Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter | Page 6

of the floor with an
anxious, half-frightened expression.
"Don't look so frightened, dear child. A broken pitcher isn't worth it,"
said Mrs. Fulton smilingly. "It's only hot water, and won't hurt anything.
Only Father is waiting for breakfast, so use cold water this morning.
Here is your blue muslin--I'll tie your sash when you come down," and
giving Sylvia a kiss her mother hurried away.
"My landy!" whispered Estralla, peering in from the balcony window.
"Your mammy's a angel. An' so is you, Missy. I was gwine tell her the
trufe if she'd scolded, I su'ly was. Landy! I'd a sight ruther be whipped
than have you scolded, Missy."
Sylvia looked at her in astonishment. Estralla, with round serious eyes,
stood gazing at her as if she was ready to do anything that Sylvia could
possibly ask.
"Run. It's all right," said Sylvia with a little smile, and Estralla, with a
backward look over her shoulder, went slowly out of the room.
"I'm gwine to recollect this jes' as long as I live," Estralla whispered as
she made her way back to the kitchen. "Nobuddy ever cared if I was
whipped before, or if I wasn't whipped. An' I'll do somethin' fer Missy
sometime, I will. An' she give me dis fine dress too." She bent over and
smoothed out one of the little ruffles, and chuckled happily.

Her mammy was busy preparing breakfast when Estralla slid quietly
into the kitchen. When she did look around and saw the child wearing
the pink dress she nearly dropped the dish of hot bacon which Jennie
was waiting to take to the dining-room.
"Wha' on earth did you get you' pink dress? Did Missy give it to you?
Well, you step out to the cabin and take it off. This minute! Put you'
blue frock right on. Like as not her mammy won't let you keep it," and
Aunt Connie hurried Jennie off to the dining-room with the breakfast
tray.
Estralla did not know what to do. Her blue dress was hung over a
syringa bush behind the cabin. And at the dreadful thought that Mrs.
Fulton might take away the pink dress she began to cry.
"Missy Sylvia said 'twas faded. She said to put it on," whimpered
Estralla.
Aunt Connie began to be more hopeful. If the dress was faded--and she
turned and looked at it more closely.
"Well, honey, 'tis faded. An' I guess Missy Sylvia's mammy won' take
it back. An' it's the Sabbath day, so you jes' wear it," she said, patting
the little woolly head. "Mammy's glad to have you dressed up; but you
be mighty keerful."
"Yas, Mammy. I jes' love Missy Sylvia," replied the little girl, now all
smiles, and forgetting how nearly she had come to serious trouble.
Nothing more was said to Sylvia about the broken pitcher; but when
Jennie put the room in order, and brought down the broken pieces,
Aunt Connie exclaimed: "Good massy! It's a good thing my Estralla
didn't do that! I'd 'a' cuffed her well, I su'ly would."
Sylvia did not think to tell her mother about the gift of the pink dress to
Estralla. She did not feel quite happy that she had not explained the
broken pitcher to her mother; but she had promised Estralla that she
would not tell, and Sylvia knew that a promise was a very serious thing,

something not to be easily forgotten.
She did not see Estralla again that day, and Jennie brought the hot
water as usual the next morning.
Grace and Mammy Esther called for Sylvia on Monday morning, and
Sylvia at once told her friend that she had been named from the song.
This seemed very wonderful to Grace, and she listened to Sylvia's
explanation of "excelling" instead of "spelling," and said she didn't
think it was of any consequence.
But when Sylvia told her what Captain Carleton had said about the
forts, Grace shook her head and looked very serious.
"Don't tell Elinor Mayhew, Sylvia. Because really South Carolina does
own the forts. My father said so. He said that South Carolina was a
Sovereign State," she concluded.
"What's that? What's a 'sovereign'?" questioned Sylvia.
Grace shook her head. It had sounded like a very fine thing when her
father had spoken it, so she had repeated it with great pride.
"We can ask Miss Rosalie," she suggested.
Mammy Esther left the girls at the gate of Miss Patten's garden. As they
went up the path Flora Hayes came to meet them.
"I was waiting for you," she said. "I want to ask you both to come out
to our plantation next Saturday and spend Sunday. My mother is going
to write and ask your mothers if they will give me the pleasure of your
company."
"I am