Negro Tales Part 13

"That was not for you," said she. "That was for the devil." She threw a gla.s.s at the young woman and left the room. Several times during the night I heard her say: "That was not for you. It was for the devil."

At eight the next morning the servants put breakfast on the table, leaving me still in the middle. At ten minutes past eight my mistress, whom I shall call Ladybug, came into the room and addressed a little speech to me that I did not understand until matters grew much more serious. You could not understand it at this point, so it will not be given now. Five minutes later the young woman who had been chased out of the room the night before, came in. For the sake of convenience I shall call her b.u.t.terfly. I was astonished to see Ladybug embrace b.u.t.terfly and kiss her twenty times on the forehead. I thought this a bit of amusing comedy. I afterwards found it stern tragedy.

They sat opposite each other at the table and remained about thirty minutes. They spent the time talking and smiling. They did not eat in the common acceptation of the term.

Ladybug rolled her chicken into nicely rounded b.a.l.l.s and tossed them down her throat. b.u.t.terfly soaked her chicken and bread in milk and drank the milk.

They finished this unusual task together, and started to leave the room, hand in hand, when Ladybug, glancing at the clock, whispered to b.u.t.terfly: "I must go; it is time for me to test his heroism and devotion."

Coming to where I rested, Ladybug picked me up, pressed me closely to her heart, and left the room, carrying me with her. She went straight to a nearby lake, and entered a little boat, in which sat a lone individual. It was the young man who had stood so often opposite the show-window. Ladybug took a seat in the boat, and in silence the young man rowed across the waters.

Two hours on the lake were we, and no words were spoken. Then rising, still in silence, Ladybug hurled me upon the bosom of the lake. Twenty times I was thrown into the water, and nineteen times rescued by the young man. The twentieth time? It was fate and heroism. Ladybug pressed me closely and began to rock from side to side. This she did twenty times, each time more and more violently. Her great black eyes seemed to burn into his all the while.

She then once again tossed me into the water--and leaped after me. This was the action of the play she rehea.r.s.ed out in her room that night when first I came. The young man followed Ladybug in her mad plunge, and at length succeeded in bringing her to their craft. Ten minutes later she was stretched out upon a boat, alive but unconscious. The young man was flesh for the fish, and I was in possession of a countryman.

When Ladybug regained consciousness and learned that the young man had been drowned, she said: "My lover is free. h.e.l.l cannot hold him. Human blood and water have atoned for his crime." This is the little speech she addressed to me that first morning. Then it had been put in the future tense.

Twelve months later a beggar gave b.u.t.terfly a hand of tobacco for his supper. While he ate she rolled the best leaf into me, placed me between her teeth, and left the room. Soon Ladybug entered, sounded a bell, as was her nightly custom, and waited.

In a few minutes a hideous form entered, smoking me.

"I am the devil," said the shape.

"I am his mistress," said Ladybug, and seized the shape by the throat.

The beggar, whom Ladybug had not seen, and whom b.u.t.terfly had forgotten, was present, and tried to separate them. In so doing he caused me to get entangled in the laces worn by the woman, communicating my fire to the flimsy garments. Now, the hideous form was b.u.t.terfly. Soon the clothing of both was ablaze, when they were darting about the room, the beggar trying to help first one and then the other. Both fell across the piano about the same time, and began to reach out, as if to clamber from the flames. In this way they played, as it were, their own dirge. When the sounds ceased they were dead. A mystery? Yes! No!

On the morning of the wedding-day a groom-to-be sailed out upon the lake. Said he to himself: "Christian people say that he who provides not for his household is worse than an infidel, and that a millstone had better be placed about his neck and be sunk into the sea. What have I for wife and children? Prosperity has pa.s.sed me by. Friends are not friends. Fate is my executioner."

Three days after this his body was recovered and buried.

The preacher said to the people: "Suicide is an unpardonable sin. The young man, therefore, who was of n.o.ble birth and parentage, who was chaste in life and honorable in business, is in h.e.l.l."

Ladybug, the dead man's fiancee, believed the rash-judging preacher. She soon lost her reason. Then came upon her the hallucinations that wrought the other tragedies. She believed that if her lover's twin brother, the young man of the fatal boat ride, would stand opposite the seed store for twenty days, and then perish as described in the boat ride, her lover would be released from h.e.l.l and returned to her. Ladybug, among other hallucinations, believed that the number twenty held potent virtues; hence, the twenty days, twenty kisses, and the like. The lover was twenty years old, hence Ladybug's counting by twenties. The twin brother out of pity consented to humor her whim, not thinking it would cost him his life.

Ladybug pa.s.sed the seed store every day to see if he was true to his pact. As she pa.s.sed the twentieth day, her hat blew off. He started to get it, but she said: "Let it be. Some of my troubles may roll away with it. I will be at the boat to-morrow morning with a charm. Then my lover shall live again. Blood and water shall atone for his crimes."

She immediately bought me of the clerk. There was no logic in this part of the affair. She simply thought the first thing her eyes fell upon would serve her purpose.

To make sure of her lover's return, she would also practice upon b.u.t.terfly, her sister. b.u.t.terfly, too, submitted to humor her whim.

