecuted with such devotion that very soon coffee, chicken, and dodgers had all disappeared. Even the bones were sucked dry and the gravy wiped from the dish. Ah, that's what I call comfortable, said he, lying back in his chair. Tiff pulled my boots off and hand out that air demi-john. Sue, I hope you've made a comfortable meal, he said, incidentally standing with his back to her, compounding his potation of whiskey and water, which having drank, he called up Teddy and offered him the sugar at the bottom of the glass. But Teddy, being forewarned by a meaning glass through Tiff's spectacles, responded very politely, no thank you, Pa, I don't love it. Well, come here then and take it off like a man, it's good for you, said John Crips. The mother's eyes followed the child wishfully and she said faintly, don't, John, don't. And Tiff ended the controversy by taking the glass unceremoniously out of his master's hands. Laws bless you, Massa, can't be bothered with these year-young ones this year time and night. Time-days all in bed and dishes washed up here, Ted, seizing the child and loosening the buttons on his slip behind and drawing out a rough trundle bed, you crawl in there and curl up in your naus and don't you forget your prayers on it as maybe you'll never wake up again. Crips had now filled a pipe with tobacco of the most villainous character, with which incense he was perfuming the little apartment. Laws, Massa, that air-spoke, ain't good for Mises, said Tiff. She done been sick to her stomach all day. Oh, let him smoke! I like to have him enjoy himself, said the indulgent wife. But Fanny, you had better go to bed, dear, come here and kiss me, child. Good night, good night!" The mother held on to her long and looked at her wishfully and when she had turned to go she drew her back, kissed her again and said, Good night, dear child, good night. Fanny clamped up a ladder in one corner of the room through a square hole to the loft above. I say, said Crips, taking his pipe out of his mouth and looking at Tiff, who was busily washing dishes, I say it's kind of peculiar that Gal keeps sick so. Seemed to have a good constitution when I married her. I'm thinking, said he, without noticing the gathering wrath in Tiff's face, I'm thinking whether Steeman wouldn't do her good. Now I got a most dreadful cold when I was up in Raleigh, thought I should have given up and there was a steam-doctor there, had a little kind of machine with kettles and pipes and he put me in a bed, put in the pipes and set it going. I thought, my soul, I should have been floated off, but it carried off the cold complete. I'm thinking, if something of that kind wouldn't be good for Miss Crips, Laws Massa, don't go for trying that on her, she is never no better for these ear stings that you do for her. Now, said Crips, not appearing to notice the interruption, these ear stove-pipes and tea-kettle, I shouldn't wonder if we could get up a steam with them. It's my private opinion, if you do, she'll be sailing out of the world, said Tiff. What's one man's meat is another man's pison, my old missus used to say. Very best thing you could do for her is to let her alone, that error is my opinion. John, said the little woman after a few minutes, I wish you'd come here and sit by the bed. There was something positive and almost authoritative in the manner in which this was said, which struck John as so unusual that he came with a bewildered air, sat down and gazed at her with his mouth wide open. I'm so glad you've come home because I've had things that I've wanted to say to you. I've been lying here thinking about it and I have been turning it over in my mind. I'm going to die soon, I know. Ah, bah! Don't be bothered to fell with the end of your hysterics. John, John, it isn't hysterics. Look at me, look at my hand, look at my face. I'm so weak and sometimes I have such coughing spells and every time it seems to me as if I should die. But it ain't to trouble you that I talk. I don't care about myself, but I don't want the children to grow up and be like what we've been. You have a great many contrivances. Do pray contrive to have them taught to read and make something of them in the world. Bah! What's the use? I never learnt to read and I'm as good a fellow as I want. Why, there's plenty of men round here making their money every year they can't read or write a word. Old Hubble, up there up on the Shad Plantation has hauled in money hand over hand and he always signs his mark. Got nine sons? Can't a soul of them read or write? More than I. I tell you there's nothing ever comes of your learning. It's all a sell, a regular Yankee hoax. I've always got cheated by them them reading and writing Yankees whenever I've traded with them. What's the good I want to know? You was teached how to read when you was young. Much good it's ever done you. Sure enough, sick day and night and moving from place to place, sick baby crying and not knowing what to do for it, or more than a child. Oh, I hope Fanny will learn something. It seems to me if there is some school for my