Hallelujah!
’Tis Jesus is deir Capt’in—
Hallelujah!”
“White ez snow—white ez snow,” murmured the girl. “Mammy, do yo’ bleeve that? Ain’t it sweet, mammy? don’ it seem good an’ kind? Mammy, yo’ see that ole blue shirt a-hangin’ thar? I loves that shirt, mammy, same as some women loves their children. It’s sorter got his shape now, ain’t it? Hand it here, mammy. Don’ it smell good?—kinder briery an’ soapy, mammy? He used to take more barths ’n any man yo’ ever hearn ov. I used ter hear him a-splashin’ clear up in my room. Where’s father, mammy? I do want to see father, an’ I want to see Bonnibel ’fore I go. She came to me—oh, so sweet an’ lovin’! She knew I’d ’a’ died fur her, I reckon. Mammy, did yo’ sen’ fur father? Pore father! pore father! he’ll be so sorry! Oh, pore father!” Here the first tears she had shed rolled over her white cheeks. The old negress sobbed out aloud.
“Oh, my honey!” she said—“oh, my little lamb!—oh, my honey!”
Again came that terrible pain, almost beyond her power to endure.
“I’m payin’ fur it—I’m payin’ fur it,” she said, over and over again. “God’s so good to me! He’s forgiven me; he’s lettin’ me pay fur it.”
The surgeon came at daybreak. He was quiet and serious. Little Hicks was the only one to whom he told anything. To him he said, “She may live two or three days; she may die before night.”
At one o’clock next day old Herrick returned. He was wordless and almost majestic in his deep grief. All day long he sat holding her in such positions as would ease her; talking to her; trying to follow her wandering fancies. She knew him always, though she knew no one else. “Father,” she said, suddenly, in one of the intervals when reason returned to her, “won’t you please sen’ fur Mr. Jack? Somethin’ in my heart tells me he’ll come—now. Write to him ’bout Bonnibel. Tell him I saved her. Tell him I jess want ter say good-by. I don’ wan’ him ever ter furgive me. I only want to—to look at him once more. Father”—wistfully—“you think he’ll come?”
“Yes, yes, my little girl, I think he’ll come.”