The Flower of the Chapdelaines | Page 8

and presently,
beginning where I had begun with Sidney, I went on to point out the
polar constellations and to relate the age-worn story of Cepheus and
Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the divine Perseus.
"Lawd, my Lawd !" whispered the mother, "was dey--was dey colo'd?"
I said two of them were king and queen of Ethiopia, and a third was
their daughter.
"Chain' to de rock, an' yit sa-ave at las'!" exclaimed Sidney.
While her husband and children still gazed at the royal stars, Hester
spoke softly to me again. "Miss Maud, dass a tryin' sawt o' sto'y to tell
to a bunch o' po' niggehs; did you dess make dat up--fo' us?"
"Why, Hester," I said, "that was an old, old story before this country
was ever known to white folks, or black," and the eyes of all four were
on me as the daughter asked: "Ain't it in de Bi-ible?"
As all but Sidney bade me good night, I heard her say; "I don' care, I
b'lieb dat be'n in de Bible an' git drap out by mista-ake!"
In my room she grew queerly playful, and continued so until she had
drawn off my shoes and stockings. But then abruptly, she took my feet
in her slim black hands, and with eyes lifted tenderly to mine, said:
"How bu'ful 'pon de mountain is dem wha' funnish good tidin's!" She
leaned her forehead on my insteps: "Us bleeged to paht some day, Miss
Maud."
I made a poor effort to lift her, but she would not be displaced. "Cayn't
no two people count fo' sho' on stayin' togetheh al'ays in dis va-ain
worl'," and all at once I found my face in my hands and the salt drops
searching through my fingers; Sidney was kissing my feet and wetting
them with her tears.
At close of the next day, a Sabbath, my uncle and aunt called all their
servants around the front steps of the house and with tears more bitter
than any of Sidney's or mine, told them that by the folly of others, far
away, they had lost their whole fortune at one stroke and must part with
everything, and with them, by sale. Their dark hearers wept with them,
and Silas, Hester, and Sidney, after the rest had gone back to the

quarters, offered the master and mistress, through many a quaintly
misquoted scripture, the consolations of faith.
"I wish we had set you free, Silas," said uncle, "you and yours, when
we could have done it. Your mistress and I are going to town
to-morrow solely to get somebody to buy you, all four, together."
"Mawse Ben," cried the slave, with strange earnestness, "don't you do
dat! Don't you was'e no time dat a-way! You go see what you can
sa-ave fo' you-all an' yone!"
"For the creditors, you mean, Silas," said my aunt; "that's done."
Hester had a question. "Do it all go to de credito's anyhow, Miss 'Liza,
no matteh how much us bring?" and when aunt said yes, Sidney
murmured to her mother, "I tol' you dat." I wondered when she had told
her.
Uncle and aunt tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed;
nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after
nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret one bit
'bout dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism in her
eyes that I remembered afterward. "'De Lawd is perwide!'"
"Strange," said my aunt to uncle and me aside, smiling in pity, "how
slight an impression disaster makes on their minds!" and that too I
remembered afterward.
As soon as we were alone in my chamber, Sidney and I, she asked me
to tell her again of the clock in the sky, and at the end of her service
and of my recital she drew me to my window and showed me how
promptly she could point out the pole-star at the centre of the clock's
vast dial, although at our right a big moon was leaving the tree tops and
flooding the sky with its light. Toward this she turned, and lifting an
arm with the reverence of a priestess said, in impassioned monotone:
"'De moon shine full at His comman' An' all de stahs obey.'"
She kissed my hand as she added good-by. "Why, Sidney!" I laughed,
"you mean good night, don't you?"
She bent low, tittered softly, and then, with a swift return to her
beautiful straightness, said: "But still, Miss Maud, who eveh know
when dey say good night dat it ain't good-by?" She fondled my hand
between her two as she backed away, kissed it fervently again, and was
gone.
When I awoke my aunt stood in broad though sunless daylight at the

bedside, with