Moriah's Mourning and Other Half Hour Sketches
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Ruth McEnery Stuart >> Moriah's Mourning and Other Half Hour Sketches
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9 [Illustration: "'THANK THE LORD! _NOW I CAN SEE TO LOOK FOR 'EM!_'"]
MORIAH'S MOURNING
and Other Half-Hour Sketches
By RUTH MCENERY STUART
_Author of "In Simpkinsville"
"A Golden Wedding" etc._
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1898
Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers.
_All rights reserved._
_Printed in New York, U.S.A._
CONTENTS
PAGE
MORIAH'S MOURNING 3
AN OPTICAL DILEMMA 19
THE SECOND MRS. SLIMM 37
APOLLO BELVEDERE. A CHRISTMAS EPISODE OF THE PLANTATION 53
NEAREST OF KIN (ON THE PLANTATION) 71
THE DEACON'S MEDICINE 93
TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE 113
THE REV. JORDAN WHITE'S THREE GLANCES 131
LADY. A MONOLOGUE OF THE COW-PEN 157
A PULPIT ORATOR 165
AN EASTER SYMBOL. A MONOLOGUE OF THE PLANTATION 175
CHRISTMAS AT THE TRIMBLES' 181
A MINOR CHORD 211
ILLUSTRATIONS
"'THANK THE LORD! _NOW I CAN SEE TO LOOK FOR
'EM!_'" _Frontispiece_
"A SURPRISED AND SMILING MAN WAS SITTING AT HER
POLISHED KITCHEN TABLE" _Facing p._ 8
"'I'M AC-CHILLY MOST AFEERD _TO_ SEE
YOU CONVERTED'" " 40
"'I PROMISED HIM I'D PUT ON MO'NIN' FOR HER
SOON AS I MARRIED INTO DE FAMILY'" " 74
"SAYS SHE, 'OPEN YORE MOUTH!' AN' OF CO'SE
I OPENED IT" " 98
"I DES LETS 'EM LOOSE P'OMISKYUS, TELL
EV'YBODY SEE BLUE LIGHTNIN'" " 134
"SALVATION'S KYAR IS MOVIN'!" " 148
"'WON'T YER, PLEASE, SIR, SPELL DAT WORD
OUT FUR ME SLOW?'" " 168
MORIAH'S MOURNING
Moriah was a widow of a month, and when she announced her intention of
marrying again, the plantation held its breath. Then it roared with
laughter.
Not because of the short period of her mourning was the news so
incredible. But by a most exceptional mourning Moriah had put herself
upon record as the most inconsolable of widows.
So prompt a readjustment of life under similar conditions was by no
means unprecedented in colored circles.
The rules governing the wearing of the mourning garb are by no means
stringent in plantation communities, and the widow who for reasons of
economy or convenience sees fit to wear out her colored garments during
her working hours is not held to account for so doing if she appear at
all public functions clad in such weeds as she may find available. It is
not even needful, indeed, that her supreme effort should attain any
definite standard. Anybody can collect a few black things, and there is
often an added pathos in the very incongruity of some of the mourning
toilettes that pass up the aisles of the colored churches.
Was not the soul of artlessness expressed in the first mourning of a
certain young widow, for instance, who sewed upon her blue gown all the
black trimming she could collect, declaring that she "would 'a' dyed de
frock th'oo an' th'oo 'cep'n' it would 'a' swunked it up too much"? And
perhaps her sympathetic companions were quite as _naive_ as she, for,
as they aided her in these first hasty stitches, they poured upon her
wounded spirit the healing oil of full and sympathetic approval, as the
following remarks will testify.
"Dat frock mo'ns all right, now de black bows is on it."
"You kin put any colored frock in mo'nin' 'cep'n' a red one. Sew black
on red, an' it laughs in yo' face."
"I'm a-sewin' de black fringe on de josey, Sis Jones, 'case fringe hit
mo'ns a heap mo'nfuler 'n ribbon do."
