Puddnhead Wilson | Page 9

knew, himself, that he had done a noble
and gracious thing, and was privately well pleased with his
magnanimity; and that night he set the incident down in his diary, so
that his son might read it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds
of gentleness and humanity himself.


CHAPTER 3
Roxy Plays a Shrewd Trick
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how
deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of
our race. He brought death into the world.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Percy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house minions from
going down the river, but no wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes. A
profound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could grow up
and be sold down the river! The thought crazed her with horror. If she
dozed and lost herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her
feet flying to her child's cradle to see if it was still there. Then she
would gather it to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy of
kisses, moaning, crying, and saying, "Dey sha'n't, oh, dey
_sha'nt'!'_--yo' po' mammy will kill you fust!"
Once, when she was tucking him back in its cradle again, the other
child nestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood
over it a long time communing with herself.
"What has my po' baby done, dat he couldn't have yo' luck? He hain't
done nuth'n. God was good to you; why warn't he good to him? Dey

can't sell you down de river. I hates yo' pappy; he hain't got no
heart--for niggers, he hain't, anyways. I hates him, en I could kill him!"
She paused awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild sobbings again,
and turned away, saying, "Oh, I got to kill my chile, dey ain't no yuther
way--killin' him wouldn't save de chile fum goin' down de river. Oh, I
got to do it, yo' po' mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey." She
gathered her baby to her bosom now, and began to smother it with
caresses. "Mammy's got to kill you--how kin I do it! But yo' mammy
ain't gwine to desert you--no, no, _dah_, don't cry-- she gwine wid you,
she gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey, come along wid
mammy; we gwine to jump in de river, den troubles o' dis worl' is all
over--dey don't sell po' niggers down the river over yonder."
She stared toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it;
midway she stopped, suddenly. She had caught sight of her new
Sunday gown-- a cheap curtain-calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy
colors and fantastic figures. She surveyed it wistfully, longingly.
"Hain't ever wore it yet," she said, "en it's just lovely." Then she
nodded her head in response to a pleasant idea, and added, "No, I ain't
gwine to be fished out, wid everybody lookin' at me, in dis mis'able ole
linsey-woolsey."
She put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass
and was astonished at her beauty. She resolved to make her death toilet
perfect. She took off her handkerchief turban and dressed her glossy
wealth of hair "like white folks"; she added some odds and ends of
rather lurid ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally she
threw over her shoulders a fluffy thing called a "cloud" in that day,
which was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the
tomb.
She gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its
miserably short little gray tow-linen shirt and noted the contrast
between its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic eruption of
infernal splendors, her mother-heart was touched, and she was
ashamed.

"No, dolling mammy ain't gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine to
'mire you jist as much as dey does 'yo mammy. Ain't gwine to have 'em
putt'n dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David and Goliah en dem
yuther prophets, 'Dat chile is dress' to indelicate fo' dis place.'"
By this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked
little creature in one of Thomas `a Becket's snowy, long baby gowns,
with its bright blue bows and dainty flummery of ruffles.
"Dah--now you's fixed." She propped the child in a chair and stood off
to inspect it. Straightway her eyes begun to widen with astonishment
and admiration, and she clapped her hands and cried out, "Why, it do
beat all! I never knowed you was so lovely. Marse Tommy ain't a bit
puttier--not a single bit."
She stepped over and glanced at the