# Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War/The Baby's Christmas
### THE BABY'S CHRISTMAS

I
Rockville ought to have been a harmonious community if there ever was one. The same families had been living there for generations, and they had intermarried until everybody was everybody else's cousin. Those who were no kin at all called one another cousin in public,—such is the force of example and habit. Little children playing with other children would hear them call one another cousin, and so the habit grew until even the few newcomers who took up their abode in Rockville speedily became cousins.
There were different degrees of prosperity in the village before and during the war, but everybody was comfortably well off, so that there was no necessity for drawing social distinctions. Those who were comparatively poor boasted of good blood, and they made as nice cousins as those who were richer. ​When the editor of the "Vade Mecum" wished to impress on his subscribers the necessity of settling their accounts, he prefaced his remarks with this statement: "We are a homogeneous people. We are united. What is the interest of one is the interest of all. We must continue to preserve our harmony."
But envy knows no race or clime, and it had taken up its abode among the cousins of Rockville. It was not even rooted out by the disastrous results of the war, which tended to bring each and every cousin down to the same level of hopeless poverty. When, therefore, Colonel Asbury announced in the streets that his wife had concluded to take boarders, and caused to be inserted in the "Vade Mecum" a notice to the effect that "a few select parties" could find accommodations at The Cedars, there were a good many smothered exclamations of affected surprise among the cousins, with no little secret satisfaction that "Cousin Becky T." had at last been compelled to "get off her high horse,"—to employ the vernacular of Rockville.
Such an announcement was certainly the next thing to a crash in the social fabric, and while some of the cousins were secretly ​pleased, there were others who shook their heads in sorrow, feeling that a deep and lasting humiliation had been visited on the community. For if ever a human being was seized and possessed by pride of family and position, that person was Cousin Becky T. Her pride was rëenforced by a will as firm, and an individuality as strong, as ever woman had; and these characteristics were so marked that she was never known among her acquaintances as Mrs. Asbury, but always as Rebecca Tumlin or "Cousin Rebecca T." The colonel himself invariably referred to her, even in his most hilarious moments, as Rebecca Tumlin. Times were hard indeed when this gentlewoman could be induced to throw open to boarders the fine old mansion, with its massive white pillars standing out against a background of red brick.
The colonel had three plantations,—one near Rockville, one in the low country, and one in the Cherokee region; but in 1868 these possessions were a burden to him to the extent of the taxes he was compelled to pay. There was no market for agricultural lands. The value they might have had was swallowed up in the poverty and depression ​that enveloped everything in the region where war had dropped its litter of furies. Colonel Asbury might have practiced law: he did practice it, in fact; but it was like building a windmill over a dry well.
Cousin Rebecca Tumlin finally solved the problem by announcing that she purposed to take boarders. No one ever knew what it cost her to make that announcement. Envious people suspected the nature of the struggle through which she passed,—the hard and bitter struggle between pride and necessity,—and some of them predicted it would do her good. The colonel, who was proud after his own fashion, and also sympathetic, was shocked at first and then grieved. But he made no remark. Comment was unnecessary. He walked back and forth on the colonnade, and measured many a mile before his agitation was allayed. More than once he went down the long graveled avenue, and turned and gazed fondly at the perspective that carried the eye to the fine old house. It seemed as if he were bidding farewell to the beauty and glory of it all. But he made no complaint. When he grew tired of walking, he went in with the intention of taking ​down some family pictures that adorned the walls of the wide hall. But his wife had forestalled him. The house, by a few deft changes, had been made as cheerless as the most fastidious boarder could wish.
And so the word went round that Cousin Rebecca Tumlin would be pleased to take boarders. The response was all that she could have desired. The young men—the bachelor storekeepers and their clerks—deserted the rickety old tavern and the smaller boarding-houses, and took up their abode at The Cedars, and soon the house was gay with a company that was profitable if not pleasant.
The advent of boarders—some of them transient traveling-men—opened a new world for Mary Asbury, Cousin Rebecca Tumlin's daughter, and she made the most of it. She followed the example of her father, the colonel, and made herself agreeable to the young men. She made herself especially agreeable to Laban Pierson, the young conductor of the daily train on the little branch railroad that connected Rockville with the outside world. Cousin Rebecca T. held herself severely aloof from her boarders, but her attitude was so serene and graceful, ​so evidently the natural and correct thing, that it caused no ill-natured comment. Mary was sixteen, and when she sat at the head of the table, her mother was not missed. The young girl's manners were a rare combination of sweetness, grace, and dignity. She was affable, she was thoughtful, and she had a fair share of her father's humor. Above all, she was beautiful. Naturally, therefore, while her mother nursed her pride, and counted the money, Mary beamed on the boarders, and her father drew upon his vast fund of anecdote for their instruction and amusement.