Needless to say, a license so full and free as this found fine
expression in a field of flowering weeds quite rare and beautiful to
see.
Moriah had proven herself in many ways an exceptional person even before
the occasion of her bereavement, and in this, contrary to all precedent,
she had rashly cast her every garment into the dye-pot, sparing not even
so much as her underwear.
Moriah was herself as black as a total eclipse, tall, angular, and
imposing, and as she strode down the road, clad in the sombre vestments
of sorrow, she was so noble an expression of her own idea that as a
simple embodiment of dignified surrender to grief she commanded respect.
The plantation folk were profoundly impressed, for it had soon become
known that her black garb was not merely a thing of the surface.
"Moriah sho' does mo'n for Numa. She mo'ns f'om de skin out." Such was
popular comment, although it is said that one practical sister, to whom
this "inward mo'nin'" had little meaning, ventured so far as to protest
against it.
"Sis Moriah," she said, timidly, as she sat waiting while Moriah
dressed for church--"Sis Moriah, look ter me like you'd be 'feerd dem
black shimmies 'd draw out some sort o' tetter on yo' skin," to which
bit of friendly warning Moriah had responded, with a groan, and in a
voice that was almost sepulchral in its awful solemnity, "_When I mo'n
I mo'n!_"
Perhaps an idea of the unusual presence of this great black woman may be
conveyed by the fact that when she said, as she was wont to do in
speaking of her own name, "I'm named Moriah--after a Bible mountain,"
there seemed a sort of fitness in the name and in the juxtaposition
neither the sacred eminence or the woman suffered a loss of dignity.
And this woman it was who, after eight years of respectable wifehood and
but four weeks of mourning her lost mate, calmly announced that she was
to be married again.
The man of her choice--I use the expression advisedly--was a neighbor
whom she had always known, a widower whose bereavement was of three
months' longer standing than her own.
The courtship must have been brief and to the point, for it was
positively known that he and his _fiancee_ had met but three times
in the interval when the banns were published.
He had been engaged to whitewash the kitchen in which she had pursued
her vocation as cook for the writer's family.
The whitewashing was done in a single morning, but a second coating was
found necessary, and it is said by one of her fellow-servants, who
professes to have overheard the remark, that while Pete was putting the
finishing-touches to the bit of chimney back of her stove, Moriah, who
stooped at the oven door beside him, basting a roast turkey, lifted up
her stately head and said, archly, breaking her mourning record for the
first time by a gleaming display of ivory and coral as she spoke,
"Who'd 'a' thought you'd come into my kitchen to do yo' _secon'
co'tin'_, Pete?"
At which, so says our informant, the whitewash brush fell from the
delighted artisan's hands, and in a shorter time than is consumed in the
telling, a surprised and smiling man was sitting at her polished kitchen
table chatting cosily with his mourning hostess, while she served him
with giblets and gravy and rice and potatoes "an' coffee b'iled
expressly."
[Illustration: "A SURPRISED AND SMILING MAN WAS SITTING AT HER
POLISHED KITCHEN TABLE"]
It was discovered that the kitchen walls needed a third coating. This
took an entire day, "because," so said Pete, "de third coat, hit takes
mo' time to soak in."
And then came the announcement. Moriah herself, apparently in nowise
embarrassed by its burden, bore the news to us on the following morning.
There was no visible change of front in her bearing as she presented
herself--no abatement of her mourning.
"Mis' Gladys," she said, simply, "I come ter give you notice dat I gwine
take fo' days off, startin' nex' Sunday."
"I hope you are not in any new trouble, Moriah?" I said,
sympathetically.
"Well, I don' know ef I is or not. Me an' Pete Pointdexter, we done
talked it over, an' we come ter de conclusion ter marry."
I turned and looked at the woman--at her black garments, her still
serious expression. Surely my hearing was playing me false. But catching
my unspoken protest, she had already begun to explain.
