an' we ain't neber regret it. Dat chile's bin a blessin' eber since she open her eyes, lyin' dar in de candlelight. Dat chile were her daddy's delight an' her mammy don't know how ter go tru a day widoud her. An' as fer her sister, Ellen, she'd walk tru fire ter git her what she ought ter hab. She come into a poor home, sure 'nough, but she welcome ter all it hold."
Mammy finished her recital with a broad wave of the hand, while Hertha clasped her round the neck and gave her a hug that ruffled the pretty curls, the curls that alone linked her to the colored race.
"Now tell me about my name?" she questioned when they had settled back again.
"You asks dat, honey, an' de ain't nuthin' ter tell. Seems like I made it up, an' den agin, seems like it were meant fer Bertha, but kinder gentler an' deeper, same as you."
"You never heard any least thing about my people?"
The question was asked with a certain knowledge of the answer, and yet with a wistful interrogation. Never before had this foundling, dropped into a black preacher's cabin, desired so much to know something of the two lives that gave her birth.
"No, neber." Mammy's answer was final. "Dey gib yer a start an' leab de res' fer us. I used ter fear as some un ud claim yer, but I stop dat now. De pusson I fears is de man as my baby'll say yes to when he axes her ter be his wife."
"He won't come, Mammy."
"Quit yer foolin'!" The old woman laughed into the serious young face. "Don' I know how de fellers at school broke der hearts ober yer, an' out in de city you was de putties' gal o' de lot. I's feared sometimes dis ain't de place fer a young t'ing like you."
"I'm very happy here," Hertha made answer.
"I's glad o' dat. Ellen, now, she's t'inkin' as yer need company."
"I wish Ellen wouldn't worry over me."
"She ain't worryin', honey." The mother spoke soothingly, seeing that her remark had awakened annoyance. "She jes' wants yer ter hab what's rightly yours."
"I'm very happy," Hertha reiterated. "Only," she added, "I do miss Tom. He used to love to be on the porch with us Sunday afternoons, didn't he?"
"Yes, dearie."
"I think Tom's going to be a splendid man; you can always trust him."
"Dat's so, dat's so. An' dat's de bes' t'ing yer can say ob any man."
They sat together a little longer, the sun lengthening the shadow of the cabin upon the white sand, and then, with the coming twilight, went within.
CHAPTER VII
John Merryvale was growing old, people were beginning to say; and then would add that the world, when he should pass away, would miss an old-time gentleman. He was a tall, thin man, long of limb and deliberate of speech. The impatient northern guest who tried to hurry him with the mail could fidget to her fill without decreasing by a moment the time he chose to spend upon his task. He could not be hurried but he could easily be duped, and many of the acres that Lee Merryvale coveted, but saw in other hands, had slipped from his father's by reason of over-confidence in some speculator or old acquaintance. But, no matter how often he was imposed upon, he never lost his equanimity. The man who took advantage of him was not to be condemned; it was not his fault if he had not been born a gentleman; the overreaching tradesman was to be pitied. That he, John Merryvale, was to be pitied did not even enter his thoughts.
The Negroes of the place loved and looked up to him, and he on his part treated them as beloved children. When they were ill he doctored them; when they quarreled, he acted as judge, and, without the cost of a lawsuit, gave them more rational judgment than they would have obtained in a court. While bearing a large part of the expense of the Episcopal church under the live-oaks at the water's edge, he helped to keep open the Methodist meeting among the pines where his black children went on Sunday mornings. He looked askance at first at Ellen; and while he never grew to like her ways, believing that she put false notions of equality into the children's heads, he was just and admitted that she had improved the morals of the place. For himself, he should always look upon the Negro as the white man's charge and make every allowance for his wrong-doing. What would be a sin in a white man, in a Negro would be only the misdemeanor of a child. Once, when one of his Negro tenants murdered a black neighbor in a drunken fight, he urged the judge to show clemency, to make the sentence lenient. "Remember," he admonished, "this man is black, and it is not one-tenth as bad for a black man to do a deed like this as for a white one." This attitude did not prevent his treating with respect the Negroes, men and women, whom he knew both at his own place and up and down the river, and they in their turn loved to drop a word with him, and looked with affectionate regard upon the tall figure in its well-worn cutaway coat, its straw hat with the black ribbon, its big, comfortable collar. One might see him of a Sunday walking among the pines, inquiring for Lucindy or Rose or Ebenezer, as the case might be.
On this Sunday afternoon, while Hertha sat with her mother on the steps, John Merryvale was walking with his son in the orange grove. They had been examining the trees when two colored lads, dressed in their Sunday best, bowed in crossing their path. Lee nodded carelessly to the young men, but his father raised his hat. The son noticed it, and spoke, half jestingly, of this act of courtesy.
"There isn't another man in the state would do that, Father. A nigger's a nigger to the folk I know about here."
"I remember," his father answered, "the retort Jefferson Davis gave when questioned for returning the bow of a black man. 'I can't afford,' he said, 'to be less of a gentleman than he.'"
Young Merryvale was silent, wondering whether the day had passed of both the old-time white and colored gentleman.
"This is a beautiful tree," his father said, stopping to look with pride at a plant filled with fast ripening fruit. "It's bearing well this season."
"Yes."
"I cannot tell you, Son, how happy I am that you are redeeming these old acres."
"So you're converted," Lee said, with a bright smile.
"Yes, entirely. And the best of it is the realization that you are busy in your old home and do not stay in it merely for Patty and me."
"Oh, I couldn't keep away! This place grips me. It's well enough to go to New York for a month to study the market, but this is the land of my choice, darkies and all. I wish they could do a good day's work; but, then, I don't pay them for a day's work, white man's reckoning."
A few steps further brought them to the tree where he and Hertha had first played together.
The older man stopped again. "Why, here's a blossom at the end of a bough," he said.
"Yes, but don't pick it!" Lee seized his father's arm. "I've a fancy to keep it there—for good luck," he added, somewhat lamely.
Over the blossom, the previous morning, Hertha had bent like a happy child, blowing upon the petals and calling on them to open.
"Lee!" The young man started at his father's voice; there was in it a note of admonition, almost of severity. But there was nothing of severity in the words that followed:
"I