children to go to or some church or something now if there is any such place as heaven I should like to have them get to it. Ah, bah, don't bother about that. When we get keeled up that will be the last of us. Come, come, don't plague a fellow any more with such talk. I'm tired and I'm going to sleep. And the man, divesting himself of his overcoat, threw himself on the bed and was soon snoring heavily in profound slumber. Tiff, who had been trotting the baby by the fire, now came softly to the bedside and sat down. May as so, he said, it's no count talking to him. I don't mean nothing disrespectful, Miss Sue, but the fact is, them that isn't born gentlemen can't be expected fur to see through these year things like us of the old families. Law, Misses, don't you worry. Now, just leave this year matter to old Tiff. There never wasn't anything Tiff couldn't do if he tried. Oh, Miss Fanny, she didn't got the letters right smart and I know I'll come it round Massa and make him buy the books for her. I'll tell you what's coming to my head today. There's a young lady come to the big plantation up there who's been to New York getting educated and I's going to ask her about these year things and about the children's going to church and these year things and why preaching, you know, is maze and uncertain around here. But I'll keep on to look out and do the best I can. Why Lord, Miss Sue, I was bound for the land of Canaan myself the best way I can and I'm certain I shan't go without taking the children along with me. Ho, ho, ho, that's what I shan't. The children will have to be with Tiff and Tiff will have to be with the children wherever they is. That's it. Hee, hee, hee. Tiff, said the young woman, her large blue eyes looking at him, I have heard of the Bible. Have you ever seen one, Tiff? Oh, yes, honey. There was a big Bible that your Ma brought in the family when she married. But that air was tore up to make whining for the guns, one thing or another, and they never got no more. But I's been very servant in keeping my ears open in a camp meeting and such places and I learn right smart of the things that's in it. No, Tiff, can you say anything? Said she, fixing her large, troubled eyes on him. Well, honey, there's one thing the man said at the last camp meeting. He preached about it and I couldn't make out a word. He said because I ain't smart about preaching like I be about most things. But he said this year so often that I can't help remember it. Says he, it was dish your way, coming to me. All ye labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Rest, rest, rest. Said the woman thoughtfully and drawing a long sigh. Oh, how much I wanted. Did he say that was in the Bible? Yes, he said so and I expect by all he said it's the good man above that says it. It always makes me feel better to think on it. It appeared like he was just what I was wanting to hear. And I too, she said, turning her head whirling and closing her eyes. Tiff, she said, opening them. Where I'm going. Maybe I shall meet the one who said that. You know, ask him about it. Don't talk to me no more now. I'm getting sleepy. I thought I was better a little while after he came home. But I'm more tired yet. Put the baby in my arms. I like the feeling of it. There, there. Now give me rest. Please do. And she sank into a deep and quiet slumber. Tiff softly covered the fire and sat down by the bed, watching the flickering shadows as they danced up or down the wall, listening to the heavy sighs of the pine trees and the hard breathing of the sleeping man. Sometimes he nodded sleepily and then recovering rose and took a turn to awaken himself. A shadowy sense of fear fell upon him, said he apprehended anything, for he regarded the words of his mistress only as the forebodings of a wearied invalid. The idea that she could actually die and go anywhere without him to take care of her seemed never to have occurred to him. About midnight, as if a spirit had laid its hand upon him, his eyes flew wide open with a sudden start. Her thin, cold hand was lying on his, her eyes large and blue, shown with a singular and spiritual radiance. Tiff, she gasped, speaking with difficulty, I've seen the one that said that, and it's all true too, and I've seen all why I've suffered so much. He, he, he is going to take me. Tell the children about him. There was a fluttering sigh, a slight shiver, lids fell over the eyes forever. End of Chapter 8, Old Tiff Chapter 9 of Dread, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dread, Chapter 9, The Death Death is always sudden, however gradual may be its approaches, it is, in its effects upon the survivor, always sudden at last. Tiff thought at first that his mistress was in a fainting fit and tried every means to restore her. It was affecting to see him chafing the thin white pearly hands in his large rough black paws, raising the head upon his arm and calling in a thousand tones of fond endearment, pouring out a perfect torrent of loving devotion on the cold unheeding ear. But then, spite of all he could do, the face settled