第24章 THE INHERITANCE(24)

"There's no use talking like that when you know Docia has heart disease and can't scrub the clothes clean," she responded."If she'd drop down dead I'd like to know what we'd do with mother.""Well, I'd help you if you'd only let me," protested Lila, on the point of tears."I've darned your lavender silk the best I could, and I'd just as soon iron as not.""And get your hands like mine in a week.No, I reckon it's as well for one of us to keep decent.My hands are so knotted I had to tell mother it was gout in the joints, and she said I must have been drinking too much port." She laughed, but her eyes filled with tears, and she wiped them with hard rubs on a twisted garment, which she afterward shook in the air to dry.

"Well, you're a saint, Cynthia, and I wish you weren't," declared Lila almost impatiently."It makes me feel uncomfortable, as if it were somehow my fault that you had to be so good.""Being a saint is a good deal like being a woman, I reckon,"returned Cynthia dryly."There's a heap in having been born to it.Aunt Polly, have you put the irons on the fire? The first batch of clothes is almost dry."Aunt Polly, an aged crone, already stumbling into her dotage, hobbled from the kitchen and gathered up an armful of resinous pine from a pile beside the steps."Dey's 'mos' es hot es de debbil's wood en iron shovel," she replied, with one foot on the step; adding in a piercing whisper: "I know dat ar shovel, honey, 'caze de debbil he done come fur me in de daid er de night, lookin' moughty peart, too; but I tole 'im he des better bide aw'ile 'caze I 'uz leanin' sorter favo'bly to'ad de Lawd.""Aunt Polly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.Take those irons off and let them cool.""Dat's so, Miss Cynthy, en I'se right down 'shamed er myse'f, sho' 'nough, but de shame er hit cyarn tu'n de heart er 'ooman.

De debbil he sutnev did look young en peart, dat he did--en de Lawd He knows, Miss Cynthy, I allers did like 'em young! I 'uz done had nine un um in all, countin' de un--en he wuz Cephus dat run off 'fo' de mah'age wid my bes' fedder baid made outer de gray goose fedders ole miss done throwed away 'caze dey warn'

w'ite.Yes, Lawd, dar's done been nine un um, black en yaller, en dar ain' nuver been en ole 'un in de hull lot.Whew! I ain' nuver stood de taste er nuttin' ole lessen he be a 'possum, en w'en hit comes ter en ole man, I d'clar hit des tuns my stomick clean inside out.""But, Aunt Polly, you're old yourself-it's disgraceful."Aunt Polly chuckled with flattered vanity.

"I know I is, honey--I know I is, but I'se gwine ter hev a young husban' at de een ef hit tecks de ve'y las' cent I'se got.De las' un he come monst'ous high, en mo'n dat, he wuz sech en outlandish nigger dat he'd a-come high ef I'd got 'im as a Christmas gif'.I had ter gin 'im dat burey wid de bevel glass Ibought wid all my savin's, en des es soon es I steps outside de do' he up en toted hit all de way ter de cabin er dat lowlifeted, savigorous, yaller hussy Delphy.Men sutney are tuh'ble slippery folks, Miss Cynthy, en y'all des better look out how you monkey wid 'em, 'caze I'se done hed nine, en I knows 'em thoo en thoo.

De mo' you git, de likelier 'tis you gwine git one dat's worth gittin', dat's vat I 'low."Cynthia gathered up the scattered garments, which had been left carelessly from the day before, and carried them into the kitchen, where a pine ironing board was supported by two empty barrels.Lila was busily preparing a bowl of gruel for one of the sick old Negroes who still lived upon the meager charity of the Blakes.

"Mother wants you, Cynthia," she said."I won't do at all, for she can't be persuaded that I'm really grown up, you know.Here, give me some of those clothes.It won't hurt my hands a bit."Cynthia piled the clothes upon the board, and moistening her finger, applied it to the bottom of the iron.Then she handed it to Lila with a funny little air of anxiety."This is just right,"she said; "be careful not to get your fingers burned, and remember to sprinkle the clothes well.Do you know what mother wants?""I think it's about taking something to Aunt Dinah.Docia told her she was sick.""Then I wish Docia would learn to hold her tongue," commented Cynthia, as she left the kitchen.

She found Mrs.Blake looking slightly irritated as she wound a ball of white yarn from a skein that Docia was holding between her outstretched hands.

"I hear Dinah is laid up with a stitch in her chest, Cynthia,"she said."You must look in the medicine closet and give her ten grains of quinine and a drink of whisky.Tell her to keep well covered up, and see that Polly makes her hot flaxseed tea every two hours.""Lila is fixing her some gruel now, mother.""I said flaxseed tea, my dear.I am almost seventy years old, and I have treated three hundred servants and seen sixty laid in their graves, but if you think you are a better doctor than I am, of course there's nothing to be said.Docia, hold the yarn a little tighter.""We'll make the flaxseed tea at once, and I'll carry it right over--a breath of air will do me good."Mrs.Blake sighed."You mustn't stay too closely with me," she said; "you will grow old before your time, I fear.As it is you have given up your young life to my poor old one.""I had nothing to give up, mother," replied Cynthia quietly, and in the few words her heart's tragedy was written--since of all lives, the saddest is the one that can find nothing worthy of renouncement.There were hours when she felt that any bitter personal past--that the recollection of a single despairing kiss or a blighted love would have filled her days with happiness.

What she craved was the conscious dignity of a broken heart--some lofty memory that she might rest upon in her hours of weakness.

"Well, you might have had, my child," returned her mother.

Cynthia's only answer was to smooth gently the pillows in the old lady's chair."If you could learn to lean back, dearest, it would rest you so," she said.