Martha sobbed, on the veranda step, and Mary looked defiant, but no response came to that repeated inquiry. After a pause, Mary Ann bridled up; the matter in question seemed to be taking a broader range; the bonnet seemed to be merging in generalities, and might in time sink into the other question of what can be done with them. Martha’s courage also revived, so she could respond to the inquiry of her parentage.
“I ain’t neber had no daddy, and my mammy she’s married to long Phil now.”
The planter shifted his legs, looked abroad in a meditative way, then turned to the charge.
“Well, now, you girls want to tell us all you know about this,” holding up again before them the battered brim and crushed poppies and long, dingy ribbons. Martha buried her face again, and Mary was suddenly interested in the gambols of a squirrel in the pecan tree. Neither culprit would look at the evidence of their guilt. “What will become of you? I can’t keep you and nobody will buy a rogue; nobody wants you.”
“My mammy wants me, Marse Jim,” whimpered the scared Martha.
“No, your mother is Nancy, isn’t she? She’s a good woman and don’t want a rogue and a liar tied to her all her days.” Another long pause. “Come here, Martha, both of you stand by Charlotte and hold her hands. I will give you one more chance. Which—one—of—you—stole—that bonnet? Did both of you do it together? Who hid it? What made you do it?” There was a pause between the questions, not one word of response. Martha’s tears dropped on her little naked foot, while Mary Ann looked vacantly at the nimble squirrel in apparent indifference, not a muscle of her face giving any evidence of emotion.
“Marse Jim,” said Charlotte, whose impatience increased as she saw signs of action on the part of the inquisitor. “Marse Jim, what you gwine to do? It’s no use er whippin’ dese gals; dere hides is like cowhide and whippin’ ain’t no good noways fur liars. Killin’ is good for such.”
The planter rose from his chair, straightened his tired limbs and kicked the bonnet out of his way. “Bring them along, Charlotte. I’ll see what I can do.”
Charlotte, with a firm grasp of each child, followed the tall leader, who, as he turned into the hall, tossed a nod and a significant wink to his wife. She obediently rose and followed. In all the interview the mistress had remained a passive but interested spectator, feeling sure that at a critical moment a signal from her husband would afford her an opportunity to intervene. The master led his followers straight to the well-house, under whose vine-clad arbor reposed the dripping bucket, attached by a windlass to an endless chain.
“I think it best to drown them,” he quietly remarked. The little group filled the arbor. William and Billy, the gardener; Delia, the laundress; Lucy, the maid; Sawny, the “woodpile boy” and Oliver, who “went wid de buggy,” attracted by the spectacle, gathered around the outskirts. The story of the finding of the long lost bonnet had spread over the yard and premises; fragments had even wafted to “the quarters,” with the mysterious rapidity and certainty that always attended a household event in the old plantation days.