A Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter Part 14

a-prancin' 'roun' and takes off chilluns."

Sylvia knew that all the negroes believed in witches and all sorts of impossible tales, so Estralla's words did not at all frighten her, but she did wish that she was safe in her own home. The streets were now dark and silent, and black shadows seemed to lurk at every corner as, hand in hand, Estralla and Sylvia ran swiftly along.

"I tells you, Missy, dat it's jes' lucky I comes after you, cos'

witch-folks, w'at comes floatin' 'roun' 'bout dis hour of de night, dey ain't gwine to tech us; cos' when dey's two folks holdin' each other hands tight, jes' like we is, dey don't dast to tech us," said Estralla.

"Where were you, Estralla, when I came down-stairs?" Sylvia asked.

"I was jes' a-takin' a little sleep on de big rug side of your door, Missy. I'se been a-sleepin' dere dis long time. My mammy lets me. An'

when you opens de door I mos' calls out, but didn't. I jes' stan's up quick, so's you nebber know I was thar," and Estralla chuckled happily.

Sylvia wondered to herself why Estralla should choose such a hard bed.

Then, suddenly, she realized all Estralla's devotion. That the little negro girl had slept there to be near her "fr'en'." She remembered the first time that she had ever seen Estralla, on the morning when she had tumbled in to Sylvia's room and broken the big pitcher, and that even then Estralla had been ready to confess and take the whipping that she was sure would follow, rather than let Sylvia be blamed. She recalled Estralla's effort to rescue her at Fort Sumter on the day Sylvia had run away from Miss Patten's school; and she remembered that it was Estralla who had told Miss Patten the real reason, and so saved her from further trouble.

"Estralla, you have been my true friend," she declared, "and I am going to remember it always. I am going to ask my mother to put a nice little bed for you in your mammy's cabin."

"Don' yo' do that, Missy. I likes sleepin' on de rug," pleaded Estralla.

"Hush, we must creep in without making any noise," responded Sylvia, in a whisper, for they were now directly in front of Sylvia's home.

Noiselessly Estralla led the way.

"Oh, Missy! de door is shut fas'," she whispered, as she endeavored to push it open.

"But it can't be shut," Sylvia answered.

Both the little girls pushed against it, but the door stood fast.

"Oh! What will we do?" half sobbed Sylvia, who was now very tired, and almost too sleepy to think of anything.

"We cyan't get in de back door. My mammy she'd wake up if a rabbit run twixt her cabin an' de kitchen," Estralla whispered back. "I 'spec's I'll hev' to climb up to de winder ober de porch, and comes down and let you in."

"Oh! Can you, Estralla?"

Sylvia's voice was very near to tears. She had forgotten all about the importance of the message she had safely delivered. All she wanted now was to be inside this dear safe house where her mother and father were sleeping, not knowing that their little girl, cold and sleepy, was shut out.

"I 'spec's I can," Estralla answered. "You jes' stay quiet, an' in 'bout four shakes of a lamb's tail I'se gwine to open de door, an' in yo' walks."

There was a little scrambling noise among the stout vines which ran up the pillars of the porch as Estralla started to carry out her plan. A cat, or a fluttering bird, would have hardly made more commotion.

Sylvia listened eagerly. Suppose the porch window was fastened? she thought fearfully. It seemed a very long time before the front door opened, and Estralla reached out and clutched at the brown cape.

Noiselessly they crept up the stairs, Estralla leading the way. It was she who opened the door of Sylvia's room, and then with a whispered "Yo'se all right now, Missy," closed it behind her.

Sylvia hung up the brown cape in the closet, and slipped off her dress.

She was soon in bed and fast asleep, and it was late the next morning before she awoke--so late that her father had breakfasted and gone to his warehouse; Estralla had been sent on an errand, and Mrs. Fulton decided that Sylvia should have a holiday.

"You seem tired, dear child," she said a little anxiously, as Sylvia said that she did not want to go to walk; that she had rather sit still.

"I guess I am tired," acknowledged the little girl, and was quite content to sit by the window with a story-book, instead of giving Estralla a lesson.

"If it had not been for Estralla I don't know what would have happened to me last night," she thought. She wondered who had closed and fastened the front door, but dared not ask.

Grace and Flora were to come early that afternoon, as soon after school as possible, and Flora had sent Sylvia a note that she would bring her lace-work and give her a lesson. By noon Sylvia felt rested, and was looking eagerly forward to her friends' visit. She began to feel that she was a very fortunate little girl to have had the chance to do something that might help, as Mr. Doane had said, to give the black people their freedom. She only wished that she could tell her mother and father of the midnight journey.

"But I will ask Mrs. Carleton the next time I go to the fort to let me tell Mother," she resolved.

CHAPTER XIII

A HAPPY AFTERNOON

Grace was the first to arrive, and she declared that she wished that she was in Sylvia's place and need not go to school another day.

The two little friends stood at the window watching for Flora, and it was not long before they saw her coming up the walk, closely followed by her black "Mammy," who was carrying two baskets. One of these seemed very heavy.

"What can be in Mammy's basket, I wonder?" said Grace. "And, look, Sylvia! Flora isn't wearing the blue c.o.c.kade! That's because she is coming to visit you. She had it on at school this morning."

Flora wore the same pretty velvet turban which she had worn on Sylvia's last day at school. She had on a cape of garnet-colored velvet, and as she came running into the room Sylvia looked at her with admiring eyes.

"You do look so pretty, Flora! And I am so glad to see you. Come up-stairs to my room and take off your things."

"It isn't half the fun going to school now that you don't come, Sylvia," responded Flora, as the three friends went up the broad staircase together. "Mammy," with her baskets, followed them, and when she had helped her little mistress lay aside her cape and hat, Flora said:

"You can go home now, Mammy, And my mother will tell you when to come after me."

"Yas, Missy," responded the old colored woman, and with a curtsey to each of the little girls she left the room.

"What makes your mammy look so sober, Flora?" questioned Grace. "She is usually all smiles; but to-day she hasn't a word to say for herself."

"Oh, the darkies are all stirred up over all this talk about their being set free," Flora answered, "and even Mammy, who was Mother's nurse, and has always been well taken care of, thinks it would be a fine thing for her children and grandchildren to be 'jes' like white folks,'" and Flora laughed scornfully.

"But that needn't make her look sober!" insisted Grace.

"I reckon she's upset because my mother sold two or three little slaves yesterday--Mammy's grandchildren," Flora answered carelessly.

Sylvia could feel her face flushing, and she said over to herself that no matter what Flora said that she, Sylvia, must remember that Flora was her guest. Beside that, had not Flora taken off the blue c.o.c.kade so that Sylvia would not be reminded of the trouble at school?

But Grace felt no such restraints. She was a southern girl as well as Flora, but she was sorry for the old colored woman.

"Well, I do wish we could keep the pickaninnies until they grow up. It seems a shame when they feel so bad to be sold off to strangers. And some of them are abused too," she said.

"You talk as if they felt just the same as we do, and that's silly,"

Flora declared; "but Philip talks just the same. He says he is going to give d.i.n.kie her freedom," and she turned toward the two baskets which Mammy had set down with such care near Molly and Polly.

"I brought my lace-work, and Mother has fixed a cushion for you, Sylvia, and one for Grace, too. See! The pattern is begun on each one, and I will give you both lessons until you know as much as I do." As Flora talked she had opened the smaller basket and taken out two square boxes and handed one to each of her friends.