Laban Pierson was not a very brilliant young man, but he was fairly good-looking, and he knew how to make himself agreeable. His train arrived at Rockville at half-past two in the afternoon, and left at five o'clock in the morning, so that he had plenty of time to make himself agreeable to Miss Mary Asbury, and he did so with only a vague notion of what the end would be. Mary made herself agreeable to Laban simply because it was her nature to be pleasant to everybody. As for any other reason,—why, the idea of such a thing! If young Pierson had told himself ​that he was courting Mary Asbury, he would have blushed with alarm. Perhaps he would have left The Cedars and gone to the old tavern again. Who knows? Young men will do very desperate things at certain stages of their checkered careers.
It was the old story with its own particular variations. Mary loved Laban, and was too shy to know what she was about. Laban loved Mary, and never discovered it until the disease had become epidemic in his system, and spread over his heart and mind in every direction. Neither one of them discovered it. It was a beautiful dream, too good to be true, too sweet to last. Finally the discovery was made by old Aunt Mimy, the cook, who had never seen Mary and Laban together. The affair, if it can be called by so imposing a name, had been going on a year or more, and Mary was past seventeen, when one afternoon the train failed to arrive on time. The afternoon wore into evening, and still the train did not come. Mary had the habit of sitting in the kitchen with Aunt Mimy when anything troubled her, and on this particular afternoon, after waiting an hour for the train, she went to her old seat near the window. ​Aunt Mimy was beating biscuit. Mary looked out of the window toward the depot.
"Train ain't come yit, is she, honey?" asked Aunt Mimy.
"No, not yet," replied Mary. "What can be the matter?"
"Run off de trussle, I speck," said Aunt Mimy.
"O mammy!" cried Mary, starting to her feet; "do you really think so? What have you heard?"
The girl stood with one hand against her bosom, her face pale, and her nether lip trembling. Aunt Mimy regarded her with astonishment for a moment, and then the shrewd old negro jumped to a conclusion. She paused with her arm uplifted.
"Is yo' ma on dat train? Is yo' pa on dat train? What de name er de Lord you got ter do wid dat train?"
She brought the beater down on the pliant dough with a resounding thwack. Mary hid her face in her hands. After a little she went out, leaving Aunt Mimy mumbling and talking to herself.
The cook lost no time in relating this incident to Cousin Rebecca T., and that lady lost ​just as little in making plain to her daughter the folly and futility of interesting herself in such a person as the young conductor. Cousin Rebecca T. gave Mary a brief but picturesque biography of Laban Pierson. His family belonged to the poor white trash before the war, and he was no better. Muddy well, muddy water. He had been a train-hand, a brakeman, baggage-master, and what not. The colonel was called in to verify these biographical details.
Mary's reply to it all was characteristic. She listened and smiled, and tossed her head.
"What do I care about Laban Pierson? What have I to do with his affairs? Ought I to have jumped for joy when mammy told me the train had dropped through the trestle?"
The colonel accepted this logic without question, but Cousin Rebecca T. saw through it. She was a woman, and had a natural contempt for logic, especially a woman's logic. She simply realized that she had made a mistake. She had gone about the matter in the wrong way. As for Mary, she had found out her own secret. She hardened her heart against Aunt Mimy, and when ​the old woman sought an explanation, it was readily forthcoming.
"You got me into trouble," said Mary; "you won't get me into any more if I can help it." Aunt Mimy grieved over the situation to such an extent that she made herself disagreeable to everybody, especially to Cousin Rebecca T. She broke dishes, she burned the waffles, she flung the dish-water into the yard, and for a day or two she whipped the little negroes every time she got her hands on them.
Cousin Rebecca T. did not let the matter drop, as she might have done. The colonel used to tell his intimate friends that his wife had a fearful amount of misdirected energy, and the results that it wrought in this particular instance justified the colonel's description. Cousin Rebecca T. went straight to young Laban Pierson, and gave him to understand, without circumlocution or mincing of words, what she thought of any possible notion he had or might have of uniting his fortunes with those of her daughter. As might have been expected, Laban was thunderstruck. He blushed violently, turned pale, stammered, and, in short, acted just as any ​other young fellow would act when confronted with his own secret thoughts and desires, hardly acknowledged even to himself. To Cousin Rebecca T. all this was in the nature of a confession of guilt, and she congratulated herself on the promptness with which she had put an end to the whole miserable business. As a matter of fact, she did what many another hasty-tempered woman has done before her; she kindled into flame a spark that might have expired if let alone.
