The Little Immigrant | Page 6

sweet flower fragrance, almost too sweet to breathe freely in, while their lacy leaves scarcely stirred. A great shady one grew in the corner of the paling-fence around the yard and close to the two-room living quarters for the negro servants. Aunt Caroline sat in the door combing her wiry hair with a curry comb, a jagged piece of broken mirror in her lap to guide her in her hairdressing; close by were a couple of rush-bottom chairs set face to face and holding across their seats a pillow with a mosquito netting pulled tight across the top of the backs. Every once in a while Aunt Caroline would twist her neck in the direction of the improvised bed and, finding nothing stirring, would resume her hair-brushing.
"Oh, Aunt Caroline," rushed out of the air and a two-year-old little girl threw herself heavily against the old servant's knees, nearly dashing her toilet articles to the ground. Aunt Caroline started, raised her curry brush over her head and shook it hard at the child.
"My lands," she said, in a low voice. "Whar you come from and making all dat noise and your sister lying dar asleep. Ain't you never swine to renembar what I's al'ays tellin' yer, not ter brash up against one like out de Sperrit world and nearly scare yer old mammy ter deth? Ennyhow yer look tired; come heah in my lap and le' me rock yer."
"May I have your looking glass, then, Aunt Caroline?"
"Look out, chile, you'll cut yerself! No. I's got to lay dis up on de shelf for mahself. Dis no lookin' glass fer a white chile. Now you come heah and get in my lap dis minute."
The child, tired from play and romping around, lifted her arms to be taken up into her dear old mammy's lap. With her curlv head pressed against Aunt Caroline's breast, she fell asleep in a little while and was resting there long after Aunt Caroline had stopped tilting her chair forward and backward--a way quite familiar to Southern nurses in lulling children to sleep. In a little while she had succumbed to the silent noon hour herself.
"Looka heah, nigger. What you mean holden dat chile in yer lap and you fast ter sleep? Wake up. Yer heah? Miss Tiny is comin!" Josiah shoved his brogan over Aunt Caroline's thinly shod foot and she jerked her head up with a start.
"Bless mah soul!" She looked around with a frightened appearance at the chairs with the mosquito netting over them and two blue gray eyes were looking up into hers and a little fist was being devoured.
"Here you are with the children," said a low, sweet voice. "I've wondered if Lola was with you. Has the baby been asleep a long time, Aunt Caroline?"
"Yes'm. She jest now waken up. Ain't she purty, Miss Tiny? Just look at her little face looken like a cherub's. She shore is a buiful chile. Looks a hole lot like you wid her big eyes, on'y dey gray 'stead of black."
"Let me take Lola from you and you lift the baby and bring her to the house."
"Yes'm." Aunt Caroline didn't lose an opportunity, however, to turn around to remark to Josiah, who was hoeing not far away, "Yer, Josiah, you jes come heah, suh, and tote dis chile up to de house. She too hebby fer de Missus. You lubbering black nigger, you jes good fer nothin' nohow and doan you eber stamp on my foot agin! Go long, Miss Tiny, we will bring up de chillens!"
Jaffray was home for midday dinner. "I've bought a nurse girl for you, Renestine. Here is the bill of sale," he said, handing a light blue paper to her. Renestine read: "A copper colored girl," etc. When they were seated at the table Jaffray said: "I felt like a mean creature when I paid the money for that girl, but I knew we needed a nurse girl. Aunt Caroline can't cook and care any longer for the children too, so what was to be done? This slavery system is frightful, and mark my words, Renestine, the day will come when the darkies will be free. Where I was born on the Rhine, no one would believe for a moment that I would buy a human being. They would hate me as I hate myself for bartering in human flesh."
"I know, I know, Jaffray. I remember when my sister used to send Josiah out in the morning to work, he would come back in the evening with his pay that he had earned in the blacksmith shop and give it to her, and Aunt Caroline would bring her money, too, that she had made by a hard day's, washing and ironing. Oh, yes, it is all wrong and dreadful, but we