"Dey ain't no onrespec' ter de dead, Mis' Gladys, in _marryin'_,"
she began. "De onrespec' is in de _carryin's on_ folks does _when_
dey marry. Pete an' me, we 'low ter have eve'ything quiet an'
solemncholy--an' pay all due respects--right an' left. Of co'se Pete's
chillen stands up fur dey mammy, an' dey don't take no stock in him
ma'yin' ag'in. But Ca'line she been dead _long enough_--mos' six
mont's--countin' fo' weeks ter de mont'. An' as fur me, I done 'ranged
ter have eve'ything did ter show respec's ter Numa." (Numa was her
deceased husband.) "De organ-player he gwine march us in chu'ch by de
same march he played fur Numa's fun'al, an' look like dat in itse'f is
enough ter show de world dat I ain't forgot Numa. An', tell de trufe,
Mis' Gladys, ef Numa was ter rise up f'om his grave, I'd sen' Pete
a-flyin' so fast you could sen' eggs to market on his coat tail.
"You see, de trouble is I done had my eye on Pete's chillen ever sence
dey mammy died, an' ef dey ever was a set o' onery, low-down, sassy,
no-'count little niggers dat need takin' in hand by a able-bodied
step-mammy, dey a-waitin' fur me right yonder in Pete's cabin. My hand
has des nachelly itched to take aholt o' dat crowd many a day--an' ever
sence I buried Numa of co'se I see de way was open. An' des as soon
as I felt like I could bring myse'f to it, I--well--Dey warn't no
use losin' time, an' so I _tol' you, missy, dat de kitchen need'
white-washin'_."
"And so you sent for him--and proposed to him, did you?"
"P'opose to who, Mis' Gladys? I'd see Pete in de sinkin' swamp 'fo' I'd
p'opose to him!"
"Then how did you manage it, pray?"
"G'way, Mis' Gladys! Any wide-awake widder 'oman dat kin get a widder
man whar he can't he'p but see her move round at her work for two days
hand-runnin', an' can't mesmerize him so's he'll ax her to marry
him--Um--hm! I'd ondertake ter do dat, even ef I warn't no cook; but wid
seasonin's an' flavors to he'p me--Law, chile! dey warn't no yearthly
'scape fur dem chillen!
"I would 'a' waited," she added, presently--"I would 'a' waited a
reas'nable time, 'cep'n dat Pete started gwine ter chu'ch, an' you know
yo'se'f, missy, when a well-favored widder man go ter seek consolation
f'om de pulpit, he's might' ap' ter find it in de congergation."
As I sat listening to her quiet exposition of her scheme, it seemed
monstrous.
"And so, Moriah," I spoke now with a ring of real severity in my
voice--"and so you are going to marry a man that you confess you don't
care for, just for the sake of getting control of his children? I
wouldn't have believed it of you."
"Well--partly, missy." She smiled a little now for the first time.
"Partly on dat account, an' partly on his'n. Pete's wife Ca'line, she
was a good 'oman, but she was mighty puny an' peevish; an' besides dat,
she was one o' deze heah naggers, an' Pete is allus had a purty hard
pull, an' I lay out ter give him a better chance. Eve'y bit o'
whitewashin' he'd git ter do 'roun' town, Ca'line she'd swaller it in
medicine. But she was a good 'oman, Ca'line was. Heap o' deze heah
naggers is good 'omans! Co'se I don't say I _loves_ Pete, but I looks
ter come roun' ter 'im in time. Ef I didn't, I wouldn't have him."
"And how about his loving you?"
"Oh, Mis' Gladys, you is so searching!" She chuckled. "Co'se he _say_
he loves me already better'n he love Ca'line, but of co'se a widder man
he feels obleeged ter talk dat-a-way. An' ef he didn't have the manners
ter say it, I wouldn't have him, to save his life; but _ef he meant it,
I'd despise him_. After Ca'line lovin' de groun' he tread fur nine long
yeahs, he ain't got no right ter love _no_ 'oman better'n he love her
des 'caze he's a-projec'in' ter git married to 'er. But of co'se, Mis'
Gladys, I ca'culates ter outstrip Ca'line in co'se o' time. Ef I
couldn't do dat--an' she in 'er grave--_an' me a cook_--I wouldn't
count myse'f much. An' den, time I outstrips her an' git him over,
heart _an'_ soul, I'll know it by de signs."
