"Poor people!" cried Preston. "Why these are the hands, Daisy, – the coloured people. What do they want of monuments?"
"Don't they care?" said I, wondering.
"Who cares if they care? I don't know whether they care," said Preston, quite out of patience with me, I thought.
"Only, if they cared, I should think they would have something nicer," I said. "Where do they all go to church, Preston?"
"Who?" said Preston.
"These people?"
"What people? The families along the river do you mean?"
"No, no," said I; "I mean our people – these people; the hands. You say there are hundreds of them. Where do they go to church?"
I faced Preston now in my eagerness; for the little board crosses and the forlorn look of the whole burying-ground on the side of the hill had given me a strange feeling. "Where do they go to church, Preston!"
"Nowhere, I reckon."
I was shocked, and Preston was impatient. How should he know, he said; he did not live at Magnolia. And he carried me off. We went back to the avenue and slowly bent our steps again towards the house; slowly, for I was tired, and we both, I think, were busy with our thoughts. Presently I saw a man, a negro, come into the avenue a little before us with a bundle of tools on his back. He went as slowly as we, with an indescribable, purposeless gait. His figure had the same look too, from his lop-sided old white hat to every fold of his clothing, which seemed to hang about him just as it would as lieve be off as on. I begged Preston to hail him and ask him the question about church going, which sorely troubled me. Preston was unwilling and resisted.
"What do you want me to do that for, Daisy?"
"Because Aunt Gary told Miss Pinshon that we have to drive six miles to go to church. Do ask him where they go!"
"They don't go anywhere, Daisy," said Preston, impatiently; "they don't care a straw about it, either. All the church they care about is when they get together in somebody's house and make a great muss."
"Make a muss!" said I.
"Yes; a regular muss; shouting and crying and having what they call a good time. That's what some of them do; but I'll wager if I were to ask him about going to church, this fellow here would not know what I mean."
This did by no means quiet me. I insisted that Preston should stop the man; and at last he did. The fellow turned and came back towards us, ducking his old white hat. His face was just like the rest of him; there was no expression in it but an expression of limp submissiveness.
"Sambo, your mistress wants to speak to you."
"Yes, massa. I's George, massa."
"George," said I, "I want to know where you go to church?"
"Yes, missis. What missis want to know?"
"Where do you and all the rest go to church?"
"Reckon don't go nowhar, missis."
"Don't you ever go to church?"
"Church for white folks, missis; bery far; long ways to ride."
"But you and the rest of the people – don't you go anywhere to church? to hear preaching?"
"Reckon not, missis. De preachin's don't come dis way, likely."
"Can you read the Bible, George?"
"Dunno read, missis. Never had no larnin'."
"Then don't you know anything about what is in the Bible? don't you know about Jesus?"
"Reckon don't know not'ing, missis."
"About Jesus?" said I again.
"'Clar, missis, dis nigger don't know not'ing, but de rice and de corn. Missis talk to Darry; he most knowin' nigger on plantation; knows a heap."
"There!" exclaimed Preston, "that will do. You go off to your supper, George – and Daisy, you had better come on if you want anything pleasant at home. What on earth have you got now by that? What is the use? Of course they do not know anything; and why should they? They have no time and no use for it."
"They have no time on Sundays?" I said.
"Time to sleep. That is what they do. That is the only thing a negro cares about, to go to sleep in the sun. It's all nonsense, Daisy."
"They would care about something else, I dare say," I answered, "if they could get it."
"Well, they can't get it. Now, Daisy, I want you to let these fellows alone. You have nothing to do with them, and you did not come to Magnolia for such work. You have nothing on earth to do with them."
I had my own thoughts on the subject, but Preston was not a sympathising hearer. I said no more. The evergreen oaks about the house came presently in sight; then the low verandah that ran round three sides of it; then we came to the door, and my walk was over.
CHAPTER III.
THE MULTIPLICATION TABLE
MY life at Magnolia might be said to begin when I came downstairs that evening. My aunt and Miss Pinshon were sitting in the parlour, in the light of a glorious fire of light wood and oak sticks. Miss Pinshon called me to her at once; inquired where I had been; informed me I must not for the future take such diversion without her leave first asked and obtained; and then put me to reading aloud, that she might see how well I could do it. She gave me a philosophical article in a magazine for my proof piece; it was full of long words that I did not know and about matters that I did not understand. I read mechanically, of course; trying with all my might to speak the long words right, that there might be no room for correction; but Miss Pinshon's voice interrupted me again and again. I felt cast away in a foreign land; further and further from the home feeling every minute; and it seemed besides as if the climate had some power of petrifaction. I could not keep Medusa out of my head. It was a relief at last when the tea was brought in. Miss Pinshon took the magazine out of my hand.
"She has a good voice, but she wants expression," was her remark.
"I could not understand what she was reading," said my Aunt Gary.
"Nor anybody else," said Preston. "How are you going to give expression, when there is nothing to express?"
"That is where you feel the difference between a good reader and one who is not trained," said my governess. "I presume Daisy has never been trained."
"No, not in anything," said my aunt. "I dare say she wants a good deal of it."
"We will try," said Miss Pinshon.
It all comes back to me as I write, that beginning of my Magnolia life. I remember how dazed and disheartened I sat at the tea-table, yet letting nobody see it; how Preston made violent efforts to change the character of the evening; and did keep up a stir that at another time would have amused me. And when I was dismissed to bed, Preston came after me to the upper gallery and almost broke up my power of keeping quiet. He gathered me in his arms, kissed me and lamented me, and denounced ferocious threats against "Medusa;" while I in vain tried to stop him. He would not be sent away, till he had come into my room and seen that the fire was burning and the room warm, and Margaret ready for me.
With Margaret there was also an old coloured woman, dark and wrinkled, my faithful old friend Mammy Theresa! but indeed I could scarcely see her just then, for my eyes were full of big tears when Preston left me; and I had to stand still before the fire for some minutes before I could fight down the fresh tears that were welling up and let those which veiled my eyesight scatter away. I was conscious how silently the two women waited upon me. I had a sense even then of the sympathy they were giving. I knew they served me with a respect which would have done for an Eastern princess; but I said nothing hardly, nor they, that night.
If the tears came when I was alone, so did sleep too at last; and I waked up the next morning a little revived. It was a cool morning, and my eyes opened to see Margaret on her knees making my fire. Two good oak sticks