“Well, you treats her jes’ like you treats white folks; you says ‘please’ to her when you asks her to do things, an’ you says ‘thank you’ after she’s done ’em. I’ve heard you, Berry,” and Mollie nodded solemnly, as if expecting Berry would promptly deny it.
But Berry also nodded, and only looked more and more surprised.
“Of course I say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’” she said; “and of course I treat her just as I would a white girl. I guess I ought to treat her better than I do,” Berry continued thoughtfully, “because she has never had anyone to be kind to her until she came to live with us. Lily can’t help being black. Just suppose your skin was black, Mollie, you’d be Mollie just the same inside of your skin, wouldn’t you?”
“Mebbe I would,” Mollie replied soberly.
“And just think how many things Lily knows that we don’t,” Berry continued eagerly. “Don’t you remember that wood pewee’s nest she showed us between the forked twigs of the young oak tree near our gate? and the cat-bird’s nest in the cedar tree? and all the stories she tells us, Mollie. About the thrush that pounds acorns on the ground until the shells are broken and he can get the nut; and she made that beautiful basket; and—and——” Berry hesitated for a moment in her list of Lily’s achievements and then said, “And, anyway, she is ‘Lily,’ and I like her just as well as if she were white.”
Mollie nodded. She could understand Berry’s final reason better than any other: to like Lily “Just because she is Lily” satisfied her.
“I likes you, Berry, jes’ because you are Berry,” she said; and the two little friends resumed their play. Neither of them imagined that Lily had heard every word of the conversation from her perch on one of the lower branches of the big oak tree. It was Lily’s secret hiding-place. Perched there among the branches she could look far down the ravine in one direction, and toward Shiloh church in the other, and with little danger of being discovered. She had just settled herself there at the time when Berry and Mollie arrived beneath the tree, and so could not help hearing Mollie’s questions and Berry’s reply. And as she eagerly listened to Berry’s declaration that she, Lily, knew many things that the little white girls did not know, that she was “just the same inside her skin” as if she were a white girl, and Berry’s assertion of affection toward her, Lily nearly tumbled from the tree. Tears came to her eyes, and a new sense of happiness filled her heart. For the first time in her life the homeless, uncared for negro girl knew that she was loved. “Jes’ like I was white,” she whispered to herself. And her affection for Berry deepened, and she again made solemn vows that no harm should ever come near “Missie Berry.”
It was the next day when Berry confided to Lily the news that Confederate troops might, at any day, appear on the Corinth road.
“That is, unless the Union soldiers march to Corinth first,” explained Berry. “And, Lily, my brother Francis is a Union soldier; he’s fighting to set you free!” she continued, her brown eyes resting solemnly upon Lily.
“Yas, Missie Berry. I reckon yo’ brudder would do dat,” Lily responded, “an’ yo’ don’ wan’ de Confedrits ter ketch de odder army? Yo’ means ter watch out fer ’em?” questioned Lily.