"Why will you know it more than you know it now? He can but swear it to
you."
"Oh no, missy. When de rock bottom of a man's heart warms to a 'oman, he
eases off f'om swearin' 'bout it. Deze heah men wha' swear so much, dey
swear des as much ter convince deyselves as dey does ter ketch a 'oman's
ear. No, missy. Time I got him heart _an'_ soul, I looks for him to
commence to th'ow up Ca'line's ways ter me. Heap of 'em does dat des ter
ease dey own consciences an' pacify a dead 'oman's ghost. Dat's de way a
man nachelly do. But he won't faze me, so long as I holds de fort! An'
fur de chillen, co'se quick as I gits 'em broke in I'll see dat dey
won't miss Ca'line none. Dat little teether, I done tol' Pete ter fetch
her over ter me right away. Time I doctors her wid proper teas, an'
washes her in good warm pot-liquor, I'll make a fus'-class baby out'n
her."
Moriah had always been a good woman, and as she stood before me, laying
bare the scheme that, no matter what the conditions, had in it the
smallest selfish consideration, I felt my heart warm to her again, and I
could not but feel that the little whitewasher--a kindly, hard-pressed
family man of slight account--would do well to lay his brood upon her
ample bosom.
Of course _she_ was marrying _him_, and her acquisition of family would
inevitably become pensioners upon our bounty; but this is not a great
matter in a land where the so-called "cultivation" of the soil is
mainly a question of pruning and selection, and clothes grow upon the
commonest bush.
As she turned to go, I even offered her my best wishes, and when I
laughingly asked her if I might help her with her wedding-dress, she
turned and looked at me.
"Bless yo' heart, Mis' Gladys," she exclaimed, "_I ain't gwine out o'
mo'nin'_! I gwine marry Pete in des what I got on my back. I'll _marry_
him, an' I'll take dem little no-'counts o' his'n, an' I'll make
_folks_ out'n 'em 'fo' I gits th'ough wid 'em, ef Gord spares me; but
he nee'n't ter lay out ter come in 'twix' me an' my full year o'
mo'nin' fur Numa. When I walks inter dat chu'ch, 'cep'n' fur de owange
wreaf, which of co'se in a Christian ma'iage I'm boun' ter wear, folks
'll be a heap mo' 'minded o' Numa 'n dey will o' de bridegroom. An' dem
chillen o' his'n, which ain't nuver is had no proper mo'nin' fur dey
mammy--no mo' 'n what color Gord give 'em in dey skins--I gwine put 'em
in special secon' mo'nin', 'cordin' to de time dey ought ter been
wearin' it; an' when we walks up de island o' de chu'ch, dey got ter
foller, two by two, keepin' time ter de fun'al march. You come ter de
weddin', Mis' Gladys, an' I lay you'll 'low dat I done fixed it so dat,
while I'm a-lookin' out fur de livin', de dead ain't gwine feel
slighted, right nur left."
She was starting away again, and once more, while I wished her joy, I
bade her be careful to make no mistake. A note of sympathy in my voice
must have touched the woman, for she turned, and coming quite up to me,
laid her hand upon my lap.
"Missy," she said, "I don't believe I gwine make no mistake. You know I
allus did love chillen, an' I ain't nuver is had none o' my own, an'
dis heah seemed like my chance. An' I been surveyin' de lan'scape o'er
tryin' ter think about eve'ything I can do _ter start right_. I'm
a-startin' wid dem chillen, puttin' 'em in mo'nin' fur Ca'line. Den,
fur Pete, I gwine ring de changes on Ca'line's goodness tell he ax me,
_for Gord sake, ter stop_, so, in years ter come, he won't have nothin'
ter th'ow up ter me. An' you know de reason I done tooken fo' days off,
missy? I gwine on a weddin'-trip down ter Pine Bluff, an' I wants time
ter pick out a few little weddin'-presents to fetch home ter Pete."