Young Mr. Pierson promptly took himself away from The Cedars, and it was not until after he was gone that the other guests discovered what an interesting companion he was at table and on the wide veranda. They began to talk about him and to discuss his good qualities. He was a clean, manly, bright, industrious, genial, generous young fellow. This was the verdict. The colonel, missing the cigars that Laban was in the habit of bringing him, and resenting the situation (inflamed, perhaps, by a little too much toddy), went further, and said that in the whole course of his career, sir, he had never seen a finer young man, sir. So that in spite of the fact that Laban sat at the table no longer, he was more in evidence than ever.
​Affairs went on without a break or a ripple. Occasionally Mary would walk in the direction of the depot in the afternoon, and whenever she saw Laban she made it a point to bow to him, and this salutation he always returned with marked emphasis. But Mary was not happy. She no longer went singing through the house. She was cheerful, but not in the old fashion. No one noticed the change but old Aunt Mimy, and perhaps she would have been blind to it if her conscience had not hurt her. The old woman's conscience was not specially active or sensitive, but her affections were set on Mary, and for many long weeks the girl had hardly deigned to speak to her. Conscience lives next door to the affections. Aunt Mimy rebelled against hers for a long time, but at last it roused her to action.
One afternoon, when dinner had been cleared away, she filled her pipe, adjusted her head-kerchief, and sallied out in the direction of the depot. The wheezy old locomotive was engaged in shifting the cars about, and Conductor Pierson was assisting the brakeman. Aunt Mimy seated herself on the depot platform, smoked her pipe, and ​patiently waited till the shunting was over. Then she placed herself in Pierson's way. He seemed to be preoccupied, but the old woman did not stand on ceremony.
"Look like our victuals wa'n't good 'nough fer you," she said bluntly.
"Why, this is Aunt Mimy!" He shook hands with her, and asked about her health, and this pleased her very much. He asked about the family, and especially about Miss Mary. When it came to this, Aunt Mimy took her pipe out of her mouth, drew a long breath, and shook her head. She could have given points on the art of pantomime to any strolling company of players. The whole history of the sad case of Mary Asbury was in the lift of her eyebrows, the motions of her head, and in her sorrowful sigh; and Conductor Pierson seemed to be able to read a part of it, for he asked Aunt Mimy into the passenger-coach, and there the two sat and talked until it was time for Aunt Mimy to go home and see about supper.
That night, as Aunt Mimy sat on the kitchen steps smoking her pipe and resting herself, preparatory to going to bed, she saw Mary sitting at her room window looking out ​into the moonlight. It was not a very beautiful scene that fell under the young girl's eye. There was nothing romantic or picturesque in the view of the back yard, with the kitchen and the comical figure of the fat old cook in the foreground: but when a young girl is in love, it is wonderful what a mellowing influence the moonlight has on the most forbidding scene. It pushes the shadows into strange places, and softens and subdues all that is angular and ugly. Take the moon out of our scheme, and a good deal of our poetry and romance would vanish with it, and even true love would take on a prosiness that it does not now possess.
Aunt Mimy looked at Mary, and felt sorry for her. Mary looked at Aunt Mimy, and felt that she would be glad to be able to despise the old negro if she could. Aunt Mimy spoke to her presently in a subdued, insinuating tone.
"Is dat you, honey?"
"Yes."
"Better fling on yo' cape"—
"I 'm not cold."
"An' come down here an' talk wid me."
"I don't feel like talking."
​"Been long time sence you felt like talkin' wid me. Well, dem dat don't talk don't never hear tell."
She pulled from somewhere under her apron something white and oblong, dropped it on the ground purposely, picked it up, and put it back under her apron. Then she said:—
"Good-night, honey! I ain't tellin' you good-night des fer myse'f."
Aunt Mimy's tone was charged with information. Mary vanished from the window, and came tripping out to the kitchen. Then followed a whispered conversation between the cook and the young lady. At something or other that Aunt Mimy said to her—some quaint comment, or maybe a happy piece of intelligence—Mary laughed loudly. The sound of it reached the ears of Cousin Rebecca T., who was playing whist. The colonel was dealing. She slipped away from the table, peeped through the blinds of the dining-room, and was just in time to see Aunt Mimy hand Mary something that had the appearance of a letter. She returned to the whist-table, revoked on the first round, and trumped her partner's trick on the second. ​Such a thing had never been heard of before. Her partner shook his head, and buried his face in his cards. Her husband regarded her with amazement. She made no excuse or explanation, but in the next two hands more than made up in brilliant play for the advantage she had lost.
Meanwhile Mary was reading the letter that Laban Pierson had sent her. It was a frank, manly declaration of his love expressed in plain and simple language. He had written, he said, on the impulse of the moment, but he did not propose to engage in a clandestine correspondence. He did not invite or expect a reply, but would always—ah, well, the formula was the same old one that we are all familiar with.
