“Last night. Mornin’s out there. There’s a child.”
“Thunder ‘n’ molasses!” ejaculated the only family man of the group, reflectively. “Thunder ‘n’ molasses!” And then he began to edge away, still with a reflective air, towards his mule.
“Boys,” he explained, “there’d ought to be some women folks around. I’m gwine for Minty, and she’ll start the rest on ’em. Women folks is what’s needed. They kin kinder organize things whar thar’s trouble.”
“Well,” said Tom, “perhaps you’re right; but don’t send too many of ’em, and let your wife tell ’em to talk as little as possible and leave the man alone. He’s got enough to stand up under.”
Before the day was over there were women enough in the hillside cabin. Half a dozen faded black calico riding-skirts hung over the saddles of half a dozen horses tethered in the wood round the house, while inside half a dozen excellent souls disposed themselves in sympathetic couples about the two rooms.
Three sat in the front room, their sunbonnets drawn well down over their faces in the true mourner’s spirit, one at the head of the bed slowly moving a fan to and fro over the handkerchief-covered face upon the pillow. A dead silence pervaded the place, except when it was broken by occasional brief remarks made in a whisper.
“She was a mighty purty-lookin’ young critter,” they said. “A sight younger-lookin’ than her man.”
“What’s the child?”
“Gal.”
“Gal? That’s a pity. Gals ain’t much chance of bein’ raised right whar they’re left.”
“Hain’t they any folks, neither on ’em?”
“Nobody don’t know. Nobody hain’t heerd nothin’ about ’em. They wus kinder curi’s about keepin’ to themselves.”
“If either on ’em had any folks—even if they wus only sort o’ kin—they might take the chile.”
“Mebbe they will. Seems to reason they must have some kin—even if they ain’t nigh.”
Then the silence reigned again and the woman at the bed’s head gave her undivided attention to the slow, regular motion of her palm-leaf fan.
In the room beyond a small fire burned in spite of the warmth of the day, and divers small tin cups and pipkins simmered before and upon the cinders of it, Aunt Mornin varying her other duties by moving them a shade nearer to the heat or farther from it, and stirring and tasting at intervals.
Upon a low rocking-chair before the hearth sat the wife of the family man before referred to. She was a tall, angular creature, the mother of fifteen, comprising in their number three sets of twins. She held her snuff-stick between her teeth and the child on her lap, with an easy professional air.
“I hain’t never had to raise none o’ mine by hand since Martin Luther,” she remarked. “I’ve been mighty glad on it, for he was a sight o’ trouble. Kinder colicky and weakly. Never done no good till we got him off the bottle. He’d one cow’s milk, too, all the time. I was powerful partickerler ’bout that. I’d never have raised him if I hadn’t bin. ‘N’ to this day Martin Luther hain’t what ’Poleon and Orlando is.”
“Dis yere chile ain’t gwine to be no trouble to nobody,” put in Aunt Mornin. “She’s a powerful good chile to begin with, ‘n’ she’s a chile that’s gwine to thrive. She hain’t done no cryin’ uv no consequence yit, ‘n’ whar a chile starts out dat dar way it speaks well for her. If Mornin had de raisin’ o’ dat chile, dar wouldn’t be no trouble ’t all. Bile der milk well ‘n’ d’lute down right, ‘n’ a chile like dat ain’t gwine to have no colick. My young Mistis Mars D’Willerby bought me from, I’ve raised three o’ hern, an’ I’m used to bilin’ it right and d’lutin’ it down right. Dar’s a heap in de d’lutin’. Dis yere bottle’s ready now, Mis’ Doty, ef ye want it.”
“It’s the very bottle I raised Martin Luther on,” said Mrs. Doty. “It brings back ole times to see it. She takes it purty well, don’t she? Massy sakes! How f’erce she looks for sich a little thing!”
Later in the day there arose the question of how she should be disposed of for the night, and it was in the midst of this discussion that Tom De Willoughby entered.
“Thar ain’t but one room; I s’pose he’ll sleep in that,” said Mrs. Doty, “ ‘n’ the Lord knows he don’t look the kind o’ critter to know what to do with a chile. We hain’t none o’ us seen him since this mornin’. I guess he’s kinder wanderin’ round. Does any of you know whar he is? We might ax what he ’lows to do.”
Tom bent down over the child as it lay in the woman’s lap. No one could see his face.
“I know what he’s going to do,” he said. “He’s going away to-morrow after the funeral.”
“ ‘N’ take the child?” in a chorus.
“No,” said Tom, professing to be deeply interested in the unclosing of the small red fist. “I’m going to take the child.”
There were four sharp exclamations, and for a second or so all four women gazed at him with open mouths. It was Mrs. Doty who first recovered herself sufficiently to speak. She gave him a lively dig with her elbow.
“Now, Tom D’Willerby,” she said, “none of your foolin’. This yere ain’t no time for it.”
“Mars D’Willerby,” said Aunt Mornin, “dis chile’s mother’s a-lyin’ dead in the nex’ room.”
Tom stooped a trifle lower. He put out both his hands and took the baby in them.
“I’m not foolin’,” he said, rather uncertainly. “I’m in earnest, ladies. The mother is dead and the man’s going away. There’s nobody else to claim her, he tells me, and so I’ll claim her. There’s enough of me to take care of her, and I mean to do it.”
It was so extraordinary a sensation, that for a few moments there was another silence, broken as before by Mrs. Doty.
“Waal,” she remarked, removing her snuff-stick and expectorating into the fire. “Ye’ve allus been kinder fond o’ chillun, Tom, and mebbe she ain’t as colicky by natur’ as Martin Luther was, but I mus’ say it’s the curi’sest thing I ever heern—him a-gwine away an’ givin’ her cl’ar up as ef he hadn’t no sort o’ nat’ral feelin’s—I do say it’s curi’s.”
“He’s a queer fellow,” said Tom, “a queer fellow! There’s no denying that.”
That this was true was proven by his conduct during the time in which it was liable to public comment. Until night he was not seen, and then he came in at a late hour and, walking in silence through the roomful of watchers, shut himself up in an inner chamber and remained there alone.
“He’s takin’ it mighty hard,” they said. “Seems like it’s kinder onsettled his mind. He hain’t never looked at the child once.”
He did not appear at all the next
