and meantime what excitement in the little cottage down in virginia! everything was in readiness and everybody was on the tiptoe of expectation. everybody meant mary duff, (it was she, you know, who had cared for little courage through all her babyhood, and who had been sent down to get everything in order), and besides mary duff, mary ann the cook, old joe and brevet.
it must be confessed, brevet had had a little difficulty in winning his grandmother’s consent to this visit, but he had been able to meet every objection with such convincing arguments, that he had come off victor in the encounter.
“you see, grandnana,” he had confidentially explained, with his pretty little half-southern, half-darkey accent, “i is a perfec’ stranger to them now i know, but then everything is strange to them down here, so don’t you s’pose it would be nice for me to be right there waiting at the gate, where i can call out 039‘how’dy’ just so soon as ever they come in sight, and so for me not to be a stranger to them more’n the first minute, and have them find there are folks here who are very glad to know them right from the start? besides, the lady—mary duff was her name—told me she just knew those little bennetts would love to see me, and that she would surely expect me down to-day for certain.”
and so “grandnana” succumbed, not having the heart to nip such noble hospitality in the bud, and at two o’clock precisely, the best carriage wheeled up to the door and mammy and brevet were quickly stowed away within it, to say nothing of a basketful of good things covered with a huge napkin of fine old damask. but who is mammy? you ask, and indeed you should have been told pages ago, for no one for many years had been half so important as mammy in the ellis household. she is an old negro woman, almost as old as joe himself, and when on the first of january, 1863, president lincoln issued the proclamation that made all the slaves free, she was among the first to turn her back upon the plantation where she was raised, and make her way to washington. it was there that mrs. ellis had found her, when in search of a nurse for her two little boys, and from that day to this she has been the faithful worshipper of the whole ellis family. now in her old age her one and only duty has been to care for brevet, a care constantly lessening as that little fellow daily proves his ability to look out more and more for himself.
brevet was not to be allowed, however, on the occasion of this first visit to their new neighbours, to make the trip alone. “grandnana” had been very firm about that, somewhat to his chagrin, and so, if the truth be told, mammy’s presence in the comfortable, old-fashioned carriage was at first simply tolerated. but that state of affairs did not last long. try as he would, brevet was too happy at heart to cherish any grievance, imaginary or otherwise, for many minutes together; and soon he and mammy were chatting away in the merriest fashion, and the old nurse was looking forward to the unusual excitement of the day, with quite as much expectation as her little charge of seven. had she not devoted the leisure of two long mornings of preparation to the shelling of almonds and the stoning of raisins, and then when the day came, with eager trembling hands, packed all the good things away in the great, roomy hamper that seemed now to look at her so 041complacently from the opposite seat of the phaeton? yes, indeed, it was every whit as glad a day for mammy as brevet, and she peered out from the carriage just as anxiously as they drove up to the gate and mary duff came out to greet them. but mammy had something to say before making any motion to leave the carriage.
“are you quite sure, miss, dat dis yere little pickaninny of ours ain’t gwine to be in any one’s way or nuffin?” she asked, bowing a how-do-you-do to mary, and keeping a restraining hand upon brevet.
“oh, perfectly sure.”
“he done told us you wanted him very much,” but in a half-questioning tone, as though what brevet “done told them” was sometimes “suspicioned” of being slightly coloured by what he himself would like to do, notwithstanding his general high standard of truthfulness.
“brevet is perfectly right—we do want him very much,” mary answered, heartily.
“even if you have to take his old mammy ‘long wid him, kase miss lindy wasn’t quite willin to ‘low him ter come by hisself?”
“and we’re very glad to see you, mammy,” mary answered cordially, and so the last of mammy’s scruples, which were not as real as 042mammy herself tried to think them, were put to rest, and brevet was permitted to scramble out of the carriage, while mary duff lent a hand to mammy’s more difficult alighting.
“is dere ere a man ‘bout could lift dis yere basket ter de house for us?” she asked, looking helplessly up to the hamper, “kase daniel dere has instructions from de missus neber to leave de hosses less’n dere ain’t no way to help it.”
“well, i guess dere is,” chuckled a familiar voice behind her back, and mammy turned to discover joe close beside her.
“well, i klar, you heah!” she exclaimed. “why, it seems like de whole county turn out to welcome dese yere little bennetts. seems, too, like some of us goin’ to be in de way sure ‘nuff.”
“howsomever, some on us don’ take up so much room as oders,” grunted joe, surmising, and quite correctly, too, that mammy considered his presence on the scene something wholly unnecessary and undesirable. “i’se heah to help wid de trunks, mammy,” he then added; “what you heah to help wid?”
mammy, scorning the insinuation, turned to mary duff as they walked up the path.