Mary placed the letter where she could feel her heart beat against it, and went to bed happy, and was soon dreaming about Laban Pierson. Cousin Rebecca T. played whist fiercely and won continuously. After the game was over, she went upstairs, stirred a stiff toddy for the colonel, and put him to bed. Then she went into her daughter's room, shading the lamp with her hand so that the light would not arouse Innocence ​from its happy dreams. She moved as noiselessly as Lady Macbeth moves in the play, though not with the same intent. She searched everywhere for the letter, and at last found it where a more feminine woman would have hunted for it at first. One corner of this human document was peeping modestly forth from the virgin bosom of Innocence. Deftly, gently, even lovingly, Cousin Rebecca T. lifted the letter from its warm and shy covert.
It was a very simple thing to do, but there were hours and days and years when Cousin Rebecca T. would have given all her possessions to have left the letter nestling in her daughter's bosom; for, in lifting it out, Innocence was aroused from its sleep and caught Experience in the very act of making a fool of itself. Mary opened her wondering eyes, and found her mother with Laban's letter in her hand. The young lady sat bolt upright in bed. Cousin Rebecca T. was inwardly startled, but outwardly she was as calm as the moonlight that threw its slanting shadows eastward.
"I don't wonder that you blush," she cried, holding up the letter.
​"Do you think I am blushing for myself?" asked Mary.
"If you know what shame is, you ought to feel it now," exclaimed her mother.
"I do—I do," said Mary, with rising indignation. "After to-night I shall always be ashamed of myself and of my family."
Cousin Rebecca T., stung by the tone and by this first sign of rebellion, turned upon her daughter; but her anger quickly died away, for she saw in her daughter's eyes her own courage and her own unconquerable will.
The scene did not end there, but the rest of it need not be described here. Innocence has as long a tongue as Experience when it feels itself wronged, and the result of this family quarrel was that Innocence went farther than Experience would have dared to go. When Laban Pierson's train went puffing out of Rockville at five o'clock the next morning, it carried among its few passengers Miss Mary Asbury and old Aunt Mimy. The colonel and Cousin Rebecca T. lost a daughter, and their boarders had to wait a long time for their breakfast or go without.
The next number of the "Vade Mecum" ​had a beautifully written account of the marriage of Mary Asbury to Laban Pierson, under the double heading
Love Laughs at Locksmiths
a local romance with a happy ending
Cousin Rebecca T. turned up her nose at the newspaper account, but the colonel cut it out and hid it away in his large morocco pocket-book. That night, after he had taken his toddy and was sound asleep, Cousin Rebecca T. took the clipping from its hiding-place, and read it over carefully. Then she put out the light, and sat by the window and cried until far into the night. But she cried so softly that a little bird, sitting on its nest in the honeysuckle vine not two feet away from the lady's grief, did not take its head from under its wing.
II
This was at the beginning of 1870, and about this time Colonel Asbury's fortunes took a decided turn for the better. During the war, in a spirit of speculative recklessness, he had invested thirty thousand dollars in Confederate money in ten thousand acres ​of land in Texas. He thought so little of the investment then, and afterwards, that he did not take the trouble to pay the taxes. But the purchase of the land was a fortunate stroke for the colonel. In 1870 land-values in Texas were not what they were in Georgia. That vast southwestern empire (as the phrase goes) was just beginning to attract the attention of Northern and foreign capital. Railway promoters, British land syndicates, and native boomers, were combining to develop the material resources of the wonderful State.
In the early part of 1870, a powerful combination of railway promoters determined to build a line straight through the colonel's Texan possessions. His land there increased in value to thirty dollars, and then to forty dollars, an acre, at which figure the colonel was induced to part with his titles. Cousin Rebecca Tumlin thus found herself to be the wife of a very rich man, and her pride at last found something substantial to cling to. The Cedars ceased to be a boarding-house. The old family pictures were brought down from the garret, dusted, and hung in their accustomed places. Great improvements were made in the place, and Cousin Rebecca and ​the colonel sat down to enjoy life as they thought it ought to be enjoyed.
But something was lacking. Life did not run as pleasantly as before. The dollar that brings content is at such a high premium among the nations of the earth that it can never be made the standard of value. That dollar was not among the four hundred thousand dollars the colonel received for his Texan lands. The old style did not fit the new times. The colonel's old friends did not fall away from him, but they were less friendly and more obsequious. His daughter did not come forward to ask his forgiveness and his blessing. Something was wrong somewhere. The colonel and Cousin Rebecca Tumlin fretted a good deal, and finally concluded to move to Atlanta. So they closed their house in Rockville, and built a mansion in Peachtree Street in the city whose name has come to be identified with all that is progressive in the South.