"Pete!" I cried. "Pete is going with you, of course?"
"Pete gwine wid me? Who sesso? No, ma'am! Why, missy, how would it look
fur me ter go a-skylarkin' roun' de country wid Pete--_an' me in
mo'nin'_?
"No, indeedy! I gwine leave Pete home ter take keer dem chillen, an' I
done set him a good job o' whitewashin' to do while I'm gone, too. De
principles' weddin'-present I gwine fetch Pete is a fiddle. Po' Pete
been wantin' a good fiddle all his life, an' he 'ain't nuver is had one.
But, of co'se, I don't 'low ter let him play on it tell de full year of
mo'nin' is out."
AN OPTICAL DILEMMA
Elder Bradley had lost his spectacles, and he was in despair. He was
nearly blind without them, and there was no one at home to hunt them for
him. His wife had gone out visiting for the afternoon; and he had just
seen Dinah, the cook, stride gleefully out the front gate at the end of
the lane, arrayed in all her "s'ciety uniform," on her way to a church
funeral. She would not be home until dark.
It was growing late in the afternoon, and the elder had to make out his
report to be read at the meeting of the session this evening. It _had
to be done_.
He could not, from where he sat, distinguish the pink lion's head from
the purple rose-buds on the handsome new American Brussels rug that his
wife had bought him as a Christmas gift--to lay under her
sewing-machine--although he could put out his boot and touch it. How
could he expect to find anything so small as a pair of spectacles?
The elder was a very old man, and for years his focal point had been
moving off gradually, until now his chief pleasures of sight were to be
found out-of-doors, where the distant views came gratefully to meet him.
He could more easily distinguish the dark glass insulators from the
little sparrows that sometimes came to visit them upon the telegraph
pole a quarter of a mile away than he could discriminate between the
beans and the pie that sometimes lay together on his dinner plate.
Indeed, when his glasses stayed lost over mealtimes, as they had
occasionally done, he had, after vainly struggling to locate the various
viands upon his plate and suffering repeated palatal disappointments,
generally ended by stirring them all together, with the declaration that
he would at least get one certain taste, and abide by it.
This would seem to show him to have been an essentially amiable man,
even though he was occasionally mastered by such outbursts of impatience
as this; for, be it said to his credit, he always left a clean plate.
The truth is, Elder Bradley was an earnest, good man, and he had tried
all his life, in a modest, undeclared way, to be a Christian
philosopher. And he would try it now. He had been, for an hour after his
mishap, walking more rapidly than was his habit up and down the entire
length of the hall that divided the house into two distinct sides, and
his head had hung low upon his bosom. He had been pondering. Or perhaps
he had been praying. His dilemma was by no means a thing to be taken
lightly.
Suddenly realizing, however, that he had squandered the greater part of
a valuable afternoon in useless repining, he now lifted his head and
glanced about him.
"I'm a-goin' to find them blame spec's--eyes or no eyes!" He spoke with
a steady voice that had in it the ring of the invincible spirit that
dares failure. And now, having resolved and spoken, he turned and
entered the dining-room--and sat down. It was here that he remembered
having last used the glasses. He would sit here and think.
It was a rather small room, which would have been an advantage in
ordinary circumstances. But to the elder its dimensions were an
insurmountable difficulty. How can one compass a forty-rod focus within
the limits of a twelve by sixteen foot room?
But if his eyes could not help him, his hands must. He had taken as few
steps as possible in going about the room, lest he should tread upon the
glasses unawares; and now, stepping gingerly, and sometimes merely
pushing his feet along, he approached his writing-table and sat down
before it. Then he began to feel. It was a tedious experiment and a
hazardous one, and after a few moments of nervous and fruitless groping,
he sought relief in expression.
"That's right! turn over!" he exclaimed. "I s'pose you're the red ink!
