LITMIR.BIZ

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encrusted with iron, from the swamp and creek, fever and ague came forth and smote them both.

      How wretched that scene when, almost too haggard to move, father and mother, in this one bare room where Meshach sat, groaning amid their many offspring, saw death with weakness creep upon each other—death without priest or doctor, without residue or cleanliness—the death the million die in lowly huts, yet, oh, how hard!

      "Haste, sonny, good boy," the frightened father had said, knowing not how ill he was, in his dependence on his wife; "take the horse, and ride into Snow Hill for the doctor. Poor mother is dreadful sick!"

      Then, leaping upon the lean old horse, bare-backed and with a rope bridle, Meshach had pushed through the deep sand, bareheaded and barefooted, and almost crazy with excitement, until he entered the shining streets of the sandhilled town, and sensitively rushed into the doctor's office, crying, "Daddy and mammy is sick, at the Furnace!" and told his name, and wheeled, and fled.

      But, as the boy rode home, more slowly, past the river full of splutter-docks, the yellow masts of vessels rising above the woods, the flat fields of corn everywhere bounded by forest, and the small white houses of the better farmers, and at last entered the murmurous, complaining woods, he saw but one thing—his mother.

      Was she to disappear from the lonely clearing, and leave only the hut and its orphans? she, who kept heaven here below, and was the saints, the arts, the all-sufficient for her child? With her there could be no poverty; without her riches would be only more sand. With a little molasses she made Christmas kingly with a cake. She could name a little chicken "Meshach," and every egg it laid was a new toy. A mocking-bird caught in the swamp became one of the family by her kindness; would it ever sing again? The religion they knew was all of her. The poor slaves saw no difference in mistresses while she was theirs. In sickness she was in her sphere—health itself had come. And once, the tenderest thing in life, when his father and she had quarrelled, and the light of love being out made the darkness of poverty for the only time visible, Meshach saw her weeping, and he could not comfort her.

      Then, blinded by tears, he lashed his nag along, and entered the low door. She was dead!

      "Sonny, mammy's gone!" the wretched father groaned; the little children, huddling about the form, lifted their wail; the mocking-bird could find no note for this, and was hushed.

      Milburn arose; the fire was low. He walked to the door, and there was a sign of day; the all-surrounding woods of pine were still dark, but on the sandy road and hummock-field some light was shining, like hopefulness against hope; the farm was ploughed no more; the ungrateful centuries were left behind and abandoned, like old wilderness battle-fields, so sterile that their great events remain ever unvisited.

      "Ho! Samson, boy! It is time!"

      "Yes, marster!" answered the negro in the loft.

      As the negro gathered himself up and passed down the stairs, he saw Meshach Milburn before the fire, stirring the coals. Passing out, Samson stood a moment at the gate, and lounged up the road, not to lose his master. As he stood there, flames burst out of the old hut and glistened on the evergreen forest, lighting the tops of the mossy cypresses in the mill-pond, and revealing the forms of the sandy fields. Before he could start back Samson saw his master's figure go round and round the house, lighting the weather-boarding from place to place with a torch; and then the low figure, capped with the long hat, came up the road as if at mighty strides, so lengthened by the fire.

      "No need of alarm, boy!" exclaimed the filial incendiary. "Henceforth my only ancestral hall is here!"

      He held the ancient tile up in the light of the blaze.

      "Ah, marster!" said the negro, "yo' hat will never give comfort like a home, fine as de hat may be, mean as de roof! De hat will never hold two heads, and dat makes happiness."

      "The hat, at least," answered Milburn, bitterly, "will cover me where I go. Such rotted roofs as that was make captives of bright souls."

      They looked on the fire in silence a few minutes.

      "You have burnt me out, boss," said old Samson, finally. "I ain't got no place to go an' hide when I fights, now. It makes me feel solemn."

      "Peace!" replied Meshach Milburn. "Now for the horses and Princess Anne!"

Chapter VI.

       Table of Contents

THE CUSTISES RUINED.

       Table of Contents

      Vesta Custis, dressing in her chamber, heard early wheels upon the morning air, and looking through the blinds saw a double team coming up the road from Hardship.

      "Mother," she said, "is that father coming, yonder? No, it is not his driver."

      "Why, Vesta!" exclaimed Mrs. Custis, "that is old Milburn's man."

      "Samson Hat? so it is. What is he doing with two horses?"

      Here Vesta laughed aloud, and began to skip about in her long, slender, worked slippers, whose insteps would spare a mouse darting under.

      "Mamma, it is Milburn himself, in a hack and span. See there; the steeple-top hat, copper buckle and all! Isn't he too funny for anything! But, dear me! he is staring right up at this window. Let us duck!"

      Vesta's long, ivory-grained arms, divided from her beautiful shoulders only by a spray of lace, pulled her mother down.

      "Don't be afraid, dear! he can see nothing but the blinds. Perhaps he is looking for the Judge."

      Vesta rose again in her white morning-gown, like a stag rising from a snow-drift. A long, trembling movement, the result of tittering, passed down the graceful column of her back.

      "He sits there like an Indian riding past in a show, mamma! Did you ever see such a hat?"

      "I think it must be buggy by this time," said the mother; and both of them shook with laughter again. "Unless," added Mrs. Custis, "the bugs are starved out."

      "Poor, lonely creature," said Vesta, "he can only wear such a hat from want of understanding."

      "His understanding is good enough, dear. He has the green gaiters on."

      They laughed again, and Vesta's hair, shaken down by her merriment, fell nearly to her slipper, like the skin of some coal-black beast, that had sprung down a poplar's trunk.

      "Ah! well," exclaimed Vesta, as her maid entered and proceeded to wind up this satin cordage on her crown, "what men are in their minds, can woman know? Old ladies, not unfrequently, wear their old coal-scuttle bonnets long past the fashion, but it is from want. This man is his own master and not poor. His companion is a negro, and his taste a mouldy hat, old as America. How happy are we that it is not necessary to pry into such minds! A little refinement is the next blessing to religion."

      "Your father's mind is a puzzle, too, Vesta. He has everything which these foresters lack—education, society, standing, and comforts. But he returns to the forest, like an opossum, the moment your eye is off him. He can't be traced up like this man, by his hat. I think it's a shame on you, particularly. If he don't come home this day, I shall send for my brother and force an account of my property from Judge Custis!"

      The wife sat down and began to cry.

      "I'll take the carriage after breakfast, mamma, and seek him at the Furnace or wherever he may be. Those bog ores have given him a great deal of trouble."

      "I wish I had never heard of bog ore," exclaimed Mrs. Custis. "When the money was in bank, there was no ore about it. He goes to the forest looking like a magistrate and a gentleman; he always comes back looking like a bog-trotter and a drunkard. There must be women in it!"

      Here,

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