nestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood over
it a long time communing with herself.
“What has my po’ baby done, dat he couldn’t have yo’ luck?
He hain’t done nuth’n. God was good to you; why warn’t he good to him?
Dey can’t sell _you_ down de river. I hates yo’ pappy; he hain’t got
no heart–for niggers, he hain’t, anyways. I hates him, en I could
kill him!” She paused awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild
sobbings again, and turned away, saying, “Oh, I got to kill my chile,
dey ain’t no yuther way–killin’ _him_ wouldn’t save de chile fum goin’
down de river. Oh, I got to do it, yo’ po’ mammy’s got to kill you to
save you, honey.” She gathered her baby to her bosom now, and began to
smother it with caresses. “Mammy’s got to kill you–how _kin_ I do it!
But yo’ mammy ain’t gwine to desert you–no, no, _dah_, don’t cry–
she gwine _wid_ you, she gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey,
come along wid mammy; we gwine to jump in de river, den troubles o’ dis
worl’ is all over–dey don’t sell po’ niggers down the river over _yonder_.”
She stared toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it;
midway she stopped, suddenly. She had caught sight of her new Sunday gown–
a cheap curtain-calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy colors and
fantastic figures. She surveyed it wistfully, longingly.
“Hain’t ever wore it yet,” she said, “en it’s just lovely.”
Then she nodded her head in response to a pleasant idea, and added,
“No, I ain’t gwine to be fished out, wid everybody lookin’ at me,
in dis mis’able ole linsey-woolsey.”
She put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass and
was astonished at her beauty. She resolved to make her death toilet perfect.
She took off her handkerchief turban and dressed her glossy wealth of
hair “like white folks”; she added some odds and ends of rather lurid
ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally she threw
over her shoulders a fluffy thing called a “cloud” in that day,
which was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the tomb.
She gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its
miserably short little gray tow-linen shirt and noted the contrast
between its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic eruption of infernal
splendors, her mother-heart was touched, and she was ashamed.
“No, dolling mammy ain’t gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine
to ‘mire you jist as much as dey does ‘yo mammy. Ain’t gwine to have
’em putt’n dey han’s up ‘fo’ dey eyes en sayin’ to David and Goliah
en dem yuther prophets, ‘Dat chile is dress’ to indelicate fo’ dis place.'”
By this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked
little creature in one of Thomas `a Becket’s snowy, long baby gowns,
with its bright blue bows and dainty flummery of ruffles.
“Dah–now you’s fixed.” She propped the child in a chair and stood
off to inspect it. Straightway her eyes begun to widen with astonishment
and admiration, and she clapped her hands and cried out,
“Why, it do beat all! I _never_ knowed you was so lovely.
Marse Tommy ain’t a bit puttier–not a single bit.”
She stepped over and glanced at the other infant;’ she flung a glance
back at her own; then one more at the heir of the house. Now a strange
light dawned in her eyes, and in a moment she was lost in thought.
She seemed in a trance; when she came out of it, she muttered,
“When I ‘uz a-washin’ ’em in de tub, yistiddy, he own pappy asked me
which of ’em was his’n.”
She began to move around like one in a dream. She undressed
Thomas `a Becket, stripping him of everything, and put the tow-linen
shirt on him. She put his coral necklace on her own child’s neck.
Then she placed the children side by side, and after earnest
inspection she muttered:
“Now who would b’lieve clo’es could do de like o’ dat? Dog my cats