"Laws, now," said Tiff, pursuing his reflections to himself, "maybe he's dead now, sure 'nough! And if he is, why, I can do for de chil'en raal powerful. I sold right smart of eggs dis yer summer, and de sweet 'tatoes allers fetches a good price. If I could only get de chil'en along wid der reading, and keep der manners handsome! Why, Miss Fanny, now, she's growing up to be raal perty. She got de raal Peyton look to her; and dere's dis yer 'bout gals and women, dat if dey's perty, why, somebody wants to be marrying of 'em; and so dey gets took care of. I tell you, dere shan't any of dem fellers dat he brings home wid him have anyting to say to her! Peyton blood an't for der money, I can tell 'em! Dem fellers allers find 'emselves mighty onlucky as long as I's 'round! One ting or 'nother happens to 'em, so dat dey don't want to come no more. Drefful poor times dey has!" And Tiff shook with a secret chuckle.
"But, now, yer see, dere's never any knowing! Dere may be some Peyton property coming to dese yer chil'en. I's known sich things happen, 'fore now. Lawyers calling after de heirs; and den here dey be a'ready fetched up. I's minding dat I'd better speak to Miss Nina's man 'bout dese yer chil'en; 'cause he's a nice, perty man, and nat'rally he'd take an interest; and dat ar handsome sister of his, dat was so thick wid Miss Nina, maybe she'd be doing something for her. Any way, dese yer chil'en shall neber come to want 'long as I's above ground!"
Alas for the transitory nature of human expectations! Even our poor little Arcadia in the wilderness, where we have had so many hours of quaint delight, was destined to feel the mutability of all earthly joys and prospects. Even while Tiff spoke and sung, in the exuberance of joy and security of his soul, a disastrous phantom was looming up from a distance—the phantom of Cripps' old wagon. Cripps was not dead, as was to have been hoped, but returning for a more permanent residence, bringing with him a bride of his own heart's choosing.
Tiff's dismay—his utter, speechless astonishment—may be imagined, when the ill-favored machine rumbled up to the door, and Cripps produced from it what seemed to be, at first glance, a bundle of tawdry, dirty finery; but at last it turned out to be a woman, so far gone in intoxication as scarcely to be sensible of what she was doing. Evidently, she was one of the lowest of that class of poor whites whose wretched condition is not among the least of the evils of slavery. Whatever she might have been naturally,—whatever of beauty or of good there might have been in the womanly nature within her,—lay wholly withered and eclipsed under the force of an education churchless, schoolless, with all the vices of civilization without its refinements, and all the vices of barbarism without the occasional nobility by which they are sometimes redeemed. A low and vicious connection with this woman had at last terminated in marriage—such marriages as one shudders to think of, where gross animal natures come together, without even a glimmering idea of the higher purposes of that holy relation.
"Tiff, this yer is your new mistress," said Cripps, with an idiotic laugh. "Plaguy nice girl, too! I thought I'd bring the children a mother to take care of them. Come along, girl!"
Looking closer, we recognize in the woman our old acquaintance, Polly Skinflint.
He pulled her forward; and she, coming in, seated herself on Fanny's bed. Tiff looked as if he could have struck her dead. An avalanche had fallen upon him. He stood in the door with the slack hand of utter despair; while she, swinging her heels, began leisurely spitting about her, in every direction, the juice of a quid of tobacco, which she cherished in one cheek.
"Durned if this yer an't pretty well!" she said. "Only I want the nigger to heave out that ar trash!" pointing to Fanny's flowers. "I don't want children sticking no herbs round my house! Hey, you nigger, heave out that trash!"
As Tiff stood still, not obeying this call, the woman appeared angry; and, coming up to him, struck him on the side of the head.