Stories of Enchantment 3

Stories of Enchantment 3

The father arose and straightened himself, and, looking into the dark

sky, he said: “It is the will of the Great Spirit. He gave him to us. He

has taken him away again.” Turning, he walked away into the forest.

 

But the mother sat there beside the river many days, moaning, “My son,

my son.” No food passed her lips, no sleep came to her eyes; and always

she kissed and clasped to her heart the little moccasins.

 

One night, when the stars were flashing in splendor, she raised her eyes

to the sky, and beheld that pathway made of star-dust, that leads to the

spirit land. And while she gazed, longing to follow it, she felt the

pressure of a small hand on her shoulder. She turned, to meet the

loving, smiling gaze of her son.

 

“O Great Spirit, I thank thee! The dead is alive again! O my son, I

grieved for thee! Why didst thou stay away so long?”

 

And the boy said, “Come, dear mother; we are to follow yonder path

to-night,” pointing upward. “I have come for thee, because thy weeping

grieves the happy ones.”

 

Then gladly the mother placed her hand in that small clasp; but first

she said: “Stay, dear child; here are thy moccasins. Thou wilt need

them; the way may be rough.”

 

The boy, laughing, held up to her gaze one of his feet, on which flashed

and glowed a moccasin of shining yellow, like the color of a star, and

he said, “Lay down the moccasins, dear, and thou shalt see how a

mother’s love shall be remembered.”

 

She placed them on the ground, and at once a plant sprang up beneath

them. It grew rapidly, and on its highest branches the moccasins were

fastened. They shrank in size, and changed into flowers, keeping,

however, their original shape and color. And the boy said, “These

flowers shall bloom on forever beside this shining river; long after the

red man is gone, they shall bloom.”

 

Then, wondering and happy, the mother followed her son along the

star-strewn path to the spirit land; and not many moons later, the

father, from the midst of battle, went to them.

 

Long ago, the Indians left the banks of the beautiful river, but the

yellow flowers bloom on beside its clear waters; and the white children

call them the “Orchid,” or “Lady’s Slipper,” or give them their real

name, the “Indian Moccasins.”

 

 

 

 

III.

THE LITTLE GHOST WHO LAUGHED.

 

 

Dolores sat beside Aunt Polly, in the door of the cabin. The setting sun

shone on her yellow curls, changing her into a veritable “Goldilocks,”

peeped into her blue eyes, until she was obliged to shut them. It shone

on Aunt Polly’s black face, causing it to glisten like black satin, and

on her clean calico dress and white apron; for this was Sunday evening,

and she was resting from her labors.

 

Across the fields, its light was reflected from the roof and chimneys of

“The House,” as Aunt Polly called it; for there she had lived as a slave

before the war, and to her it was the only house of importance in the

neighborhood. Dolores watched the sun climb from the roof and chimneys

to the gilded points of the lightning-rods, turning them to flashing

spear points. Then it was gone; and she breathed a sigh.

 

Aunt Polly heard it. “What’s the mattah, honey girl?”

 

“I’m lonesome, Aunt Polly; won’t you tell me ’bout the little ghost girl

up at the house?”

 

“Now, sugah, I have to be away from home all day to-morrow, and you’ll

be here alone; that story will make you feel skeery.”

 

“I won’t be afraid. Besides, I’ll go to school, maybe.”

 

“Bless yo heart now, will you? Well, I’ll tell you then, ’cause yo goin’

to be so good. Well, honey, when I was a young girl, I lived up at The

House; that was befo’ the wah. I was one of the house servants, sort of

waitin’ maid, and table maid, too. Well, one stormy night, I was in the

dinin’-room, settin’ the dinnah table. The rain and sleet was bangin’

aginst the windows, and it was growin’ mighty dark. I thought I’d go out

and shut the shuttahs; I thought I’d run out the front doah, and close

the pahlor shuttahs too. The lamp wasn’t lit in the hall yet, and as I

went through, it seemed to me I saw somethin’ white curled up on the

lower stair. I opened the front doah so that I could see bettah what it

was, and then I turned and went to it, and there, cuddled all up in a

heap, was a strange little girl. She had a little peaked white face and

great blue eyes, and her hair was about the coloh of you-all’s. She had

on a little white dress, and had somethin’ in her hands—looked like a

man’s cap, and it was all torn and bloody; and there was blood on her

dress.

