The Romance of a Plain Man. Glasgow Ellen Anderson Gholson
you sure they ain't among the vegetables?" I asked. "I saw them put in myself."
"Huh! en you seed 'em fall out, too, I lay!" rejoined the negress, protruding her thick red lips as she turned the basket upside down with an indignant blow.
"If they're lost, I'll go back and bring others," I said, thinking disconsolately of the hill.
"En you 'ould be back hyer agin in time fur supper," retorted the outraged divinity. "Wat you reckon Miss Mitty wants wid car'ots fur 'er supper? Dey is hern, dey ain' mine, but ef'n dey 'us mine I'd lamn you twel you couldn't see ter set. Hit's bad enough ter hev ter live erlong in de same worl' wid de slue-footed po' white trash widout hevin' dem a-snatchin' de car'ots outer yo' ve'y mouf."
My temper, never of the mildest, was stung quickly to a retort, and I was about to order her to hold her tongue and return me my basket, when the door into the house opened and shut, and the little girl of the enchanted garden appeared in the flesh before me.
"I want the plum cake you promised me, Aunt Mirabella," she cried; "and oh! I hope you've stuffed it full of plums!" Then her glance fell upon me and I saw her thick black eyebrows arch merrily over her sparkling grey eyes. "It's my boy! My dear common boy!" she exclaimed, with a rush toward me. For the first time I noticed then that she was dressed in mourning, and that her black clothes intensified the dark brightness of her look. "Oh, I am glad to see you," she added, seizing my hand.
I gazed up at her, wounded rather than pleased. "I shan't be a common boy always," I answered.
"Do you mind my calling you one? If you do, I won't," she said, and without waiting a minute, "What are you doing here? I thought you lived over on Church Hill."
"I don't now. Ma died and I ran away."
"My mother died, too," she returned softly, "and then grandmama."
For a moment there was a pause. Then I said with a kind of stubborn pride, "I ran away."
The sadness passed from her and she turned on me in a glow of animation. "Oh, I should just love dearly to run away!" she exclaimed.
"You couldn't. You're a girl."
"I could, too, if I chose."
"Then why don't you choose?"
"Because of Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca. They haven't anybody but me."
"I left my father," I replied proudly, "and I didn't care one single bit. That's the trouble with girls. They're always caring."
"Well, I'm not caring for you," she retorted with crushing effect, shaking back the soft cloud of hair on her shoulders.
"Boys don't care," I rejoined with indifference, taking up my market basket.
She detained me with a glance. "There's one thing they care about – dreadfully," she said.
"No, there ain't."
Without replying in words she went over to the stove, and standing on tiptoe, gingerly removed a hot plum cake, small and round and shaped like a muffin, from the smoking oven.
"I reckon they care about plum cake," she remarked tauntingly, and as she held it toward me it smelt divinely.
But my pride was in arms, for I remembered the cup of milk she had refused disdainfully more than three years ago in our little kitchen.
"No, they don't," I replied with a stoicism that might have added lustre to a nobler cause.
In my heart I was hoping that she would drop the cake into my basket in spite of my protest, not only sparing my pride by an act of magnanimity, but allowing me at the same time the felicity of munching the plums on my way back to the Old Market. But the next moment, to my surprise and indignation, she took a generous bite of the very dainty she had offered me, making, while she ate it, provoking faces of a rapturous enjoyment.
I was lingering in the doorway with a scornful yet fascinated gaze on the diminishing cake, when the pink-turbaned cook, who had gone out to empty a basin of pea shells, entered and resumed her querulous abuse.
"De bes' thing you kin do is ter clear out," she said, "you en yo' car'ots. He ain' fit'n fur you ter tu'n yo' eyes on, honey," she added to the child, "en I don' reckon yo' ma would let yo' wipe yo' foot on 'im ef'n she 'uz alive. Yes'm, Miss Mitty, I'se a-comin'!"
Her voice rose high in response to a call from the house, but before she could leave the kitchen, the door behind the little girl opened, and a lady said reprovingly: —
"Sally, Sally, haven't I told you to keep away from the kitchen?"
"Oh, Aunt Mitty, I had to come for my plum cake," pleaded Sally, "and Aunt Matoaca said that I might."
An elderly lady, all soft black and old yellow lace, stood in the doorway. Then before she could answer a second one appeared at her side, and I had a vision of two slender maidenly figures, who reminded me, meek heads, drooping faces, and creamy lace caps, of the wallflowers in the border outside blooming in a patch of sunshine close against the old grey house. At first there seemed to me to be no visible difference between them, but after a minute, I saw that the second one was gentler and smaller, with a softer smile and a more shrinking manner.
"It was my fault, Sister Mitty," she said, "I told Sally that she might come after her plum cake."
Her voice was so low and mild that I was amazed the next instant to hear the taller lady respond.
"Of course, Sister Matoaca, you were at liberty to do as you thought right, but I cannot conceal from you that I consider a person of your dangerous views an unsafe guardian for a young girl."
She advanced a step into the kitchen, and as Miss Matoaca followed her she replied in an abashed and faltering voice: —
"I am sorry, Sister Mitty, that we do not agree in our principles. There is nothing else that I will not sacrifice to you, but when a question of principle is concerned, however painful it is to me, I must be firm."
At this, while I was wondering what terrible thing a principle could possibly turn out to be, I saw Miss Mitty draw herself up until she fairly towered like a marble column about the shrinking figure in front of her.
"But such principles, Sister Matoaca!" she exclaimed.
A flush rose to the clear brown surface of the little lady's cheek, and more than ever, I thought, she resembled one of the wallflowers in the border outside. Her head, with its shiny parting of soft chestnut hair, was lifted with a mild, yet spirited gesture, and I saw the delicate lace at her throat and wrists tremble as if a faint wind had passed.
"Remember, sister, that my ancestors as well as yours fought against oppression in three wars," she said in her sweet low voice that had, to my ears, the sound of a silver bell, "and it has become my painful duty, after long deliberation with my conscience, to inform you – I consider that taxation without representation is tyranny."
"Sally, go into the house," commanded Miss Mitty, "I cannot permit you to hear such dangerous sentiments expressed."
"Let me go, Sister Mitty," said Miss Matoaca, for the flash of spirit had left her as wan and drooping as a blighted flower; "I will go myself," and turning meekly, she left the kitchen, while Sally took a second cake from the oven and came over to where I stood.
"I'll just put this into your basket anyway," she remarked, "even if you don't care about it."
"Come, child," urged Miss Mitty, waiting, "but give the boy his cake first."
The cake was put into my hands, not into the basket, and I took a large, delicious mouthful of it while I went by the meek wallflowers standing in a row, like prim maiden ladies, against the old grey house.
CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER
As I passed through the gate and turned down Franklin Street under a great sycamore that grew midway of the pavement, I vowed passionately in my heart that I would remain "a common boy" no longer. With the plum cake in my hand, and the delicious taste of it in my mouth, I placed my basket on the ground and leaned against the silvery body of the tree,