Morning at Jalna. Mazo de la Roche
the sake of her nerves. It must be strange to her to have slaves in the house.”
“That is nothing to us,” repeated Wilmott.
A silence followed, then Tite, with a sidelong look, asked, “Have you seen the slaves, Boss?”
“I have not. How many are there?”
“Three, Boss.”
“Well!” Wilmott ejaculated. “Well — that seems rather a lot. Are they men or women?”
“One man and two women, Boss.”
“Have you spoken with them?”
“I am always friendly with strangers, Boss. I have talked with them. The older woman is fat; for one thing she is heavy with child.”
“Tck!” exclaimed Wilmott.
“Yes indeed, Boss.”
“Is the man her husband?”
“No, Boss. She left her husband and three children in the South because she is so devoted to her mistress — just as I would leave my wife and my children, if I had them, to go with you.”
“I should advise you,” said Wilmott, “not to question these Negroes. Better keep away from them, Tite.”
“I am a friendly man, Boss.” The half-breed showed his white teeth in a smile. “Also I have no class-consciousness. I myself am of mixed blood. I am scarcely white. Yet a young white lady once told me that I had a mouth like a pomegranate flower. Do you think that was meant as a compliment, Boss?”
“Don’t remind me of that affair, Tite,” Wilmott said sternly.
“That was years ago, and I am of a more noble character now. You have heard of the noble red man, Boss?”
“I am glad to hear of your nobility,” said Wilmott, wondering whether education had been good for Tite.
“The young woman slave” — Tite spoke in a judicial tone — “is a mulatto — the shade of café au lait. You see, I know a little French. She is a very pretty girl, Boss.”
“I want you to keep strictly away from that young woman.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Tite with dignity. “Still, she is very pretty and her name is Annabelle. Her face is sensitive — a quality you don’t find very often in women.”
“Keep away from her,” repeated Wilmott, “or you may get into trouble.”
“Trouble with whom, sir?”
“Probably with the Negro man.”
“Oh, no, Boss. Annabelle is miles above him. He is an ignorant fellow who knows not how to read or write, though he can do arithmetic in his head.”
“How do you come by all this information, Tite?”
“I keep my eyes and ears open. That is what makes life interesting.”
Tite drifted away. He fished in a shady pool of the stream which abounded in fish. He cleaned and cooked fish for the evening meal. He washed up. When dusk fell he took the narrow path to Jalna by which Adeline had come that morning.
The sounds and smells of night were stealing out, at first as though timidly, then taking possession of the darkness. The scent of virgin soil, of cedar, of pine, of the balm of Gilead tree, weighed sweetly on the night air. The twittering of small birds, the confidential croaking of frogs, the newly awakened chorus of the locusts, joined in the dismissal of day and the welcoming of night.
The half-breed did not consciously give himself to these pleasures. He absorbed them through his very pores — the soles of his feet, the skin of his dark face. Plainly this night walk was not aimless, for he turned abruptly from the path that led to Jalna, descended another path that would have been difficult to find, had he been less sensitive to the feel of the earth and the change in the air, as he followed the path down into the ravine. Down there a stream was moving swiftly, unseen but clearly heard in its nocturnal singing. It was spanned by a rustic bridge and walking across it was a large white owl whose hearing, even more acute than Tite’s, detected the coming of the young man. It rose, with a heavy flutter of wings, into the shelter of a massive tree.
Tite gave a little laugh and, raising an imaginary bow, sent an imaginary arrow into the owl’s white breast. As though in wonder, it uttered a loud “whoo-whoo.” Tite now went and stood on the bridge listening. He had not long to wait. A dark figure stole out from the undergrowth. The young mulatto girl joined him silently on the bridge.
He took her hand and they stood so linked for a moment. Then he said, “You did well, Annabelle, not to keep me waiting. I am an impatient fellow and would have searched till I found you — and then —”
“What then?” she breathed.
“I can’t tell you. I do things on impulse. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad.”
In her soft voice Annabelle said: “Ah reckon you’se good, Tite.”
“Why?” he laughed.
“You’s so educated.”
“That doesn’t matter. We’re happy together. As for my education — what chance has an Indian got? Any more than a Negro.”
“Ah’m part white. My grandfather was a white man. My grandmother was just his slave. But she was pretty.”
“And so are you, Belle — pretty as a picture.”
She moved closer to him. He could smell her warm dark flesh and cheap perfume.
“Tite,” she whispered, “do you love de Lawd?”
He was startled but he asked, “Do you want me to love Him, Belle?”
“Ah certainly does. Ah’m religious. All us three — Jerry, Cindy, and me — enjoy a good meetin’. Next to a weddin’ or a funeral.”
Tite, after a moment’s hesitation, said, in a voice that thrilled the emotional girl, “I too am religious.”
“You ain’t a Catholic, are you?”
“What made you think I might be?”
“Well, you said you was part French.”
“What denomination do you belong to, Belle?”
“Ah’m a sort of Baptist. But I enjoy any sort of revival meetin’.”
“So do I,” Tite said fervently.
The girl said, in her soft thick accents, “There’s over thirty of us coloured folk in these parts. There’s a preacher among us. Cap’n Whiteoak, he’s lent us a nice clean hayloft for meetin’s. We’re havin’ one on Sunday. We’ll sing and pray for the South, ’cause we want to go home again. Will you come to the meetin’, Tite?”
“I’ll be delighted,” said Tite, imitating Wilmott’s manner. He put his arm about the girl. Dusky cheek to cheek, they listened to the singing of the stream.
“Does religion mean more to you than love?” he asked, running his hand through her curls, for her hair was not woolly.
“Way more,” she murmured.
He felt a little rebuffed. “Why?” he asked. “Surely a pretty girl longs for love.”
“Ah likes the love of a man,” came the answer, “but Ah clings to the love of de Lawd.”
“So do I,” said Tite fervently.
The following morning he raised his eyes from the fish he was scaling and announced to Wilmott, “I’ve got religion, Boss.” His serious tone was scarcely matched by the expression of his eyes, for two fish-scales clung to his long lashes.
Wilmott looked down at him doubtfully. “What has brought that about?” he asked.
Tite