The embraces and twenty kisses were the beginning of this.

b.u.t.terfly of her own accord had dressed and acted the devil on the fatal night, in the hope that the appearance of the devil would act as a counter-shock, and restore Ladybug's reason again. The presence of the beggar was a mere accident. The hand of tobacco out of which I was made was ground from the jar of seed left with the countryman.

As I lay upon the floor that dreadful night and saw Ladybug and b.u.t.terfly lying dead across the piano, I said to myself: "Stump of cigar, as I am, I have a history."

A RUSTIC COMEDY

Abraham and Ruth, his wife, were stingy and childless. Three children had come to them, whose taking off left Abraham embittered against men.

Ruth often said: "Complain not, Abraham, my man. Is not an angel more than a child? The little ones were your flesh, but my soul. Complain not, Abraham, my man."

Abraham had met, wooed, and wed Ruth in the fields, and ever afterward kept her there. Side by side they toiled, eating little, visiting seldom, and ever replenishing the money-bag at the bottom of the meal barrel. At the time of this incident the money bag was full and the meal barrel was about empty.

It was winter, and the old couple had just returned from a visit to a neighbor. As Abraham stirred the fire he said: "Ruth, we are getting old and must soon be done with things earthly. We have toiled hard and been a little saving. The neighbors have never had the opportunity of finding fault with your cooking; nor has the good parson ever had the hardihood to look this way for a contribution. I have been thinking of the best way to dispose of our wealth just before the breath leaves our bodies.

Ruth, like yourself, I have always been pious-minded and desirous of doing something that will benefit the neighbors, and at the same time start their tongues to wagging about our good parts. It strikes me the best way to do this is to leave our money to erect a parsonage and to place a bell in the chapel. The bell will spread our fame above, and the women who visit the parson's wife will spread it below. I know from experience, Ruth, that it is a blessing as well as a curse to have ones acts linked with the tongue of a woman. Now, what think you?"

"Abraham," said Ruth, "I have always thought you had some good aim stuck away in your soul; and as time rolled on your good angel would discover it to you. This is why I have seldom differed from you. Why wait until we die to have this done? Let us take our savings of years to-morrow and place them in the hands of the parson."

"You have spoken wisely, my dear wife," said Abraham. "It shall be done."

After kissing Ruth, Abraham turned and stirred the fire. Just then someone knocked at the door. Abraham opened it, and in came a stalwart stranger, carrying a pair of saddle-bags. He asked for supper and a night's lodging. The old couple frankly told him they had no supper for him, but he was welcome to warm by the fire and sleep in the loft. He gladly accepted their proffer, and took his seat by the fire. Soon he began to spin yarns of all lengths and descriptions, and ended by telling how, while stopping with an old couple, he had kept them from being robbed. After this he crept upstairs and retired.

When Abraham thought the stranger was asleep he told his wife to prepare an ashcake for their supper. She told him there would not be meal enough if she threw away the husk.

"Well," said he, "put in husk and all."

The ashcake was soon spread upon the hearth and covered with hot ashes.

Abraham bowed his head as though to ask a blessing.

"Not yet," said Ruth. "We are told there may be many a slip between the cup and the lip." Here they were interrupted by a noise from above.

"My dear friends," said the stranger, as he tumbled downstairs. "I forgot to tell you how my land runs." He took the poker, and, placing it in the middle of the ashcake, and moving it in keeping with the words, said:

"My land runs north, south, east, and west; then, coming back to the middle, it runs around and around." Having thus ruined the ashcake, he went back upstairs. After a considerable silence, Abraham said: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, and blessed be the rope that hangeth the stranger."

After removing their treasure from the meal barrel and almost worshipping it, they returned it and retired. They were soon fast asleep, but the stranger was not. Hours pa.s.sed, and still the stranger was awake. Before knocking at the door to be admitted he had heard the old couple's talk concerning their money, and what they intended to do with it the next day. He had also seen them take it from the barrel, and replace it. He was now thinking about it. What were his thoughts? Was he planning some way to rob them? Was he thinking how he might protect them in a case of emergency? Hearing a noise below, he crawled to the opening and looked down. He saw that the side window had been opened. Looking farther, he saw a man stooping over the meal barrel. With the greatest precaution he descended and slipped up behind the man and soon gagged him with a handkerchief. He held the intruder easily by pressing him against the barrel. Beside the barrel lay a meal sack. This the stranger slipped over the intruder's head and arms, and wrapped him around with a rope that was lying near. By this time Abraham and his wife were awake.

"Look," said the stranger, "what I have done for you. This thief almost had your treasure when I apprehended him. He is all right, now. Where shall I put him. What about this closet here? You know we must keep him until morning and turn him over to the officers." With this the stranger dragged the robber into the closet.

"Let us have more light," said Ruth.

"No," said the stranger; "there may be more. Light might frighten them away. I want to serve you well to-night. You know I owe you a little something for listening to how my land runs."

"What was that white something," said Ruth, "you had over the fellow's head?"

"It was a meal sack," said the stranger.

"That is strange, indeed," said Ruth. "There was not a meal sack on the place when we went to bed."

"This is a strange night," said the stranger. "I am your friend, and yet I am so strange I would not let you eat that delicious ashcake. Go to bed, Aunt Ruth. Uncle Abraham and I will watch the thieves. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh; and, Uncle Abraham, will you finish the rest of it?"

Abraham said nothing. He thought the stranger was getting very familiar; but since he had done them such a good turn they could stand almost anything at his hands.