The building is on the left as you go out Peachtree. You can't mistake it. It is a queer mixture of summer cottage and feudal castle, with a great deal of fussy detail that bewilders the eye, and a serene stretch of ​roof broken by a delirious display of scroll-work. It is Rebecca Tumlin all over; pride—pride nailed to the grim walls, and vexation of spirit worked into the ornamentation. Yet it is a house that easily catches the eye. It is on a little elevation, and it has about it a certain suggestion of individuality. On the dome of the middle gable a smart and business-like dragon upholds the weather-vane with his curled and gilded tail.
The colonel prospered steadily. He was regarded as one of the most successful business men and financiers the South has ever produced. It is no wonder the Bible parable gives money the name of "talent." It is a talent. Give it half a chance, and it is the most active talent that man possesses. It is always in a state of fermentation; it grows; it accumulates. At any rate, the colonel thought so. His capital carried him into the inner circles of investment and speculation, and he found himself growing richer and richer, only vaguely realizing how the result was brought about.
The receptions at the Asbury mansion were conceded to be the most fashionable that Atlanta had ever seen; for along in the seventies ​Atlanta was merely experimenting with the social instinct. The "smart set" had no kind of organization. Society was engaged in disentangling itself from the furious business energy that has made Atlanta the best-known city in the South. It was at this juncture that Cousin Rebecca T., with her money, her taste, and her ambition to lead, appeared on the scene. She had all the requisites of a leader. Pride is a quickening quality, and it had made of Cousin Rebecca T. a most accomplished woman. There was something attractive and refreshing about her strong individuality. There was a simplicity about her methods that commended her to the social experimenters, who stood in great awe of forms and conventions.
Naturally, therefore, the Asbury mansion was the social centre. The younger set gathered there to be gay, and the married people went there to meet their friends. But many and many a night after the lights were out in the parlors, and the gas was turned low in the hall, Cousin Rebecca T. and the colonel sat and thought about their daughter Mary, each refraining from mentioning her name to the other,—the colonel ​because he was afraid of irritating his wife, and Cousin Rebecca T. because she was afraid of exhibiting any weakness before her husband. Each, unknown to the other, had set on foot inquiries in regard to the whereabouts of Mary, and the fact that the inquiries elicited no response and no information gave the two old people a more valid excuse for misery than they had ever known. The trouble was that their inquiries had begun too late. For a few months after her marriage the colonel had kept himself informed about his daughter. He expected her to write to him. He had a vague and unformed notion that in due season Mary would return and ask her mother's forgiveness, and then, if Cousin Rebecca T. showed any hardness of heart, he proposed to put his foot down, and show her that he was not a cipher in the family. The mother, for her part, fully expected that some day when she was going about the house, neither doing nor thinking of anything in particular, her daughter would rush suddenly in upon her and tell her between laughter and tears that there was no happiness away from home. Cousin Rebecca T. had her part all pre​pared. She would frown at first, and then throw her arms around Mary, and tell her what a naughty girl she had been.
But all this mental preparation was in vain. Weeks, months, and years passed by, but Mary never came. When the colonel and Cousin Rebecca T. woke up to their new prosperity, they were very busily engaged for some time in fitting themselves to it. It was during this period that Mary and her husband disappeared. The colonel heard in a vague way that Laban Pierson had moved to Atlanta, and that from Atlanta he had gone out West. All the rest was mystery.
But it was no mystery to Laban and Mary. For a little while their affairs went along comfortably. Laban became the conductor of a passenger-train on the main line of the Central of Georgia. Then he moved to Atlanta. Afterward he accepted a position on the Louisville and Nashville Railway, and there had the misfortune to lose a leg in a collision. This was the beginning of troubles that seemed to pursue Laban and Mary. Poverty laid its grim hand upon them at every turn. Mary did the best she could. She was indeed a helpmate and a comforter; she ​was brave and hopeful; yet she would have given up in despair but for old Aunt Mimy, who worked and slaved that her young mistress might be spared the bitterest pangs of poverty. Her faithfulness was without boundary or limit. Day and night she toiled, cooking, washing, and taking care of the toddling baby that had come to share the troubles of Laban and Mary. As soon as Laban could get about on his crutches, he tried to find work; but his efforts were fruitless. The time came when he was ready to say to his wife that he could do no more.
