Daisy. Warner Susan
was a poor concern of a pony; but to my eyes he was beautiful. He took one or two sugarplums from my hand with as much amenity as if we had been old acquaintances. Then a boy was put on him, who rode him up and down with a halter.
"He'll do, Darius," said Preston.
"For little missis? Just big enough, massa. Got no tricks at all, only he no like work. Not much spring in him."
"Daisy must take the whip, then. Come and let us go look at some of the country where you will ride. Are you tired, Daisy?"
"Oh no," I said. "But wait a minute, Preston. Who lives in all those houses?"
"The people. The hands. They are away in the fields at work now."
"Does Darius live there?"
"Of course. They all live here."
"I should like to go nearer, and see the houses."
"Daisy, it is nothing on earth to see. They are all just alike, and you see them from here."
"I want to look in," I said, moving down the slope.
"Daisy," said Preston, "you are just as fond of having your way as – "
"As what? I do not think I am, Preston."
"I suppose nobody thinks he is," grumbled Preston, following me, "except the fellows who can't get it."
I had by this time almost forgotten Miss Pinshon. I had almost come to think that Magnolia might be a pleasant place. In the intervals when the pony was out of sight, I had improved my knowledge of the old coachman; and every look added to my liking. There was something I could not read that more and more drew me to him. A simplicity in his good manners, a placid expression in his gravity, a staid reserve in his humility, were all there; and more yet. Also the scene in the dell was charming to me. The ground about the negro cottages was kept neat; they were neatly built of stone and stood round the sides of a quadrangle; while on each side and below the wooded slopes of ground closed in the picture. Sunlight was streaming through and brightening up the cottages, and resting on Uncle Darry's swart face. Down through the sunlight I went to the cottages. The first door stood open, and I looked in. At the next I was about to knock, but Preston pushed open the door for me; and so he did for a third and a fourth. Nobody was in them. I was a good deal disappointed. They were empty, bare, dirty, and seemed to be very forlorn. What a set of people my mother's hands must be, I thought. Presently I came upon a ring of girls, a little larger than I was, huddled together behind one of the cottages. There was no manners about them. They were giggling and grinning, hopping on one foot, and going into other awkward antics; not the less that most of them had their arms filled with little black babies. I had got enough for that day, and turning about, left the dell with Preston.
At the head of the dell, Preston led off in a new direction, along a wide avenue that ran through the woods. Perfectly level and smooth, with the woods closing in on both sides and making long vistas through their boles and under their boughs. By and by we took another path that led off from this one, wide enough for two horses to go abreast. The pine trees were sweet overhead and on each hand, making the light soft and the air fragrant. Preston and I wandered on in delightful roaming; leaving the house and all that it contained at an unremembered distance. Suddenly we came out upon a cleared field. It was many acres large; in the distance a number of people were at work. We turned back again.
"Preston," I said, after a silence of a few minutes, – "there seemed to be no women in those cottages. I did not see any."
"I suppose not," said Preston; "because there were not any to see."
"But had all those little babies no mothers?"
"Yes, of course, Daisy; but they were in the field."
"The mothers of those little babies?"
"Yes. What about it? Look here – are you getting tired?"
I said no; and he put his arm round me fondly, so as to hold me up a little; and we wandered gently on, back to the avenue, then down its smooth course further yet from the house, then off by another wood path through the pines on the other side. This was a narrower path, amidst sweeping pine branches and hanging creepers, some of them prickly, which threw themselves all across the way. It was not easy getting along. I remarked that nobody seemed to come there much.
"I never came here myself," said Preston, "but I know it must lead out upon the river somewhere, and that's what I am after. Hollo! we are coming to something. There is something white through the trees. I declare, I believe – "
Preston had been out in his reckoning, and a second time had brought me where he did not wish to bring me. We came presently to an open place, or rather a place where the pines stood a little apart; and there in the midst was a small enclosure. A low brick wall surrounded a square bit of ground, with an iron gate on one side of the square; within, the grassy plot was spotted with the white marble of tombstones. There were large and small. Overhead, the great pine trees stood and waved their long branches gently in the wind. The place was lonely and lovely. We had come, as Preston guessed, to the river, and the shore was here high; so that we looked down upon the dark little stream far below us. The sunlight, getting low by this time, hardly touched it; but streamed through the pine trees and over the grass, and gilded the white marble with gold.
"I did not mean to bring you here," said Preston, "I did not know I was bringing you here. Come, Daisy – we'll go and try again."
"Oh stop!" I said – "I like it. I want to look at it."
"It is the cemetery," said Preston. "That tall column is the monument of our great – no, of our great-great-grandfather; and this brown one is for mamma's father. Come, Daisy! – "
"Wait a little," I said. "Whose is that with the vase on top?"
"Vase?" said Preston – "it's an urn. It is an urn, Daisy. People do not put vases on tombstones."
I asked what the difference was.
"The difference? O Daisy, Daisy! Why vases are to put flowers in; and urns – I'll tell you, Daisy, – I believe it is because the Romans used to burn the bodies of their friends and gather up the ashes and keep them in a funeral urn. So an urn comes to be appropriate to a tombstone."
"I do not see how," I said.
"Why because an urn comes to be an emblem of mortality and all that. Come, Daisy; let us go."
"I think a vase of flowers would be a great deal nicer," I said. "We do not keep the ashes of our friends."
"We don't put signs of joy over their graves either," said Preston.
"I should think we might," I said meditatively. "When people have gone to Jesus – they must be very glad!"
Preston burst out with an expression of hope that Miss Pinshon would "do something" for me; and again would have led me away; but I was not ready to go. My eye, roving beyond the white marble and the low brick wall, had caught what seemed to be a number of meaner monuments, scattered among the pine trees and spreading down the slope of the ground on the further side, where it fell off towards another dell. In one place a bit of board was set up; further on a cross; then I saw a great many bits of board and crosses; some more and some less carefully made; and still as my eye roved about over the ground they seemed to start up to view in every direction; too low and too humble and too near the colour of the fallen pine leaves to make much show unless they were looked for. I asked what they all were.
"Those? Oh, those are for the people, you know."
"The people?" I repeated.
"Yes, the people – the hands."
"There are a great many of them," I remarked.
"Of course," said Preston. "You see, Daisy, there have been I don't know how many hundreds of hands here for a great many years, ever since mother's grandfather's time."
"I should think," said I, looking at the little board slips and crosses among the pine cones on the ground, – "I should think they would like to have something nicer to put up over their graves."
"Nicer? those are good enough," said Preston. "Good enough for them."
"I should