on the first day after her return from town mrs. colbert summoned till and told her she meant to go out to see aunt jezebel this morning. “i will have a look around the yard first. send nancy in to dress me, and tell tap to have the boys here in about an hour.”
the “boys” were young negroes whom tap called in from the barn or the fields to help him carry the mistress. on each side of her chair were two iron rings; into these the boys thrust dressed hickory saplings and bore mrs. colbert about the place. tap was one of the mill-hands, but he loved to wait on ladies. he was a handsome boy, and he knew the mistress thought so. he used to make his assistants clean up on these occasions. “take off dat sweaty ole rag an’ put on a clean shirt fo’ de missus.”
this morning the sunshine was so bright that the mistress carried a tiny parasol with a jointed handle. her bearers took her along the brick walks bordered by clipped boxwood hedges, — which were dark as yew except for the yellow-green tips of new growth. mrs. colbert visited all the flower-beds. the lilac arbour was now in bud, the yellow roses would soon be opening. the mistress sent tap for her shears and cut off sprays from the mock-orange bushes, which were filling the air with fragrance. with these in her lap she moved on, until she was carried into old jezebel’s cabin and her chair put down beside the bed.
“you know who it is, don’t you, aunt jezebel?”
“co’se i does, miss sapphy! ain’t i knowed you since de day you was bawn?” the old woman turned on her side to see her mistress better.
she had wasted since sapphira saw her last. as she lay curled up in bed, she looked very like a lean old grey monkey. (she had been a tall, strapping woman.) her grizzled wool was twisted up in bits of rag. she was toothless, and her black skin had taken on a greyish cast. jezebel thought she was about ninety-five. she knew she was eighteen when she was captured and sold to a british slaver, but she was not sure how many years passed before she learned english and began to keep account of time.
mrs. colbert put the sprays of syringa down on the pillow, close to the old woman’s face. “the mock-oranges are out, i thought you’d like to smell them. there’s not a man on the place can tend the shrubs like you did.”
“thank ‘ee, mam. i hepped you set out most all de shrubs on dis place, didn’ i? wasn’t nothin’ when we first come here but dat ole white lilack tree.”
“those were good times, auntie. i’ve been house-bound for a long while now, like you.”
“oh, missy, cain’t dem doctors in winchester do nothin’ fur you? what’s dey good fur, anyways?” she broke off with a wheeze.
“there now, you mustn’t talk, it catches your breath. we must take what comes to us and be resigned.”
“yes’m, i’se resigned,” the old woman whispered.
mrs. colbert went on soothingly: “when i sit out on the porch on a day like this, and look around, i often think how we used to get up early and rake over the new flower-beds and transplant before it got hot. and you used to run down to the creek and break off alder branches, and we’d stick them all around the plants we’d set out, to keep the sun off. i expect you remember those things, too.”
the old negress looked up at her and nodded.
“now i’m going to read you a psalm that will hearten us both.” mrs. colbert took from her reticule her glasses-case and a prayer book, but she opened neither as she repeated: “the lord is my shepherd.”
jezebel watched her intently, her eyes shining bright under eyelids thin as paper.
when the mistress finished the psalm, she called for nancy, who was waiting in the cabin kitchen in case she might be needed.
“are the boys outside?”
then she turned again to the bed. “have you quilts enough, jezebel? do they keep you warm?”
“yes, missy, the niggahs is mighty good to me. dey keeps a flatiron to my feet, an’ a bag a hot salt undah my knees. lizzie, she sends bluebell down to set wid me a lot. dat he’ps to pass de time. her an’ bluebell comes and sings to me, too.”
“but till tells me you don’t eat anything. you must eat to keep ‘up your strength.”
“don’t want nothin’, missy.”
“can’t you think of anything that would taste good to you? now think a minute, and tell me. isn’t there something?”
the old woman gave a sly chuckle; one paper eyelid winked, and her eyes gave out a flash of grim humour. “no’m, i cain’t think of nothin’ i could relish, lessen maybe it was a li’l pickaninny’s hand.”
nancy, crouching in a corner, broke out with a startled cry and ran to the foot of the bed. “oh, she’s a-wanderin’ agin! she wanders turrible now. don’t stay, missy! she’s out of her haid!”
mrs. colbert raised her eyes and gave the girl a cold, steady look. “no need for you to be speaking up. i know your granny through and through. she is no more out of her head than i am.” she turned back again to the bed, took up jezebel’s cold grey claw, and patted it. “good-bye till another time, auntie. now you must turn over and have a nap.”
she beckoned to the four hands standing outside, and they came with their hickory poles and carried her away.
