My Young Master. Opie Percival Read
upon me, "po' Miss Lou is gone—she died jest now."
The goodness and the sweetness of that fair young woman rushed upon me, and I could not see for the tears that gushed to my eyes. In a moment I recounted her kindness and her winsome smile—she had never spoken a cross word to me. I had lost a protecting friend. Under a tree I lay with my face buried in the grass, sobbing. An arm stole about my neck. I looked up. Bob lay beside me.
This was my first grief. And oh, the awful sadness of the funeral. Everywhere the negro's mellow song was hushed, and the trace-chains no longer jangled. The sun was bright, the rose was fresh, the stiff-neck tulip was proud, but the creek which yesterday went laughing through the pasture was mourning now. The horses stood looking over the fence, the frisky colts were surprised, and turning from their play, stretched themselves out upon the clover. Old Aunt Mag dressed me, with the tears shining on her black face. "Her speret is praisin' de Lawd dis mornin'," she said. "You kin go ter de house now. All de black folks is gwine ter look at her."
I stood at the parlor door, with my knees trembling. Old Master came out to walk up and down the veranda. He saw me looking wistfully at him, and he halted to speak to me, but his chin shook and he walked on. Miss May came to me and told me to come with her. I stepped into the room and my heart leaped into my throat at the sight—Miss Lou lying on a bed of roses. Slowly our people came in, as silent as the pillow of white roses holding that beautiful head, and stood there, awe-struck. From a distant room came the broken lamentations of Old Miss. An old black man, a giant who preached for the negroes, stood at the head of the rose-shroud. He gazed with the tears in his eyes, and turning away he said: "De Lawd neber called home er mo' beautiful speret." Old Master came in, and the two men put their hands upon each other and wept.
There was no hearse, no carriages. Through the garden gate they bore their beautiful burden, and slowly the throng of neighbors followed, the negroes chanting mournfully. A white man spoke of the resurrection and the light, and the old negro giant prayed, with his knees in the clay. Old Master led Old Miss home to the dead hush of the great house; and at midnight I heard the old man's feet pacing up and down the hall. It seemed a crime to let him walk out there alone. Once I thought I heard him stop at my door, and I got up and went to him. "Marster," I said, "won't you please let me walk with you?"
He said nothing, but he sobbed, and then I knew that he would not drive me away. And so I walked with him until daylight was come. "Run along now," he said. "Be a good boy and you will go—go where she has gone."
CHAPTER IV.
The days grew hotter, the green corn waved on the hill-side, the wheat was ripening, but the deep mystery of death was over it all. The boy goes about his play, he shouts and has his daily contentions, his quarrels and fights, but darkness comes, and as he goes to his bed, his mind reverts to a soul that has recently taken its flight. Older people have the consoling prop of religion or the forceful brace of philosophy, but in the boy's nostrils lives the scent of the roses that lay upon the breast of mystic death; a fear possesses him as he peeps in at the parlor door. Ah, many days must fall upon a sad memory before it is sweetened. They told me that my young mistress was in Heaven. I asked Aunt Mag if she would be my mistress there, and she said no, that there was no mistresses in Heaven, no slaves, but all white and the angels of God. And with the flash of iconoclastic reason that comes to youth, I asked her why God made black people belong to white people on the earth and afterward made them all equal in Heaven. The old woman turned from her spinning wheel and held up her hands in fright. "Chile," she said, "you musn't talk like dat. Whut de Lawd do it ain't fur us ter question, an' ef you wan't so young you mout git struck wid lightenin' fur sayin' dem words. Run off ober yander in de yard an' play. I'se er feered de lightenin' mought strike at you anyhow."
That night as Bob and I lay in our room, he in his high canopied bed, and I on my low lounge, I asked him if he knew that all the black people would be white in Heaven. "Yes, of course," he answered. "It would be a funny Heaven with a lot of niggers standing about, grinning."
"But they wouldn't have to grin."
"No, but they would."
"And you won't own me there, will you?" I said, after a moment's silence.
"No, you'll belong to God."
"But don't I belong to God now?"
I heard him turn over. "Yes, but you belong to me, too. And when I get through with you God may have you. Get over in my bed and I'll bet I can throw you out."
"No, Old Miss might hear us. But do you think," I asked after musing for a time, "that we'll know each other up there and talk about the time when we were down here?"
"Yes; why not?"
"But you'd tell me that I used to belong to you and God wouldn't like that."
"Well, then, we won't say anything about it, but we'll think about it all the same."
"Yes, we'd keep it to ourselves. But if a nigger angel beats a white angel flying, there'll be trouble, won't there?"
"There won't be anything of that. God won't let the nigger angels out-fly the white ones."
There came a tap at the door—a house-maid come to tell us that if we did not stop talking Old Miss would come in and whip us. We whispered and giggled a long time, and then Bob fell asleep, and I lay there thinking of the white roses that had scented the parlor. It must have been very late for the lights were out everywhere, when I heard voices on the walk just below my window. I looked out cautiously and in the moonlight I saw Old Master and Dr. George Bates. Master was walking up and down, but the doctor stood still.
"I want you to understand this," said the old man. "You are at perfect liberty to stay here as long as you choose—and I will feed you and clothe you, but you must have nothing whatever to say about the running of my affairs. You are constantly meddling with things that don't concern you."
"General, it is not my intention to interfere, I assure you."
"But you do," said Old Master, making an emphatic motion. "You seem to think that I ought to divide my property with you. Get that out of your head as soon as you can."
"It has never been in my head, General. I merely suggested that if you would give me Dan I would take him and go South."
"Give you Dan! Confound it, haven't I told you that he belongs to Bob?"
"Yes, but I didn't know but you gave him away just as a man sometimes gives a colt to a boy—merely to claim."
"I don't give things that way, sir."
"I know, but your wife—"
"There, that will do."
"She said that she thought that you might be induced—"
"Didn't I say that would do?"
"Yes, sir, but let me finish, if you please. Of course you know that my wife's share, whatever it may amount to, will fall to me?"
"Yes, if I so desire it, sir."
"But I know you well enough to feel that you won't refuse me."
"Now you are presuming upon my kindness, sir."
"No, sir; I am paying a tribute to your sense of justice. And now this is what I have agreed to do: to take Dan and wait until you are ready—"
"You have agreed with whom, sir?" Old Master broke in.
"Oh, I don't know that it was exactly an agreement. I had a talk with your wife, and—"
"Infamous puppy!" Old Master cried, shaking his fist in the doctor's face. "Didn't I tell you that you'd gone far enough in that direction?"
"General," said the doctor, stepping back, "you have insulted me."
Old Master snorted. "Oh, I have insulted you,