itself and the hands would not be warmed and thought of death struck him suddenly and, throwing himself on the floor by the bed, he wept with an exceeding loud and bitter cry. Something in his heart revolted against awakening that man who lay heavily breathing by her side. He would not admit it to himself at this moment that this man had any right in her or that the sorrow was any part of his sorrow. But the cry awoke Cripps, who sat up bewildered in bed, clearing the hair from his eyes with the back of his hand. Tiff, what the darn are you howling about? Tiff got up in a moment and, swallowing down his grief and his tears, pointed indignantly to the still figure on the bed. Dire, Dire, wouldn't believe her last night. Now what you think a datar? See how you look now? Good shepherd herring you abusing to poor lamb and he done took her where you'll never see her again. Cripps had, like coarse animal men generally, a stupid and senseless horror of death. He recoiled from the lifeless form and sprang from the bed with an expression of horror. Well, now who would have thought that? He said that I should be in bed with a corpse. I hadn't the least idea. No, that's plain enough. You didn't. You'll believe it now, won't you? Poor little lamb lying here suffering all alone. I tell you, when folks have been sick so long, they have to die to make folks believe anything else. Well, really, said Cripps, this is really... Why, it ain't comfortable, darned if it is. Why, I'm sorry about the gal. I meant to steam her up or done something with it. What's we to do now? Pretty likely you don't know. Folks like you that never tensed and nothing good is always flustered when the master knocks at the door. I knows what to do, though. I was bound to get up to Critter and go up to the old plantation and bring down a woman to do something for her, kind of decent. You mind the chillin' till I get back? Tiff took down and drew on over his outer garment a coarse-laid woolen coat with very long skirts and large buttons in which he always arrayed himself in cases of special solemnity. Stopping at the door before he went out, he looked over Cripps from head to foot with an air of patronizing and half pitiful contempt and delivered himself as follows. Now, master, eyes wind up and we'll be back quick as possible. And now do pray be decent and let that darwhisky alone for one day in your life and member death, judgment, and eternity. Just act now as if you've got a streak of something in you, such as a man ought for it to have who is married to one of the fastest families in Old Virginia. Fleck now on your ladder and maybe we'll do your poor old soul some good. And don't you go for to waken up to chillin' before I get back. They'll learn to trouble soon enough. Cripps listened to this oration with a stupid bewildered stare, gazing first at the bed and then at the old man who was soon making all the speed he could towards Canemaw. Nina was not habitually an early riser, but on this morning she had awakened with the first peep of dawn and finding herself unable to go to sleep again, she had dressed herself and gone down to the garden. She was walking up and down in one of the alleys, thinking over the perplexities of her own affairs when her ear was caught by the wild and singular notes of one of those tunes commonly used among the slaves as dirges. The words, she are dead and gone to heaven, seemed to come floating down upon her and though the voice was cracked and strained it was a sort of wildness and pathos in it which made a singular impression in the perfect stillness of everything around her. She soon observed a singular looking vehicle appearing in the avenue. This wagon, which was no other than the establishment of Cripps, drew Nina's attention and she went to the hedge to look at it. Tiff's watchful eye immediately fell upon her and driving up to where she was standing he climbed out upon the ground and lifting his hat made her a profound obeisance and hoped a young lady was very well this morning. Yes, quite well. Thank you, uncle," said Nina, regarding him curiously. Weas in affliction to our house, said Tiff solemnly, there's been a midnight cry there and poor Miss Sue, that's my young missus, she done gone home. Who is your mistress? Well, her name was Seymour, before she married and her ma come from the Virginie Patons, great family in Patons. She was so misfortunate as to get married, as Gauss-Wheels sometimes, said Tiff speaking in a confidential tone. The man went no count and she's had a dreadful hard way to travel poor thing and there she's aligned at last, stretched out dead and not a woman or nobody to do the least thing. And please, missus, Tiff come to see if the young lady wouldn't send a woman for to do for her, getting her ready for a funeral. And who are you, pray? Please, missus, as Tiff Paton I is, as raised in Virginia on the Great Paton Place and as again to Miss Sue's mother and when Miss Sue married this year, and they was all offended and wouldn't speak to her, but I took up for her because what's the use of