Gideon's Band Part 13

"Ow! the _Conqueror_!"

"Ya.s.s'm, dat's what I say. And dah wuz yo' ma, an' me, o' co'se, and dah wuz Phyllis, my full fus' cousin--now, ef you cayn't stop a-gigglin' an'

wrigglin' long enough fo' me to finish dis----"

Ramsey was too unnerved to heed. "How could--" she insisted--"how could a--a mulatto girl be your first cousin?"

"Now, you dess neveh min' how! Phyllis wa'n't no mullatteh, nohow. She wuz a quadroom! Heh mullatteh motheh wuz my own sisteh!"

"Oh, you mean half-sister!"

"I means whole sisteh! Miss Hayle, betteh you dess drap dat subjic' now, an' thaynk Gawd fo' yo' ign'ance!"

"All right! all right! whole sister! go on! were you twins?" The querist gave a wild start of surprise at herself and sank to the floor.

"Missie," sighed the old woman, "y'ain't neveh in yo' life stopped to think dat niggehs is got feelin's, is you?"

The speech was hardly begun before the girl was up and about the protester's neck: "Hus.h.!.+ ple-ease hus.h.!.+ You've said it before, you've said it before, you've said it before, before!"

The nurse's eyes filled: "Ya.s.s, an' what use it been? De wuss thing I know 'bout good white folks--an' when I says 'good' I means de best!--dat is, dat dey don't _believe_ niggehs is got feelin's!" It was hard to speak on, for Ramsey had pushed her into a chair and was in her lap.

"They do! they do, mammy Joy, they do!" She fell to kissing her, first slowly, then wildly as Joy insisted:

"No, dey don't. Ef dey did, Phyllis 'ud neveh 'a' come to de pa.s.s she came to. But dey don't! Some o' de bes' _believes_ dey believes, dat's all. Oh, I 'llow you, lots o' white folks is got--oh, Lawd! _don't_ spile my breas'-han'kercheh!--is got mo' feelin's dan some niggehs; but lots o' niggehs is got _lots_ mo' feelin's dan some white folks. Mo' an'

betteh! Now, my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh----"

"Oh, never mind, there's the rising gong! I know your yellow sister must have had feelings. Tell about Phyllis--and the Courteneys--and the _Quakeress_."

"Well, I will! Yo' plumb sot on gitt'n' de thing, an'----"

"Yes, and it's not a fit story for me to ask _him_ about and you know I'll ask him if I have to! And besides, I just know mom-a's told you to keep me off the hurricane roof any way you can and as long as you can--listen! the big bell! we're meeting a boat, maybe half a dozen! And we're pa.s.sing to labboard. Come! Come on!"

At their own door they espied the pa.s.sing craft: a single boat, not six; a tiny, cabinless, one-funnelled, unclean, crawling thing, dimly made out in the early dusk of the forested sh.o.r.e which it servilely hugged as if doing all it could to hide its grimy name and ident.i.ty.

"The _Fly-up-the-Creek_!" gasped Ramsey. "Oh, that _can't_ be all!" She sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her--but her behavior may as well go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side window, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet so heartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, and thought of home.

When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and the theme was once more Phyllis.

"Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question.

"Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold."

Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashed back: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life sold one of his negroes!"

"Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz a quadroom?"

"Why," laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!"

"Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!--dat de likes o' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kin _make_ a niggeh out'n a simon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat heh like a niggeh; but----"

Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!"

"Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but--I's seen it done! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how come Phyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!"

"What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she was good."

"She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout de _Quak'ess_." The narrator shut her lips tight.

The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slim shoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed a marvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, and gold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but the _Votaress_ bore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain that she was about to enter a "chute," whose vividly green, low, wooded sh.o.r.e on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle, ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general, judge, or squire was in sight.

Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by law when descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the main river. She had heard with awe that bit of history--not this history,--the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a s.h.i.+p, of four hundred Creek Indians who were being deported to make room for the white man, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now what unmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recent presence of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ away over here on this morning side of the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had no right to be, coming down-stream.

"My!" cried the girl, "I wish--oh, my, my, _my_, I wish I could be five people at once!"

For here the boat's watchman sauntered by--a boat's watchman must be a world in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still paced athwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elder Courteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Here rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet mother playing angel--oh, my, my!--and here, up yonder, was the pilot, by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's greenwood walls and out over their tops--"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever listen to you, once we're in the chute!"

"I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow.

She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yalleh sisteh--aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o'

Vicksbu'g, same like _us_ got back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa he stick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive'

yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' gramma die' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa--a shawt spell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up."

"Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do."

"H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz."

"But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!"

"An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me up a-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'--well, I'll stop tell you quits de giggles.... Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeah ayfteh y'uncle Dan--de bacheldeh--de pilot--quit de riveh a spell fo' to run de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speak up ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa, sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile."

"Chi--you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!"

"Ef I skips I skips fo' de good o' yo' soul."

Ramsey stared. "Why did mom-a borrow her?"

"'Caze she couldn' buy heh. Yo' gramma she die' leavin' dat whole Vicksbu'g place an' people, bawn an' unbawn, to yo' grampa, fo' to pa.s.s, when he die', to y'uncle Dan, an' y'uncle Dan he wouldn' even 'a' loan'

Phyllis ef he could 'a' perwent. Humph-ummm! he tuck on 'bout his 'rights' like a sett'n' hen."

"But what did mom-a _want_ to borrow her for?"

"Well, I mowt say, fo' heh beauty; but ef I don't skip noth'n' I got to say she 'llow to p'otect heh."

Ramsey stared again and suddenly fell into that soft, rippling laugh, keen, merry, self-oblivious, which forty excusing adjectives would not have excused to her nurse.

"Protect her from--from wha-at?" She rippled again.

"F'om herseff!--an' f'om him!--an' him f'om heh!--and de whole Hayle fambly an' de law o' Gawd f'om bofe! An' she done it, yo' ma!--up to de wery day he meet his awful en' in dat bu'nin' pilot-house, when----"

"Ah-h-h! what pilot-house? You never told me----"