Sons and Fathers

by Harry Stillwell Edwards

The little girl awoke at last, sat up and caught sight of the watch.

"Look, gamma. Little boy in deir cackin' hickeynut," and she placed the jewel against the ear of the kneeling woman.

That peculiarly placid expression, driven away in the moment of dissolution, had returned to the dead man; he seemed to hear the Duchess prattle and the familiar demand for music upon the horn.

Isham had responded to the outcry and rushed in. With a sob he had stood by the body a moment and then gone out shaking his head and moaning. And then, as they waited, there rang out upon the clear morning air the plantation bell—not the merry call to labor and the sweet summons to rest, which every animal on the plantation knew and loved, but a solemn tolling, significant in its measured volume.

And over the distant fields where the hands were finishing their labors, the solemn sounds came floating. Old Peter lifted his head. "Who dat ring dat bell dis time er day?" he said, curiously; and then, under the lessening volume of the breeze, the sound fell to almost silence, to rise again stronger than before and float with sonorous meaning.

At long intervals they had heard it. It always marked a change in their lives.

One or two of the men began to move doubtfully toward the house, and others followed, increasing their pace as the persistent alarm was sounded, until some were running. And thus they came to where old Isham tolled the bell, his eyes brimming over with tears.

"Old marster's gone! Old marster's gone!" he called to the first, and the words went down the line and were carried to the "quarters," which soon gave back the death chant from excited women. The negroes edged into the yard and into the hall, and then some of the oldest into the solemn presence of the dead, gazing in silence upon the sad, white face and closed eyes.

Then there was a tumult in yard and hall; a shuffling of feet announced a newcomer. Mammy Phyllis, walking with the aid of a staff, entered the room and stood by the side of the dead man. Every voice was still; here was the woman who had nursed him and who had raised him; hers was the right to a superior grief. She gazed long and tenderly into the face of her foster-child and master and turned away, but she came again and laid her withered hand upon his forehead. This time she went, to come no more. In the room of the bereaved wife she took her seat, to stay a silent comforter for days. Her own grief found never a voice or a tear.

One by one the negroes followed her; they passed in front of the sleeper, looked steadily, silently, into his face and went out. Some touched him with the tips of their fingers, doubtfully, pathetically. For them, although not realized fully, it was the passing of the old regime. It was the first step into that life where none but strangers dwelt, where there was no sympathy, no understanding. Some would drift into cities to die of disease, some to distant cabins, to grow old alone. One day the last of the slaves would lie face up and the old south would be no more.