making a bad thing worse? I, as an opinion, and tell them that he ought to be encouraged to behave itself, seeing the thing was done and couldn't be helped, but no, they wouldn't. So I just tells them, says I, you may do just you please, but old Tiff's the one with hers, says I. I'll follow Miss Sue to the grave's mouth, says I. Well done of you. I like you better for it, said Niner. You just drive up to the kitchen there and tell Rose to give you some breakfast while I go up to Aunt Nespot. No thank you, Miss Niner. Eyes no ways hungry. Peers like when a body's like as I be. Swallowing down in all the old times, rising in the throat all the time, they can't eat. They get filled all up to the eyes with feelings. Lord Miss Niner, I hope you won't never know what Tiff's to stand outside the gate. When the best friend you've got's gone in, it's hard that there is. And Tiff pulled out a decayed looking handkerchief and applied it under his spectacles. Well, wait a minute, Tiff. And Niner ran into the house while Tiff gazed mournfully after her. Well, Lord, just the way Miss Sue used to run, trip, trip, trip, little feet like mice, lords will be done. Oh, Millie, said Niner, meeting Millie in the entry. Here you are. Here's a poor fellow waiting out by the hedge. His mistress dead all alone in the house with children, no woman to do for them. Can't you go down? You could do so well. You know how better than anyone else in the house. Why, that must be poor old Tiff, said Millie, faithful old creature, so that poor woman's gone at last. The better for her, poor soul. Well, I'll ask Miss Lou if I may go. Are you asked, Miss Niner? A quick imperative tap on her door startled Aunt Nesbitt, who was standing at her toilet, finishing her morning's dressing operations. Mrs. Nesbitt was a particularly systematic early riser. Nobody knew why. Only folks who have nothing to do are often the most particular to have the longest possible time to do it in. Aunt, said Niner, there's a poor fellow out there whose mistress is just dead all alone in the house and wants to get some woman to go there to help. Can't you spare Millie? Oh, Millie was going to clear starch my caps this morning, said Aunt Nesbitt. I have arranged everything with reference to it for a week past. Well, Aunt, can't you do it tomorrow or next day, just as well? I suppose she's going to rip up that black dress and wash it. I'm always systematic and have everything arranged beforehand. She'd like very much to do anything I could if it wasn't for that. Why can't you send Aunt Katie? Why Aunt? You know we are to have company to dinner and Aunt Katie is the only one who knows where anything is or how to serve things out to the cook. Besides, she's so hard and cross to poor people, I don't think she would go. I don't see I'm sure in such a case as this why you couldn't put your starching off. Millie is such a kind, motherly, experienced person and they are in affliction. Oh, these low families don't mind such things much, said Aunt Nesbitt, fitting on her cap quietly. They never have much feeling. There's no use doing for them. They are miserable, poor creatures. Aunt Nesbitt, do now as a favor to me. I don't often ask favors, said Nina. Do let Millie go. She's just the one wanted. Do now say yes. And Nina pressed nearer and actually seemed to overpower her slow feeling, torpedoed relative, with the vehemence that sparkled in her eyes. Well, I don't care. If... There, Millie, she says yes, said Nina, springing out the door. She says you may. Now hurry, get things ready. I'll run and have Aunt Katie put up biscuits and things for the children and you get all that you know you will want and be off quick and I'll have the pony got up and come on behind you. End of Chapter 9, The Death. Chapter 10 of Dread, a tale of the great dismal swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dread, Chapter 10, The Preparation. The excitement produced by the arrival of Tiff and the fitting out of Millie to the cottage had produced a most favorable diversion in Nina's mind from her own special perplexities. Active and buoyant, she threw herself at once into whatever happened to come up or most on the tide of events. So, having seen the wagon dispatched, she sat down to breakfast in high spirits. Aunt Nesbeth, I declare I was so interested in that old man. I intended to have a 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 Nesbeth, that the hovels of these miserable creatures are no proper place for a 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 couldn'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 couldn'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 wasn'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 a certu 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 sorry for him. He seemed to be proud of his dead mistress in spite of her poverty. Where do they live? said Mrs. Nespot. Why, he told me over in the pine woods near the swamp. Oh, said Mrs. Nespot. I dare say it's that crypts 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 shouldn't have let Millie go over. Such families oughtn't to be encouraged. There oughtn't to be a thing to be done for them. We shouldn'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 shouldn't let you go near them. Well, I'm not your daughter, thank fortune, said Nana, whose grace has always rapidly declined in controversies with her hand. 