Finally the little family drifted back to Atlanta. Here Laban found employment in a small way as a solicitor of life insurance. He was doing so well in this business that a rival company sought his services, offering to pay a fixed salary instead of commissions. But no sooner had he given notice to his employers that he intended to accept the new position than a complication arose in his accounts. How it happened Laban never knew; he was as innocent as a lamb. The company was a new one, trying to establish a business in the Atlanta territory, and out of the funds he collected he used money to pay ​expenses incurred in the company's behalf. His vouchers showed it all; he had been careful to put down everything, even to the cost of a postal card. He turned over these vouchers and accounts to his employers. But when it was found that he had entered the service of a rival company, the charge of embezzlement was made against him. He found it impossible to give bonds, and was compelled to go to jail. A young lawyer took his case, and was sure he could clear him when the case came to trial. But meanwhile Laban was in jail, and to Mary this was the end of all things; for a time she was utterly prostrated. She refused to eat or sleep, but sat holding her child to her bosom, and crying over it. This went on for so long a time that Aunt Mimy thought it best to interfere. So she took the two-year-old child from its mother, and made some characteristic observations.
"You ain't gwine ter git Marse Laban out'n jail by settin' dar cryin,' honey. Better git mad an' stir roun', an' hurt somebody's feelin's. Make you feel lots better, kaze I done tried it."
"O mammy! mammy!" moaned Mary.
​"Day atter ter-morrer 'll be Chris'mus," Aunt Mimy continued, "an' Marse Laban got ter be here ter dinner. Dey ain't no two ways 'bout dat."
"Oh, what a Christmas!" cried Mary.
"Yes 'm; an' de cake done baked. Don't you fret, honey! De Lord ain't fur f'om whar folks is in trouble. I done notice dat. He may n't be right dar in de nex' room, an' maybe he ain't right roun' de cornder, but he ain't so mighty fur off. Now, I tell you dat."
Whereupon Aunt Mimy, carrying the child, went out of the house into the street, and was so disturbed in mind that she walked on and on with no thought of the distance. After a while she found herself on Peachtree Street, where the baby's attention was attracted by the jingling bells of the street-car horses. In front of one of the large mansions a fine carriage was standing. On the veranda a lady stood drawing on her gloves and giving some parting orders to a servant in the hall. Aunt Mimy knew at once that the lady was her old mistress. But she turned to the negro coachman, who sat on the box stiff and stolid in all the grandeur of a long coat and brass buttons.
​"Who live' here?" she asked.
"Cun-nol Asbe'y," the coachman replied.
"Ain't dat Becky Tumlin yonder?" inquired Aunt Mimy, with some asperity.
"No, ma'am; dat is Missus Cun-nol Asbe'y."
"Well, de Lord he'p my soul!" exclaimed Aunt Mimy.
Then she turned and went back home as fast as she could, talking to herself and the child. Once she looked back, but Cousin Rebecca T. was sitting grandly in the carriage, and the carriage was going rapidly toward the business portion of the city. Cousin Rebecca T. bowed right and left to her acquaintances and smiled pleasantly as the carriage rolled along. She bowed and smiled, but she was thinking about her daughter.
Aunt Mimy hurried home as fast as she could go. She had intended at first to tell Mary of her discovery, but she thought better of it. She had another plan.
"You see me gwine 'long here?" she said, as much to herself as to the baby. "Well, ef I don't fix dat ar white 'oman you kin put me in de calaboose." She stood at the gate of the house Laban had rented, and com​pared its appearance with the magnificence of the mansion she had just left. The contrast was so startling that all the comment she could make was, "De Lord he'p my soul!" She took the child in, got its playthings, and then went about her business more briskly than she had gone in many a day. If Mary had not been so deeply engaged in contemplating her troubles, she would have discovered at once that something unusual had occurred. Aunt Mimy was agitated. Her mind was not in her work. She drew a bucket of water from the well when she intended to get wood for the little stove. Occasionally she would pause in her work and stand lost in thought. At last Mary remarked her agitation.
"What is the matter, mammy?" she asked. "Something has happened."
"Ah, Lord, honey! 'T ain't happen' yit, but it 's gwine ter happen."
"Well," said Mary, shaking her head, "let it happen. Nothing can hurt me. The worst has already happened."
Aunt Mimy made no audible comment, but went about mumbling and talking to herself. Mary sat rocking and moaning, and the little ​child made the most of the situation by toddling from room to room, getting into all sorts of mischief without let or hindrance. After a while Aunt Mimy asked:—
"Honey, don't you know whar yo' pa an' ma is?"
"Yes," said Mary languidly; "they live in Atlanta."
"Right here in dis town?"
"Yes."
"Whar'bouts?"
"Oh, don't worry me, mammy! I don't know. They care nothing for me. See how they have treated Laban!"
"Why n't you hunt 'em up, an' tell 'em what kinder fix you in? I boun' dey 'd he'p you out." Mary gazed at Aunt Mimy with open-eyed wonder. "Write a letter ter yo' ma. Here's what 'll take it. I 'll fin' out whar she live at."
