We may well consider then the providence of God which brought her under the care of Mammy Grace, the negro nurse, as another link in that golden chain of love which was to draw her up out of the shame and misery of her abject condition to the knowledge and service of her Heavenly Father.
CHAPTER VI. BEGINNINGS OF KNOWLEDGE.
THE first day of the new service was over. The two babies had been carried to the house and put to bed as usual at sunset, and Mammy Grace had mixed the corn-pone for supper, and laid it to bake beneath the hot ashes.
Tidy stretched herself at full length near the open door of the cabin, and resting her head upon her hand looked out. All was still save the hum of voices from the house, and now and then the plaintive song of the whippoorwill in the meadow. The new moon was just hiding its silvery crescent behind Tulip Mountain, and the shadows were growing every moment darker among the flower-laden trees that covered its sides. It was just the hour for thinking; and as the weary child lay there, watching the stars that, one by one, stepped with such strange, noiseless grace out upon the clear, blue sky, soothed by the calm influence that breathed through the beautiful twilight, she soon forgot herself and her surroundings, and was lost in the mazes of speculation and wonder. What were these bright spots that kept coming thicker and faster over her head, winking and blinking at her, as if with a conscious and friendly intelligence? Who made them? what were they doing? where did they hide in the daytime? If she could climb up yonder mountain, and then get to the top of those tall tulip-trees, she was sure she could reach them, or, at least, see better what they were. Were they candles, that some unseen hand had lighted and thrust out there, that the night might not be wholly dark? That could not be, for then the wind, which was fanning the trees, would blow them out. How the little mind longed to fathom the mystery! Once she had ventured to ask Miss Matilda what those bright specks up in the sky were, and she answered, in an indifferent sort of way, "Stars, you little silly goose,—why, don't you know? They are stars." And then she was just about as wise and as satisfied as she had been before.
She was so busy with her thoughts, that she did not perceive Mammy Grace, as she drew the old, broken-backed rocking-chair up to the door, and sitting down, with her elbows on her knees and her head upon her hands, leaned forward, to discover, if possible, what the child was so intently gazing at. She could discern no object in the deep twilight; but, struck herself with the still beauty of the scene, she exclaimed,—
"Pooty night, a'n't it? How de stars of heaben do shine!"
The voice disturbed Tidy in her reverie. Her first impulse was to get up and walk away, that she might finish out her thinking in some other place, where she could be alone. But the thought flashed through her mind, that perhaps the kind-looking old nurse at her side might be able to tell her some of the many things she was so perplexed about; and, almost before she knew she was speaking, she blurted out,—
"What's them things up thar?"
"Dem bright little shiny tings, honey, in de firm'ment? Laws, don' ye know? Whar's ye lived all yer days, if ye don' know de stars when ye sees 'em?"