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 Nesbeth, the Bible says we mustn'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 didn't do them any good. I've always thought there ought to be a law passed on all slaves, and then there would be somebody to take care of them. Well, I can't see, said Nana, how it's their fault. There isn'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 Nesbeth, in that tone which generally means I don't care. All I know is that I want them to be 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 today, for if there's anything I do hate, it is having things irregular. And today is the day for clear starching the caps in such a good bright sunny day. And tomorrow, 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 Millie's time, just as if the funeral couldn't have got ready without her. These funerals are always miserable, drunken times with them. And then who knows, she may catch the smallpox or something or other. There's never any knowing what these people die of. They die of just such things as we do, said Nana. 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 they don't do any good. Why, Aunt, what do you know against these folks? Have you ever known of their doing anything wicked? Oh, 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 in Virginia. Everybody that knows anything knows exactly what they are. There isn'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. Nesbitt was one of those quietly persisting people whose yielding is like the stretching of an India rubber band giving way only to a violent bull 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. Nine as nature was so vehement and imperious when excited that there was a disagreeable fatigue to cross her. Mrs. Nesbitt, therefore, made amends by bemoaning herself as we have seen. Nine as 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 tendons 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 tea of Harry? Oh, yes, very well. A very good, excellent creature and very much superior of his master in most respects. Well, he says his mistress came of a good family. I shouldn'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 couldn't be taught something and not grow up and go on these miserable ways of these poor wives. Why don't anybody ever teach them? said Nanna. Well, Miss Nanna, you know how it is everybody has his own work and business to attend 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 the 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 there were poor children. Why can't there be some such thing here? Oh, 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. Planners 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 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 but 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 open to him might have been a smart man and made something of himself and family and when he was young and better looking, I shouldn't wonder if an uneducated girl who had 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 Nespot does. Here, Nina, observing the path clear and uninterrupted for some distance under the arching ponds 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 ponds 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 travelers. 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 mainland. 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 presence 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 jesamine. Two little borders, each side of the house were blooming with flowers around the little island the pine trees closed in unbroken semicircle and the brook meandered away through them to lose itself eventually to the land which girdles the whole Carolina shore. The whole air of the place was so unexpectedly inviting in its silven 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. Oh, that's all Tiff's works at Harry. He takes care of everything outside and in while the man left nobody knows what. You'd be perfectly astonished to see how the old creature manages. He sows and he nets and works the garden, does the housework and teaches the children. It's a fact. You'll notice that they haven't the pronunciation or the manners of these wild white children and I take it to be all Tiff's watchfulness. For that creature hasn'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. The Lord above bless you, Miss Gordon, for coming to see my poor missus. She is lying there just as beautiful just as she was the very day she was married. All her young looks come back to her and merely she done laid her out beautiful. Lord, I was wanting somebody to come and look at her because she's got good blood if she is poor. She is none of your common sort of