Ole Mammy's Torment

by Annie F. Johnston

"Here comes Doctor Leonard," he said, nodding towards a rapidly approaching horseman. "Howdy, Doc," he called, as the man drew rein, and felt in his pocket for some change to pay his toll. "What's your hurry?"

"I've a call over to Elk Ridge," he answered, handing him the money and quickly starting on. Then he pulled his horse up with a sudden jerk. "Here, Chadwick," he called, pitching the heavy overcoat he carried on his arm in the direction of the porch, "I wish you'd keep this for me until I get back. I'll be along this way before dark, and it's so much warmer than I thought it would be that such a heavy coat is a nuisance."

"All right," responded the toll-keeper. "Here! John Jay," he ordered, as the doctor disappeared around the bend in the road, "pick up the gentleman's coat and hang it on a chair inside the door there." Then he stuck his hands in his pockets, and whistling to his dog, walked off across the fields.

George turned to the child again. "John Jay," he said, "do you know that I'm going away soon?" Without waiting for an answer, he hurried on, lest another spell of coughing should interrupt him. "When I was a little fellow like you I heard so much about spirits and graveyards and haunted places that I had a horror of dying. I could not think of it without a shiver. But I've found out that death isn't a cold, ugly thing, my boy, and I want you to remember all your life every word I'm saying to you now. There is nothing to dread in simply going down this road and through the gate as Doctor Leonard did, and death is no more than that. We just go down the turnpike till we get to the end of this life, and then there's the toll-gate. We lay down our old worn-out bodies, just as Doctor Leonard left his coat here, because he wouldn't need it farther up the road. Then the bar flies up and lets us through. It drops so quickly that no one ever sees what lies on the other side, but we know that there is neither sorrow nor crying beyond it, nor any more pain. Listen, John Jay, this is what the Book tells us."

With fingers that trembled in his eagerness to make himself understood, he lifted the volume that had been lying in his lap. The words that he read vibrated through the child's heart in the way that the organ music used to roll. Never again in the years that followed could he hear them read without seeing all the golden glory of that radiant October day, and hearing the mournful notes of some distant dove, falling at intervals through the Sabbath-like stillness.

He had a queer conception of what lies beyond the gates of this life. It was a curious jumble of crowns and harps and long, white-feathered wings. Mammy's favorite song said, "There's milk an' honey in heaven, I know;" and Aunt Susan often lifted up her cracked voice in the refrain, "Oh, them golden slippahs I'm agwine to wear, when Gabriel blows his trum-pet!" How Uncle Billy could sigh for the time to come when he might walk the shining pavements was beyond John Jay's understanding. Personally, he preferred the freedom of the neighboring woods and the pleasure of digging in the dirt to all the white robes and crowns that might be laid up somewhere in the skies.

But when George had finished reading, John Jay was not gazing into the clouds for a glimpse of the city to which his friend was going; he was looking down the road. Crowned with all their autumn glory, the far hills stood up fair and golden in the westering sun. It was to some place just as real and beautiful as the hills he looked upon that George was going, not a crowded street with an endless procession of singing, white-robed figures. A far country, under whose waving trees health and strength would be given back to him. No, dying was not a cold, ugly thing.

"They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away!"

George closed the book, and leaning wearily back in the chair, drew his hand over his eyes. "I want you to promise me one thing, John Jay," he said. "That when I am gone you will think of what I am telling you now, and when the colored people all gather around to see this tired body of mine laid aside, you'll remember Dr. Leonard's coat, and you'll say, 'George has left his behind too. He isn't here, but he's just on the other side of the toll-gate.' Will you do that, John Jay?"

There was a frightened look in the boy's eyes. He had no words wherewith to answer him, but he nodded an assent as he went on nervously tossing the acorns from one hand to another.