Now if I could jest capsize the mucilage-bottle an' my bag o' snuff, an'
stir in that Seidlitz-powder I laid out here to take, it would be purty
cheerful for them fiddle-de-dees an' furbelows thet's layin' everywhere.
I hope they'll ketch it ef anything does! They's nothin' I feel so much
like doin' ez takin' a spoon to the whole business!"
The elder was a popular father, grandfather, uncle, husband, and
Bible-class teacher to a band of devoted women of needle-work and
hand-painting proclivities, and his writing-table was a favorite target
for their patiently wrought love-missiles.
One of the strongest evidences of the old man's kindliness of nature was
that it was only when he was wrought up to the point of desperation, as
now, that he spoke his mind about the gewgaws which his soul despised.
There are very few good old elders in the Presbyterian Church who care
to have pink bows tied on their penholders, or to be reminded at every
turn that they are hand-painted and daisy-decked "Dear Grandfathers." It
is rather inconvenient to have to dodge a daisy or a motto every time
one wants to dry a letter on his blotting-pad, and the hand-painted
paper-cutter was never meant to cut anything.
"Yes," the good old man repeated, "ef I knowed I could stir in every
blame thing thet's got a ribbon bow or a bo'quet on it, I'd take a spoon
to this table now--an' stir the whole business up--an' start fresh!"
Still, as his hand tipped a bottle presently, he caught it and set it
cautiously back in its place.
He had begun now to systematically feel over the table, proceeding
regularly with both hands from left to right and back again, until on a
last return trip he discerned the edge of the mahogany next his body.
And then he said--and he said it with spirit:
"Dod blast it! They ain't here--nowheres!"
He sat still now for a moment in thought. And then he began to remember
that he had sat talking to his wife at the sewing-machine just before
she left the house. He rose and examined the table of the machine and
the floor beneath it. Then he tried the sideboard and the window-sill,
where he had read his morning chapter from St. Paul's Epistle to the
Romans, chapter viii.
He even shook out the leaves of his Testament upon the floor between his
knees and felt for them there. There had been a Biblical surrender of
this sort more than once in the past, and he never failed to go to the
Good Book for relief, even when, as now, he distinctly remembered having
worn the glasses after his daily reading.
Failing to find them here, he suddenly ran his hand over his forehead
with an eager movement. Many a time these very spectacles had come back
to him there, and, strange to say, it was always one of the last places
he remembered to examine. But they were not there now.
He chuckled, even in his despair, as he dropped his hand.
"I'll look there ag'in after a while. Maybe when he's afeerd I'll clair
lose my soul, he'll fetch 'em back to me!"
The old man had often playfully asserted that his "guardeen angel" found
his lost glasses, and laid them back on his head for him when he saw him
tried beyond his strength. And maybe he was right. Who can tell? That
there is some sort of so-called "supernatural" intervention in such
matters there seems to be little doubt.
There is a race--of brownies, probably, or maybe they are imps--whose
business in life seems to be to catch up any needed trifle--a suddenly
dropped needle, the very leaf in the morning paper that the reader held
a moment ago and that holds "continuations," the scissors just now at
his elbow, his collar button--and to hide it until the loser swears his
ultimate, most desperate swear!
When the profanity is satisfactory, the little fellows usually fetch
back the missing article, lay it noiselessly under the swearer's nose,
and vanish.
At other times, when the victim persistently declines profanity, they
have been known to amiably restore the articles after a reasonable time,
and to lay them so absurdly in evidence that the hitherto forbearing man
breaks his record in a volley of imprecations.
When this happens, if one has presence of mind to listen, he can
distinctly hear a fine metallic titter along the tops of the furniture
and a hasty scamper, as of tiny scurrying feet.
This may sound jocund, but the writer testifies that it is true.
Of course when the victim is a lady the pixies do not require of them
men's oaths. But they will have only her best.
When the elder had tried in vain all the probable places where the
glasses might be hidden, he began to realize that there was only one
thing left for him to do. He must feel all over the floor.
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