poor wife, Miss Naina. Just come in. Come in and look at her. Naina 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 Melly lay there so very still, quiet and lifelike that one could scarcely realize the presence of death. The expression of exhaustion, fatigue and anxiety which the face had laterally 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 in 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 in 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 circumstances naturally inclines toward 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 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 and air of neatness had been imported to the extreme poverty of the room by the joint efforts of Millie and Tiff. Tiff entered softly and stood by Nina as she gazed. He had in his hand several sprays of white jasmine 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 site like this before. She stood with a fixed, tender thoughtfulness, unlike her usual gaiety. Her writing had hanging carelessly by its strings from her hands, her loose hair drooping over her face. She heard someone entering the cottage but she did not look up. She was conscious of someone 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 turning to the dead, staying in an undertone. See here. I see, he said. Can I be of service? The poor thing died last night, said Nana. I suppose someone might help about a funeral. Harry, she said, walking softly toward 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. Oh 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 it feels like I couldn't lose. She's so beautiful. Don't today. Don't. Indeed, Uncle, said Nana tenderly. I'm sorry I aggrieved you, but you know poor fellow, that must come. I hasn't known her ever since she's that high, said Tiff. Her hair was curly and she used to wear such a pretty red shoes and come running after me in the garden. Tiff, she used to say, and there she is now. And troubles brought her there. Lord, what a pretty girl she was. Pretty as you be, Miss Nana. But since she married at Dar, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder and speaking confidentially, everything went wrong. Eyes held her up, did all I could. And now here she is. Perhaps, Nana said, laying her hand on his. Perhaps she's in a better place than this. Oh, Lord, that she is. She told me that when she died, she saw the Lord at last. She did so. Them'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 kind of felt something cold on my hand and I woke up right sudden and there she was. Her eyes so bright, looking at me and breathing so hard and all she says was, Tiff, I have seen him and I know now why I've suffered so. He's going to take me and give me rest. Then, my poor fellow, you ought to rejoice that she is safe. Indeed, I does, said Tiff, yet I selfish. I want to be there too, I does. Only I has the children to care for. Well, my good fellow, said Niner, 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. That died too good on you. My heart's been most broke, thinking nobody cared for my poor young mistress. Used too good, that she is. Then, drawing near to her and singing his voice, he said about the morning, Miss Niner. He ain't no couch, no. But I can see how Tiff's with him, very plain. But, Mrs. was a patent, you know, and I was a patent too. I naturally feels responsibility, he couldn't be expected for two. I took the ribbons off of Miss Fanny's bonnet and done the best I could, trimming it up with crepe, what Miss Millie gave me. And I got a band of black crepe on Massa Teddy's hat and I allowed to put one on mine. But there wasn't quite enough, you know, Mrs. Old Family Servants always wears morning. If Mrs. just be pleased to look over my work. Now, this year is Miss Fanny's bonnet. You know, I can't be expected for it to make it like a milliner. They are very well indeed, Uncle Tiff. Perhaps, Miss Nonna, you can kind of touch it over. Oh, if you like, Uncle Tiff, I'll take them all home and do them for you. Oh Lord, bless you, Miss Gordon. That dirt was just what I wanted. But I was most afraid to ask you. Some gay young ladies don't like to handle black. Ah, Uncle Tiff, I have no fears of that sort. So put it in the wagon and let Millie 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 Nonna, although the day before a thousand fancies and coca trees would have colored the manner of 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 onto the saddle, scarcely noticing the act, except by a serious graceful inclination of her head. One great reason of the ascendancy which Clayton had thus foregained over her was that his nature, so quiet, speculative and constructive, always left her such perfect liberty to follow the more varying moods of her own. A man of a different mode would have sought to awake her out of the trance, would have remarked on her abstracted manner or rallied her on to silence. Clayton merely mounted his horse and rode quietly by her side while Harry, passing on before them, was soon out of sight. End of Chapter 10 The Preparation