Mary rose from her chair and took a step toward Aunt Mimy, not in anger, but by way of emphasis.
"Mammy," she cried, "don't speak of such a thing!"
"Humph!" Aunt Mimy grunted; "ef you ain't de ve'y spi't an' image er Becky ​Tumlin, I 'm a saddle-hoss. Proud! consated! Dat ain't no name fer it. De nigger man what I got now ain't much, but ef he wuz in jail I 'd be trottin' roun' right now try in' ter git 'im out."
The next morning Aunt Mimy was up betimes. She cooked breakfast, and after that meal was over (it need not have been prepared so far as Mary was concerned), she dressed the baby in some of its commonest clothes, and put on its feet a pair of shoes that were worn at the toes. This done, she took the lively youngster in her arms and started out.
"Where are you going?" Mary asked.
"Baby gwine ter walk," Aunt Mimy answered.
"Not in those clothes!" Mary protested.
"Now, honey," exclaimed Aunt Mimy, "does you speck I ain't got no better sense dan ter rig dis baby out, an' his pa down yonder in de dungeons?"
"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Mary, forgetting everything else but her own misery and her husband's disgrace.
"Stay right here, honey, tell I come back. I won't be gone so mighty long. Den you ​kin take dis precious baby down ter see his pa."
The day was clear and bright, and although it was Christmas, the soft breezes and the invigorating sunshine had the flavor and quality of spring. Aunt Mimy paid no attention to the auspicious weather, but made her way straight to the Asbury mansion on Peachtree Street. On her face there was a frown, and her "head-han'k'cher," which usually sat straight back from her forehead, had an upward tilt that gave her a warlike appearance.
She went up the tiled walk and rang the door-bell. A quadroon girl came to the door; the girl's voice was soft, and her manners gentle, but Aunt Mimy had a strong prejudice against mulattoes, and it came to the surface now.
"Is yo' mist'ess in?" she asked harshly.
"Mis' Asbury is in," said the girl softly.
"Ax her kin I see her."
The girl slipped away from the door, leaving it ajar. The glimpse of the magnificence within angered Aunt Mimy. Presently the girl returned.
"Has you got any message?" she asked.
​"No, I ain't. Tell her dat a' ole nigger 'oman fum de country want ter see her."
Cousin Rebecca T. was listening at the farther end of the hall, and thought she recognized the voice. The girl turned away with a smile to deliver the message, but her mistress was standing near. With a wave of her hand, Cousin Rebecca T. dismissed the servant, saw her safely out of hearing, and then opened wide the door.
"Come in, Mimy," she said in a voice as serene as a summer morning; "come into my room. I have n't seen you in a coon's age." She dropped easily into the vernacular of Rockville and the region round about. She took Aunt Mimy somewhat off her guard, but this only served to increase the agitation of the old negro. Cousin Rebecca T. led the way to her back parlor.
"Come in," she said kindly. "How have you been since I saw you last?" She shut the door and caught the thumb-bolt. "Sit in that chair. Now, what have you to tell me?"
Aunt Mimy saw that the thin white hand of her old mistress trembled as she raised it to her hair.
​"Wellum," Aunt Mimy replied, "I des tuck er notion I 'd drap by an' say 'Chris'mus Gif'.' You know how we use' ter do down dar at home. I ain't seed you so long, it 's des de same ez sayin' howdy?"
Cousin Rebecca T. looked hard at the old darky, and drew a long breath.
"Do you mean to say you have nothing to tell me—nothing? What do you want?" She would have laid her hand on Aunt Mimy's shoulder, but the old woman shrunk away, exclaiming:
"God knows dey ain't nothin' here I want! No ma'am!"
Cousin Rebecca T. took a step toward her old servant.
"Where is Mary?" she asked, almost in a whisper.
"She down yander down dar at de house." Aunt Mimy put the child down, faced Cousin Rebecca T., whose agitation was now extreme, and raised her strong right arm in the air. "I thank my God, I ain't got no chillun! I thank 'im day an' night. Ef I 'd 'a' had 'em, maybe I 'd 'a' done 'em like you done yone."
"You are impudent," said Cousin Rebecca ​T. The little child had gone to her, and her hand rested on its curly head.
"Wellum," Aunt Mimy rejoined, "ef you want ter call de trufe by some yuther name, let it go at dat."
"Whose child is this?"
"Heh!" the old negro grunted. "He look like he know who he kin ter."
Cousin Rebecca T. took the child in her arms and carried it into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Aunt Mimy went to the door on tiptoe, and listened silently for a moment. Then she nodded her head vigorously, ejaculating at intervals "Aha-a-a!" "What I tell you?" "Ah-yi!"
Cousin Rebecca T. placed the child on the floor and knelt beside it.
