The strained eyes eagerly searched for a sheltering limb that would catch and conceal the thing, the ghost of which would not lay, day or night. Marm Charlotte had never relaxed in her search, in bureaus, and armchairs, behind hanging dresses, in the big cedar chest, among the blankets, upon top shelves, in old bandboxes, in trunks, over bed testers, downstairs in china closets, among plates and dishes, under parlor sofas and over library bookcases. Ma’y Ann and Marthy Ann had no rest. They made believe to search the garden, after the house had been pulled to pieces, going down among the artichoke bushes and the cherokee rose hedge that smothered the orchard fence, wishing and praying somebody might find it in one of those impossible places all torn by squirrels or made into nests by birds.
Christmas, with its turkeys and capons fattened on pecan nuts, its dances and flirtations in the wide halls of the big house, its weddings and breakdowns in the negro quarters, had come and gone. The whirr of the ponderous mill had ceased; the towering chimney of the sugar house no longer waved its plume of smoke by day nor scattered its showers of sparks by night. Busy spiders spun nets over big, dusty kettles, and hung filmy veils from the tall rafters. Keen-eyed mice scampered over the floors and scuffled in the walls of the deserted building whence the last hogshead of sugar and barrel of molasses had been removed, and the key turned in the great door of the sugar house. Tiny spears of cane were sprouting up all over the newly plowed fields. Drain and ditches were bubbling over, and young crawfish darting back and forth in their sparkling waters. The balmy air of early summer, freighted with odors of honeysuckle and cape jessamine, and melodious with the whistle and trill of mocking birds, floated into the open windows and doors of the plantation dwelling. The shadowy crepe myrtle tree scattered crimpy pink blossoms over the lawn. Lady Banks rose vines festooned the trellises and scrambled in wild confusion over the roof of the well house, waving its golden radiance in the soft, sunny air. Cherokee and Chickasaw hedges, with prodigal luxuriance, covered the rough wooden fences, holding multitudes of pink and white blossoms in thorny embrace, and sheltering the secret nests of roaming turkey hens and their wild-eyed broods.
“Well, Levi, you’se dun your job, and it wus a big one, too.”
“Yes, William, I whitewashed as much as ten miles o’ fencing, and all de trees in de stable lot, besides de cabins and de chicken houses.”
“Ten miles o’ fencing,” replied William doubtfully. “I didn’t ’low dere wuz dat much on de whole plantation. Why, dey call hit ten miles from here to Manchac, and ’bout ten from here to Cohite.”
“I mean ten miles in and out; about five miles one side de fence and five miles de odder.”
“Oh! that-a-way,” said William dubiously. “Charlotte, give Mr. Stucker another dodger.”
The speakers were two negro men, one in the shirt sleeves and long apron that betokened the household cook, the other in the shiny, shabby “store clothes” of the town darky. They sat at the kitchen table, in front of a window commanding a view of newly whitewashed fences and trees. Etiquette required that William should play the rôle of host, on this, the last morning of the whitewasher’s stay. Charlotte had laid the cloth and placed the plates and knives for two, and served the fried bacon and hot corn dodgers to Mr. Levi Stucker, a free man, who had a house of his own and a wife to wait on him and in view of this dignity and state was deemed entitled to unusual consideration.
“Lemme ask you, Charlotte,” said Stucker, carefully splitting his dodger, and sopping the hot crumbs in the bacon gravy, “is you missed ary thing outen de yard on dese premises? Caze I heard dem two little gals havin’ a big talk in dat room next to me last night; you knows dat’s a mighty weaky boardin’ ’tween dose rooms and a pusson don’t have to listen to hear. I bin hearin’ ’em movin’ ’bout and a whisperin’ most ginerally every night when dey ought most likely to be asleep. Las’ night a old owl was a squinchin’ on dat mulberry tree by de winder, and de shutter hit slammed. Dat woke dem gals up; it was atter midnight; dey was skeert, one on ’em begin to blubber and sed de debbil was dar to kotch ’em. From de way dey talked—(but it was mystifyin’, I tell you)—I ’lowed in my mind dem gals had stole somethin’, I couldn’t gather what, fur dey didn’t name no specials, but sure’s you born dey’s up to somethin’, and skeered to death ’bout its bein’ foun’ out.”