Rose O'Paradise. Grace Miller White
CHAPTER II
A WHITE PRESENCE
“Does yer pa want me?” grunted Matty, lifting a tousled black head.
Virginia made a gesture of negation.
“No, he told me to get the hell out,” she answered. “So I got! He’s awful sick! I guess mebbe he’ll die!”
Matty nodded meaningly.
“Some folks might better ’a’ stayed to hum for the past ten years than be runnin’ wild over the country like mad,” she observed.
Virginia reached behind the stove and drew Milly Ann from her bed.
“Father”—Jinnie enjoyed using the word and spoke it lingeringly—“says he wishes he’d stayed here now. You know, my Uncle Jordan, Matty––” She hesitated to confide in the negro woman what her father had told her. So she contented herself with:
“He’s coming here soon.”
Matty rolled her eyes toward the girl.
“I’se sorry for that, honey bunch.” Then, without explaining her words, asked: “Want me to finish about Jonathan Woggles’ grandpa dyin’?”
But Virginia’s mind was traveling in another channel.
“Where’s Bellaire, Matty?” she demanded.
“Off south,” replied the woman, “right bearin’ south.”
“By train?” 29
“Yes, the same’s walkin’ or flying’,” confirmed Matty. “Jest the same.”
“Then you can finish the story now, Matty,” said Virginia presently.
Matty settled back in her chair, closed her eyes, and began to hum.
“How far’d I tell last night?” she queried, blinking.
“Just to where the white thing was waiting for Grandpa Woggles’ spirit,” explained Virginia.
“Oh, yas. Well, round and round that house the white shadder swep’, keepin’ time to the howlin’ of other spirits in the pine trees––”
“But there aren’t any pine trees at Woggles’,” objected Virginia.
“Well, they’d be pines if they wasn’t oaks,” assured Matty. “Oaks or pines, the spirits live in ’em jest the same.”
“I ’spose so,” agreed Virginia. “Go on!”
“An’ round and round he went, meltin’ the snow with his hot feet,” mused Matty, sniffing the air. “And in the house Betty Woggles set beside the old man, holdin’ his hand, askin’ him to promise he wouldn’t die. … Hum! As if a human bein’ could keep from the stalkin’ whiteness beckonin’ from the graveyard. ’Tain’t in human power.”
“Can’t anybody keep death away, Matty?” inquired Virginia, an expression of awe clouding her eyes.
She was thinking of the man upstairs whom she but twice had called “father.”
“Nope, not after the warnin’ comes to him. Now Grandad Woggles had that warnin’ as much as three days afore the angel clim’ the fence and flopped about his house. But don’t keep breakin’ in on me, little missy, ’cause I cain’t finish if ye do, and I’se jest reachin’ the thrillin’ part.” 30
“Oh, then hurry,” urged Jinnie.
“Well, as I was sayin’, Betty set by the ole man, starin’ into his yeller face; ’twas as yeller as Milly Ann’s back, his face was.”
“Some yeller,” murmured Virginia, fondling Milly Ann.
“Sure! Everybody dyin’ gets yeller,” informed Matty.
Virginia thought again of the sick man upstairs. His face was white, not yellow, and her heart bounded with great hope. He might live yet a little while. Yes, he surely would! Matty was an authority when she told of the dead and dying, of the spirits which filled the pine trees, and it seldom occurred to Virginia to doubt the black woman’s knowledge. She wanted her father to live! Life seemed so dizzily upset with no Matty, with no Milly Ann, and no—father, somewhere in the world. Matty’s next words, spoken in a sepulchral whisper, bore down on her with emphasis.
“Then what do ye think, honey bunch?”
“I don’t know!” Virginia leaned forward expectantly.
“Jest as Betty was hangin’ fast onto her grandpa’s spirit, another ghost, some spots of black on him, come right longside the white one, wavin’ his hands’s if he was goin’ to fly.”
Virginia sat up very straight. Two spirits on the scene of Grandpa Woggles’ passing made the story more interesting, more thrilling. Her sparkling eyes gave a new impetus to the colored woman’s wagging tongue.
“The white spirit, he sez, ‘What you hangin’ round here fer?’ ”
Matty rolled her eyes upward. “This he sez to the black one, mind you!”
Virginia nodded comprehendingly, keeping her eyes glued on the shining dark face in front of her. She always dreaded, during the exciting parts of Matty’s nightly 31 stories, to see, by chance, the garden, with its trees and the white, silent graveyard beyond. And, although she had no fear of tangible things, she seldom looked out of doors when Matty crooned over her ghost stories.
Just then a bell pealed through the house.
Matty rose heavily.
“It’s yer pa,” she grumbled. “I’ll finish when I git back.”
Through the door the woman hobbled, while Virginia bent over Milly Ann, stroking her softly with a new expression of gravity on the young face. Many a day, in fancy, she had dreamed of her father’s homecoming. He was very different than her dreams. Still she hoped the doctor might have made a mistake about his dying. A smile came to the corners of her mouth, touched the dimples in her cheek, but did not wipe the tragedy from her eyes. She was planning how tenderly she would care for him, how cheerful he’d be when she played her fiddle for him.
She heard Matty groping up the stairs—heard her pass down the hall and open the door. Then suddenly she caught the sound of hurried steps and the woman coming down again. Matty had crawled up, but was almost falling down in her frantic haste to reach the kitchen. Something unusual had happened. Virginia shoved Milly Ann to the floor and stood up. Matty’s appearance, with chattering teeth and bulging eyes, brought Jinnie forward a few steps.
“He’s daid! Yer pa’s daid!” shivered Matty. “And the house is full of spirits. They’re standin’ grinnin’ in the corners. I’m goin’ hum now, little missy. I’m goin’ to my ole man. You’d better come along fer to-night.”
Jinnie heard the moaning call of the pine trees as the winter’s voice swept through them—the familiar sound 32 she loved, yet at which she trembled. Confused thoughts rolled through her mind; her father’s fear for her; his desire that she should seek another home. She could not stay in Mottville Corners; she could not go with Matty. No, of course not! Yet her throat filled with longing sobs, for the old colored woman had been with her many years.
By this time Matty had tied on her scarf, opened the door, and as Virginia saw her disappear, she sank limply to the floor. Milly Ann rubbed her yellow back against her young mistress’s dress. Virginia caught her