“you know, honey, de lord ain’t lef’ no choice ter most on us as ter what size we’ll be, 043but pears like you’d better be a fat ole mammy like me, than such a ole bag o’ bones as joe yonder.”
but joe by that time was depositing his basket in the hall-way of the cottage, and was fortunately quite beyond the fire of this personal attack. mary duff was naturally much amused at the real but harmless jealousy of these old coloured folk, and realised for perhaps the five hundredth time what children we all are, be race and nationality what they may.
meantime brevet had taken his position on the top rail of the gate, with one arm around a slim little cedar that stood guard beside it.
“may i stand right out here, miss duff,” he called back to mary, “so as to see them a long way off?”
“bless your heart, yes!” mary answered, quite certain in her mind that since courage herself was a little girl she never had seen such a dear child. brevet’s watch was a brief one.
“they are coming! hear the wheels! they are coming,” he cried exultingly, with almost the next breath. in just two minutes more they really had come, and brevet was calling out “how’dy, how’dy, how’dy” at the top of his strong little lungs, to the wide-eyed 044amazement of the bennetts, who had never heard this southern abbreviation of the northern “how-do-you-do.” then jumping down from his perch, he ran up to the carriage, repeating over again his cordial welcoming “how’dy.”
“how’dy, dear little stranger!” replied courage, waving a greeting to mary; “and who are you i would like to know?”
“i’m howard stanhope ellis, but that’s not what you’re to call me, i have another name. it’s the name they give—” but he did not finish his sentence, for charming little fellow though he was, he could not be allowed to monopolise things in this fashion, and mary gently pushed him aside to get him out of her way.
“and so here you are at last,” she said joyously; “welcome home, miss courage. how are you, sylvia?” while she bent down with a cordial kiss for each friendly little bennett. meantime courage was making friends with brevet, and a moment later the children were crowding close about him.
“my, but i’m glad to see you all,” he exclaimed, with an emphasising shake of his head, “and i think i know who’s who too. i believe this is gertrude,” laying one little brown hand on gertrude’s sleeve, “and you are mary, because mary’s the oldest, and you 045teddy, because teddy comes next, and you—you are allan.” brevet had learned his lesson from mary duff quite literally by heart, and altogether vanquished by his’ joyous, friendly greeting, the children vied with each other in giving him the loudest kiss and the very hardest hug, but from that first moment of meeting it was an accepted fact that allan held first place. there was no gainsaying the special joyousness of his “and you—you are allan.” the boy play-fellow for whom he had hitherto longed in vain had come, and to little brevet it seemed as though the millennium had come with him.
all this while joe and mammy, barely tolerating each other’s presence, waited respectfully in the background, so that mary had a chance to explain who they were, as courage stood in the path, delightedly looking up at the dear little house that was to be her home. but sylvia had already made their acquaintance. after paying the driver and making sure that nothing had been left in the carriage, she went straight toward them. “i thought i should find some of my own people down here in virginia,” she said, cordially extending a hand to each as she spoke, “but i did not expect they would be right on the spot, the very first moment, to welcome me,” 046"miss duff done tol’ us ‘bout miss sylvy bein’ of de party,” said joe with great elegance of manner, while mammy looked daggers at him, for replying to a remark which she considered addressed chiefly to herself. it was queer enough, the attitude of these two oldtime slaves toward each other, and yet to be accounted for, i think, in their eagerness to be of use to those whom they claimed the privilege of serving; and each was conscious, by a subtle intuition, of a determination to outwit the other if possible in this regard—which was all very well, if they only could have competed in the right sort of spirit.
but there is no more time in this chapter for mammy or joe, nor anything else for that matter. indeed, it would take quite a chapter of itself if i should try to tell you of the unpacking of grandma ellis’s basket, and then of the children’s merry supper; but it seems to me there are more important things for me to write about, and for you to read about, than things to eat and of how the children ate them. by nine o’clock quiet reigned in the little cottage, and “the children were nestled as snug in their beds” as the little folk in “the night before christmas.” joe and mammy and brevet had long ago gone home, and courage and mary duff were sitting together in the 047little living-room, while sylvia, in the hall just outside, was busy arranging the books they had brought with them, on some hanging shelves.
“i think this has been the happiest day in all my life,” said courage. “i have simply forgotten everything in the pleasure of those children.” and then, sitting down at the little cottage piano and running her hands for a few moments over the keys, she sang softly,—
“for all the saints, who from their labour rest,
thy name, o jesus, be forever blest.”
the sweet, familiar hymn brought sylvia to the door.
“miss courage,” she said, standing with her arms folded behind her back, as she had always a way of standing when deeply interested, “you have forgotten yourself and your sorrow to-day, but not for one moment have you really forgotten miss julia,” and courage knew that this was true, and closed the little piano with tears in her eyes and a wondrous joy and peace in her heart.
