The Battle Ground | Page 9

willow, Marse Peyton,"
muttered Uncle Shadrach in the Governor's ear.
"Hold your tongue, Shadrach," retorted the Governor, which was the
harshest command he was ever known to give his servants.
Virginia ate her waffle and said nothing. When she went upstairs a little
later, she carried a pitcher of buttermilk for Betty's face.
"It isn't usual for a young lady to have freckles, Aunt Lydia says," she
remarked, "and you must rub this right on and not wash it off till
morning--and, after you've rubbed it well in, you must get down on
your knees and ask God to mend your temper."
Betty was lying in her little trundle bed, while Petunia, her small black
maid, pulled off her stockings, but she got up obediently and laved her
face in buttermilk. "I don't reckon there's any use about the other," she
said. "I believe the Lord's jest leavin' me in sin as a warnin' to you and
Petunia," and she got into her trundle bed and waited for the lights to
go out, and for the watchful Virginia to fall asleep.
She was still waiting when the door softly opened and her mother came
in, a lighted candle in her hand, the pale flame shining through her
profile as through delicate porcelain, and illumining her worn and
fragile figure. She moved with a slow step, as if her white limbs were a
burden, and her head, with its smoothly parted bright brown hair, bent
like a lily that has begun to fade.
She sat down upon the bedside and laid her hand on the child's
forehead. "Poor little firebrand," she said gently. "How the world will
hurt you!" Then she knelt down and prayed beside her, and went out
again with the white light streaming upon her bosom. An hour later
Betty heard her soft, slow step on the gravelled drive and knew that she
was starting on a ministering errand to the quarters. Of all the souls on
the great plantation, the mistress alone had never rested from her

labours.
The child tossed restlessly, beat her pillow, and fell back to wait more
patiently. At last the yellow strip under the door grew dark, and from
the other trundle bed there came a muffled breathing. With a sigh,
Betty sat up and listened; then she drew the frog's skin from beneath
her pillow and crept on bare feet to the door. It was black there, and
black all down the wide, old staircase. The great hall below was like a
cavern underground. Trembling when a board creaked under her, she
cautiously felt her way with her hands on the balustrade. The front door
was fastened with an iron chain that rattled as she touched it, so she
stole into the dining room, unbarred one of the long windows, and
slipped noiselessly out. It was almost like sliding into sunshine, the
moon was so large and bright.
From the wide stone portico, the great white columns, looking grim and
ghostly, went upward to the roof, and beyond the steps the gravelled
drive shone hard as silver. As the child went between the lilac bushes,
the moving shadows crawled under her bare feet like living things.
At the foot of the drive ran the big road, and when she came out upon it
her trailing gown caught in a fallen branch, and she fell on her face.
Picking herself up again, she sat on a loosened rock and looked about
her.
The strong night wind blew on her flesh, and she shivered in the
moonlight, which felt cold and brazen. Before her stretched the
turnpike, darkened by shadows that bore no likeness to the objects from
which they borrowed shape. Far as eye could see, they stirred
ceaselessly back and forth like an encamped army of grotesques.
She got up from the rock and slipped the frog's skin into the earth
beneath it. As she settled it in place, her pulses gave a startled leap, and
she stood terror-stricken beside the stone. A thud of footsteps was
coming along the road.
For an instant she trembled in silence; then her sturdy little heart took
courage, and she held up her hand.

"If you'll wait a minute, Mr. Devil, I'm goin' in," she cried.
From the shadows a voice laughed at her, and a boy came forward into
the light--a half-starved boy, with a white, pinched face and a dusty
bundle swinging from the stick upon his shoulder.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped out.
Betty gave back a defiant stare. She might have been a tiny ghost in the
moonlight, with her trailing gown and her flaming curls.
"I live here," she answered simply. "Where do you live?"
"Nowhere." He looked her over with a laugh.
"Nowhere?"
"I did live somewhere, but