The Strength of Gideon | Page 7

Peggy took the brown head in her lap and let her big hands
wander softly over the girl's pale face. "Sh,--sh," she said as if she were
soothing a baby, "don't go on lak dat. W'y whut's de mattah wid you,
Miss Mime? 'Pears lak you done los' all yo' spe'it. Whut you reckon yo'
pappy 'u'd t'ink ef he could see you ca'in' on dis away? Didn' he put his
han' on yo' haid an' call you his own brave little gal, jes' befo', jes'
befo'--he went?"
The girl raised her head for a moment and looked at the old woman.
"Oh, mammy, mammy," she cried, "I have tried so hard to be brave--to
be really my father's daughter, but I can't, I can't. Everything I turn my
hand to fails. I've tried sewing, but here every one sews for herself now.
I've even tried writing," and here a crimson glow burned in her cheeks,
"but oh, the awful regularity with which everything came back to me.
Why, I even put you in a story, Mammy Peggy, you dear old, good,
unselfish thing, and the hard-hearted editor had the temerity to decline
you with thanks."
"I wouldn't'a' nevah lef' you nohow, honey."
Mima laughed through her tears. The strength of her first grief had
passed, and she was viewing her situation with a whimsical enjoyment
of its humorous points.

"I don't know," she went on, "it seems to me that it's only in stories
themselves that destitute young Southern girls get on and make fame
and fortune with their pens. I'm sure I couldn't."
"Of course you couldn't. Whut else do you 'spect? Whut you know
'bout mekin' a fortune? Ain't you a Ha'ison? De Ha'isons nevah was no
buyin' an' sellin', mekin' an' tradin' fambly. Dey was gent'men an' ladies
f'om de ve'y fus' beginnin'."
"Oh what a pity one cannot sell one's quality for daily bread, or trade
off one's blue blood for black coffee."
"Miss Mime, is you out o' yo' haid?" asked Mammy Peggy in disgust
and horror.
"No, I'm not, Mammy Peggy, but I do wish that I could traffic in some
of my too numerous and too genteel ancestors instead of being
compelled to dispose of my ancestral home and be turned out into the
street like a pauper."
"Heish, honey, heish, I can' stan' to hyeah you talk dat-away. I's so'y to
see dee ol' place go, but you got to go out of it wid yo' haid up, jes' ez
ef you was gwine away fo' a visit an' could come back w'en evah you
wanted to."
"I shall slink out of it like a cur. I can't meet the eyes of the new owner;
I shall hate him."
"W'y, Miss Mime, whaih's yo' pride? Whaih's yo' Ha'ison pride?"
"Gone, gone with the deed of this house and its furniture. Gone with
the money I paid for the new cottage and its cheap chairs."
"Gone, hit ain' gone, fu' ef you won't let on to have it, I will. I'll show
dat new man how yo' pa would 'a' did ef he'd 'a' been hyeah."
"What, you, Mammy Peggy?"
"Yes, me, I ain' a-gwine to let him t'ink dat de Ha'isons didn' have no

quality."
"Good, mammy, you make me remember who I am, and what my duty
is. I shall see Mr. Northcope when he comes, and I'll try to make my
Harrison pride sustain me when I give up to him everything I have held
dear. Oh, mammy, mammy!"
"Heish, chile, sh, sh, er go on, dat's right, yo' eyes is open now an' you
kin cry a little weenty bit. It'll do you good. But when dat new man
comes I want mammy's lamb to look at him an' hol' huh haid lak' huh
ma used to hol' hern, an' I reckon Mistah No'thcope gwine to withah
away."
And so it happened that when Bartley Northcope came the next day to
take possession of the old Virginia mansion he was welcomed at the
door, and ushered into the broad parlor by Mammy Peggy, stiff and
unbending in the faded finery of her family's better days.
"Miss Mime'll be down in a minute," she told him, and as he sat in the
great old room, and looked about him at the evidences of ancient
affluence, his spirit was subdued by the silent tragedy which his
possession of it evinced. But he could not but feel a thrill at the bit of
comedy which is on the edge of every tragedy, as he thought of
Mammy Peggy and her formal reception. "She let me into my own
house," he thought to himself, "with the air of granting me a favor."
And then there was a step on the stair; the door opened,