Melbourne House Part 67

"But, Hephzibah, those are Mr. Lamb's nuts, aren't they?"

"I don't care."

"But," said Daisy, looking very grave, "don't you know, Hephzibah, it is wrong to meddle with anything that belongs to other people?"

"He hain't no right to 'em, I don't believe."

"I thought you said they were in Mr. Lamb's field?"

"So they be."

"Then they are his nuts. You would not like anybody to take them, if they belonged to you."

"It don't make no odds," said Hephzibah, st.u.r.dily, but looking down at the same time. "He'll get it out of us some other way."

"Get it out of you?" said Daisy.

"Yes."

"What do you mean?"

"He gets it out of everybody," said Hephzibah. "Tain't no odds."

"But, Hephzibah, if those trees were yours, would you like to have Mr. Lamb come and take the nuts away?"

"No. I'd get somebody to shoot him."

Daisy hardly knew how to go along with her discourse; Hephzibah's erratic opinions started up so fast. She looked at her little rough pupil in absolute dismay. Hephzibah showed no consciousness of having said anything remarkable. Very st.u.r.dy she looked; very a.s.sured in her judgment. Daisy eyed her rough bristling hair, with an odd kind of feeling that it would not be more difficult to comb down into smoothness than the unregulated thoughts of her mind. She must begin gently. But Daisy's eyes grew most wistfully earnest.

"Would you shoot Mr. Lamb for taking away your nuts?"

"Just as lieves."

"Then, how do you think he would feel about your taking his nuts?"

"I don't care!"

"But, Hephzibah, listen. Do you know what the Bible says? It says, that we must do to other people just what we would like to have them do to us in the same things."

"Then he oughtn't to have sot such a price on his meat," said Hephzibah.

"But, then," said Daisy, "what would it be right for you to do about his nuts?"

"I don't care," said Hephzibah. " 'Tain't no odds. I'm a going to get 'em. I guess it's time for me to go home."

"But, Hephzibah, ? you have not done your lesson yet. I want you to learn all this row to-day. The next is, f, a, fa."

"That don't mean nothin'," said Hephzibah.

"But you want to learn it, before you can go on to what does mean something."

"I don't guess I do," said Hephzibah.

"Don't you want to learn to read?"

"Yes, but that ain't reading'."

"But you cannot learn to read without it," said Daisy.

Under this urging, Hephzibah did consent to go down the column of two-letter syllables.

"Ain't you going with me after them nuts?" she said, as soon as the bottom of the page was reached. "I'll show you a rabbit's nest. La! it's so pretty!"

"I hope you will not take the nuts, Hephzibah, without Mr.

Lamb's leave."

"I ain't going to ask his leave," said Hephzibah. "He wouldn't give it to me, besides. It's fun, I tell you."

"It is wrong," said Daisy. "I don't think there's any fun in doing what's wrong."

"It is fun, though, I tell you," said Hephzibah. "It's real sport. The nuts come down like rain; and we get whole baskets full. And then, when you crack 'em, I tell you, they are sweet."

"Hephzibah, do you know what the Bible says?"

"I don't want to learn no more to-day," said the child. "I'm going. Good bye, Daisy."

She stayed no further instruction of any kind; but caught up her calico sun-bonnet, and went off at a jump, calling out "Good bye, Daisy!" when she had got some yards from the house.

Daisy lay still, looking very thoughtful.

"The child has just tired you, my love!" said the black woman.

"What shall I do, Juanita? She doesn't understand."

"My love knows who opened the eyes of the blind," said Juanita.

Daisy sighed. Certainly teaching seemed to take very small hold on her rough little pupil. These thoughts were suddenly banished by the entrance of Mrs. Randolph.

The lady was alone this time. How like herself she looked, handsome and stately, in characteristic elegance of attire and manner both. Her white morning dress floated off in soft edges of lace from her white arms; a shawl of precious texture was gathered loosely about them; on her head, a gossamer web of some fancy manufacture fell off on either side, a mock covering for it. She came up to Daisy and kissed her, and then examined into her various arrangements, to see that she was in all respects well and properly cared for.

Her mother's presence made Daisy feel very meek. Her kiss had been affectionate, her care was motherly; but with all that there was not a turn of her hand nor a tone of her calm voice, that did not imply and express absolute possession, perfect control. That Daisy was a little piece of property belonging to her in sole right, with which she did and would do precisely what it might please her, with very little concern how or whether it might please Daisy. Daisy was very far from putting all this in words, or even in distinct thoughts; nevertheless, she felt and knew every bit of it; her mother's hand did not touch Daisy's foot or her shoulder, without her inward consciousness what a powerful hand it was. Now it is true that all this was in one way no new thing; Daisy had always known her mother's authority to be just what it was now; but it was only of late that a question had arisen about the bearing of this authority upon her own little life and interests. With the struggle that had been, and the new knowledge that more struggles in the future were not impossible, the consciousness of her mother's power over her had a new effect. Mrs. Randolph sat down and took out her tetting-work; but she only did a few st.i.tches.

"What child was that I met running from the house as I came up?" she asked, a little to Daisy's discomfiture.

"It was a little girl who belongs in the village, mamma."

"How comes she to know you?"