"Darling, what is your name?"
"Azzerbewy Tummerlin Pierson," replied the child solemnly.
"Oh, will the Lord ever forgive me?" cried Cousin Rebecca T., falling prone on the floor in her grief and humiliation.
"Yonner mudder!" said the child.
"Where?" exclaimed Cousin Rebecca T., starting up.
"Yonner." The youngster pointed to a ​picture of his mother hanging on the wall, an enlarged copy of a photograph taken before she was married. Seeing that the lady was crying, the child went to her, laid its soft face against hers, and gently patted her with one of its pretty hands.
"Mudder c'y—all, all 'e time," said the child, by way of consolation.
"Oh, precious baby!" exclaimed Cousin Rebecca T., "she shall never cry any more if I can help it."
"Ah-yi!" responded Aunt Mimy on the other side.
At this juncture the colonel walked into the back parlor. "Well, my dear," he said, "what is the programme to-day? In my opinion—why, this is Mimy! Mimy,"—his voice sank to a whisper,—"where is your young mistress?"
"Ah, Lord! you been waitin' a mighty long time 'fo' you ax anybody dat quesht'on!"
"Mimy, is she dead?" The ruddy color had fled from his face.
"Go in dar, suh." Aunt Mimy pointed to the door leading into the bedroom.
The colonel found his wife weeping over ​the little child, and, being a tender-hearted man, he joined her. As Aunt Mimy said afterward, "Dey went on in dar mo' samer dan ef dey 'd 'a' done got erligion sho 'nough, an' de Lord knows dey needed it mighty bad."
The colonel went on at a great rate over the baby. "Look at the little shoes with holes in them!" he cried. "Look at the torn frock!" Then he fairly blubbered.
In the midst of it all, Aunt Mimy opened the door and walked into the room, calm, cool, and indifferent. Ah, how wonderfully she could play the hypocrite!
"Come on, honey," she said. "Mudder waitin' fer you. I tole 'er we wuz comin' right back. Come ter mammy." The baby ran away from its old nurse, and hid its face in its grandmother's bosom, then sought refuge between its grandfather's knees, and was otherwise as cute and as cunning as babies know so well how to be. But Aunt Mimy was persistent.
"Come on, honey; time ter go. Spile you ter stay here. Too much finery fer po' folks."
"Randall," said Cousin Rebecca T., call​ing her husband by his first name (something she had not done for years), "order the carriage."
"No, ma'am; no, ma'am!" Aunt Mimy cried. "You sha'n't be a-sailin' roun' my chile in a fine carriage wid a big nigger man settin' up dar grinnin'—no, ma'am! I won't go wid you. I won't show you de way. I 'm free, an' I 'll die fust. I ain't gwine ter have no fine carriage sailin' roun' dar, and Marse Laban lyin' down town dar in jail."
"In jail!" cried the colonel. "What has he done?"
"Nothin' 't all," said Aunt Mimy. "De folks des put 'im in dar 'ca'se he wuz po'."
"Randall, go and get him out, and bring him here. Take the carriage." In this way Cousin Rebecca settled the trouble about the carriage. Then she went with Aunt Mimy to find her daughter, and the old woman had to walk rapidly to keep up with her. When they came to the door, Aunt Mimy paused and looked at her old mistress, and for the first time felt a little sympathy for her. Cousin Rebecca's hands were trembling,, and her lips quivering.
​"Des go an' knock at de door," said Aunt Mimy kindly. "De po' chile 's in dar some'r's. I 'm gwine roun'."
She went round the corner of the house, and there paused to listen. Cousin Rebecca T. knocked, a little timidly at first, and then a little louder. Mary opened the door, and saw standing there a richly dressed lady crying as if her heart would break. For a moment she was appalled by this appearance of grief incarnate on her threshold, and stood with surprise and pity shining from her eyes.
"My precious child!" cried Cousin Rebecca T., "have you forgotten me?"
"Mother!" exclaimed Mary.
Then Aunt Mimy heard the door close. "Come on, honey," she said to the baby; "I'll turn you loose in dar wid 'em."
Cousin Rebecca T. took her daughter home, and not long afterward the colonel appeared with Laban, and the baby's Christmas was celebrated in grand style. Aunt Mimy was particularly conspicuous, taking charge of affairs in a high-handed way, and laughing and crying whenever she found herself alone.
"Nummine!" she said to herself, seeing ​Mary and Laban and the old folks laughing and carrying on like little children—"Nummine! You 're all here now, an' dat 's doin' mighty well atter so long a time. I b'lieve dat ar aig-nog done flew'd ter der heads. I know mighty well it 's done flew'd ter mine, kaze how come I wanter cry one minute an' laugh de nex'?"
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