 

“‘My land, honey, whar you come from?’ I says, and she huddled down

closer than ever, and began to cry just like her heart was most broke. I

stooped down to pick her up in my ahms”—Aunt Polly’s voice sank to a

whisper—“and—she—wasn’t—there. I rubbed my eyes and looked agin, then I

run to the doah and looked out; but they wasn’t nobody about. Then I got

so skeered I banged the doah shut and run whoopin’ and screamin’ to the

kitchen. Aunt Susan, the cook, grab me by the ahm. ‘Shut yo haid, girl,

and tell me wha’s de mattah,’ she said. So I done told her all about it,

and she just dropped all in a heap and she say: ‘O my Lawd, O my deah

Lawd, the judgment am a comin’ agin! Tell me, gal, was dat baby laughin’

or cryin’?’ and I say, ‘Cryin’;’ and she say, ‘Ooh, my poo’ mistess;’

and I said, ‘Oh, Aunt Susan, what is it?’ She say: ‘Gal, you done see a

ghost. Dat’s no baptized baby; dat’s a poo’ child dat was muhdard yeahs

and yeahs ago by some wicked limb of dis fambly, fo’ to get its money.

Whenever dat child comes here a weepin’ and a moanin’, dat’s de sign of

a death; if it comes a laughin’, den it brings good luck to we-alls.’

 

“Well, I was that skeered to think I’d done seen a ghost, that I shuck

all over, and couldn’t wait on the table. Well, honey, I kep’ a waitin’

for a death or somefin as bad; and ’bout a week later, my mastah’s

oldest boy was out huntin’, and the gun went off too soon, and blowed

the top of his haid plum off. They brought his torn and bloody cap home.

I’d—seen—it—before.

 

“Aftah that, I was always watchin’ for that ghost-child, but I nevah

seen her no more. But she came after that, fo’ my old mastah died; and

there was othah troubles. Finally, aftah the wah, my old mistress moved

to the city with young Mistah Tom, and left the house in the care of the

overseeah of the plantation. Once a yeah Mistah Tom comes down and stays

a week or so, lookin’ aftah things. He used to bring a lot of company

with him, but since ole Miss died, he’s sobered down; don’t seem to cah

fo’ company no more.

 

“And now, sugah, you come go to baid, so you can get up early, and go to

school.”

 

“Aunt Polly, tell me first, do please tell me, where did you get me?”

 

Aunt Polly looked at her doubtfully.

 

“I dunno as you need to know. But yo ma was a lady, and yo pa a

gentleman. You come of a good stock. Sometime I’ll tell you, but not

now; so you go to sleep.”

 

The next morning Aunt Polly was up and away early. She left a dainty

breakfast spread out for Dolores, and a little tin pail packed with a

lunch for her school dinner. Dolores wakened later and lay debating the

question of school. It is needless to say that Aunt Polly, with her lax

government and her fondness for the child, was spoiling her completely.

Dolores was a law unto herself, and came and went as she pleased. She

was looked down upon by the girls at school, because she lived with Aunt

Polly. She did not tell this to her, for she knew she would resent it

bitterly. So she avoided them as much as possible, and many hours when

Aunt Polly supposed that she was at school, she was wandering in the

woods and fields.

 

She thought of her half promise given the night before in exchange for

the ghost story, and resolved that she would go.

 

“My mother was a lady, and my father a gentleman; then why need I care

for those white trash? Aunt Polly is better than they are. I reckon I’d

better go. And I’ll go past the house, and peek in at the hall where

Aunt Polly saw the ghost.”

 

So she hurriedly put away her breakfast dishes, tidied up her room,

locked the door, hid the key, and started on her way to school. She

crossed the field and came to the old house by a path through a grove of

old trees. This side of the house was never used; the shutters were

closed; and the trees grew so close to the house that their great

branches scraped against the walls, causing a creaking, groaning noise

when the wind blew, that had frightened the timid colored people away

from the neighborhood.

 

Dolores put down her pail and books. She sat down a moment to rest in

the shade, for the sun was hot. That resting-spell was the undoing of

her good resolutions; for, glancing above her, she discovered a squirrel

watching her, who began to chatter, as soon as he knew that she had seen

him.

 

“Oh, you pretty dear, come down and I’ll feed you,” she said; and then

she thought, “I wonder if he has a nest up there; I’m going to find

out.” And soon she was among the lower branches of the tree, steadily

working her way to the top.

 

The squirrel turned with a jerk and a squeak, and disappeared through an

open window that the branches had concealed from below. Dolores,

following, found that one shutter was gone, and that the wind, during

some storm, had forced in the sash, while a limb had grown in through

the window. She pushed her way in past the limb, in spite of the

squirrel’s remonstrance, and found herself in a large attic, which

extended over the entire unused wing of the house. The squirrel

scampered up the side of the window-casing, and sat scolding her