Rose O'Paradise. Grace Miller White
indeed, sir! I often walk five miles to play a while with one. None of the mothers around Mottville Corners’ll let their girls be with me. You see, this house has a bad name.”
A deep crimson dyed the man’s ashen skin. He made as if to speak, but Jinnie went on.
“Over in the Willow Creek settlement the kids are awful bad, but I get along with ’em fine, because I love ’em right out of being hellish.”
She was gazing straight into her father’s face in all sincerity, with no trace of embarrassment.
“You know Mrs. Barker, the housekeeper you left me with?” she demanded a little later. “Well, she died when I was ten. Matty stayed, thinking every day you’d come home. I suppose mebbe I did grow up sort of cussed, and I suppose everybody thinks I’m bad because I’ve only a nigger to live with, and no mother, not—not even you.”
Singleton partly smothered an oath which lengthened itself into a groan, looked long at the slim young figure, then at the piquant face.
“Just lately I’ve been wanting some one of my own to love,” she pursued. “I only had Milly and her cats. Then the letter come saying you’d be here—and I’m very glad.”
The smile lighting her face and playing with the dimples in her cheeks made Thomas Singleton feel as if Heaven’s breath had touched him.
“Do you care at all for me?” he asked gloomily.
There had come over him a desire that this winsome girl—winsome in spite of her crudity—would say she did. Wonder, love, sympathy, were alive in her eyes. Jinnie nodded her head.
“Oh, yes, sir!” she murmured. “Of course I love you! I couldn’t tell you how much. … I love—why, I even 15 love Mose. Mose’s Matty’s man. He stole and et up all our chickens—but I love him just the same. I felt sorry about his killing the hens, because I loved them too.”
“I see,” sighed the father.
“Now there’s Molly—I call her Molly the Merry––”
“Who’s Molly the Merry?” interrupted Singleton.
“Old Merriweather’s daughter. She’s prettier than the summer roses, and they’re pretty, believe me. Her smiles’re warmer’n the sun.”
“Ah, yes! I remember the Merriweathers. Is the old man still alive?”
“Well, yes, but he’s as good as dead, though. Ain’t walked in three years. And Matty’s man, Mose, told Matty, and Matty told me, he’s meaner’n forty damn devils.”
“So you swear, too?” asked the father, breathing deeply.
Virginia opened wide and wider two sparkling blue eyes.
“Swear, sir?” she protested. “I didn’t swear.”
“Pardon me,” replied Singleton, laconically. “I thought I heard you say ‘damn’ several times.”
Virginia’s smile showed two rows of white teeth.
“Oh, so you did!” she laughed, rising. “But ‘damn’ isn’t swearing. You ought to hear me really swear sometimes. Shall I show you how I—I can swear?”
Singleton shook his head.
“I’d rather you wouldn’t! … Sit down again, please.”
The man at intervals turned a pair of burning bright eyes upon her. They weren’t unlike her own eyes, only their expression puzzled Virginia.
She could not understand the rapid changes in her father. He wasn’t the man she had mentally known all these years. But then, all she had had by which to visualize 16 him was an old torn picture, turned face to the wall in the garret. He didn’t look at all like the painting—he was thinner, older, and instead of the tender expression on the handsome, boyish face, time had placed one of bitterness, anxiety, and dread. He sat, crouched forward, stirring the grate fire, seemingly lost in thought. Virginia remained quiet until he was ready to speak.
“I’m going to die soon—very soon.”
It was only natural that Virginia should show how his statement shocked her. She grew deathly white, and an expression of misery knit the lovely young face.
“How soon?” she shivered, drawing back.
“Perhaps to-night—perhaps not for weeks, but I must tell you something before then.”
“All right,” agreed Virginia, “all right. … I’m here.”
“I haven’t been a good father to you,” the man began after a pause, “and I’m not sure I could do better if I should stay on here with you. So I might as well go now as any time! Your mother would’ve done differently if she’d lived. You look some like her.”
“I’m sorry I don’t remember her,” remarked Virginia apologetically.
“She went away when you were too little even to know her. Then I left you, too, though I don’t suppose any one but her could have made you happy.”
“Oh, I’ve been happy!” Jinnie asserted. “Old Aunt Matty and the cats’re all I need around, and I always have my fiddle. I found it in the garret.”
It was easy to believe that she was telling the truth, for to all appearances she looked happy and healthy. However, Mr. Singleton’s eyes darkened and saddened under the words. Nothing, perhaps, had ever touched him so deeply. 17
“It’s no life for a girl of fifteen years to live with cats and niggers,” he muttered.
One less firmly faithful to conscience would have acquiesced in this truthful statement; not so Virginia.
“Matty’s a good nigger!” she insisted, passionately. “She’d do anything she could for me!”
Seemingly the man was not impressed by this, for his strong jaws were set and unyielding upon the unlighted cigar clenched between his teeth.
“I might as well tell you to-night as to-morrow,” he concluded, dropping the cigar on the table. “Your mother left you her money and property when she died.”
“I know it, sir, and it’s a lot, too! Matty told me about it one night along with ’er ghost stories, sir. … Ever heard Matty’s ghost stories, sir?”
“No, but I didn’t bring you here to talk about Matty. And tell me, what makes you say ‘sir’ to me all the time?”
His impatient tone, his sharp, rasping voice, didn’t change Virginia’s respectful attitude. She only bent her head a trifle and replied:
“Anybody must always say ‘sir’ to another body when she’s kind of half afraid of him, sir.”
She was composed for a moment, then went on:
“It isn’t every day your father comes home, sir, and I’ve waited a long, long time. I’d be a hell of a kid if I couldn’t muster up a ‘sir’ for you.”
Singleton glanced sidewise at his young daughter, bending his brows together in a frown.
“You’re a queer sort of a girl, but I suppose it’s to be expected when you’ve only lived with niggers. … Now will you remember something if I tell it to you?”
“Yes, sir,” breathed Virginia, drawing back a little from his strong emotion.
“Well, this! Don’t ever say ‘sir’ to any human being 18 living! Don’t ever! Do you understand me? What I mean is, when you say ‘sir,’ it’s as if you were—as if you were a servant or afraid—you make yourself menial. Can you remember, child?”
“Yes, sir—yes, I’ll remember. … I think I’ll remember.”
“If