The marketing done for the house, the mistress of Arlington, with medicine case in hand, started on her round of healing for body and mind. Mary offered to go with her but the mother saw Stuart hovering about and quietly answered:
"No. You can comfort poor Jeb. He looks disconsolate."
Into every cottage she moved, a quiet, ministering angel. Every hope and fear of ailing young or old found in her an ear to hear, a heart to pity and an arm to save.
If she found a case of serious illness, a doctor was called and a nurse set to watch by the bedside. Every delicacy and luxury the big house held was at the command of the sufferer and that without stint.
In all these clean flower-set cottages there was not a single crippled servant maimed in the service of his master. No black man or woman was allowed to do dangerous work. All dangerous tasks were done by hired white laborers. They were hired by the day under contract through their boss. Even ditches on the farm if they ran through swamp lands infested by malaria, were dug by white hired labor. The master would not permit his slave to take such risks.
But the most important ministry of the mistress of Arlington was in the medicine for the soul which she brought to the life and character of each servant for whose training she had accepted responsibility.
To her even the master proudly and loyally yielded authority. Her sway over the servants was absolute in its spiritual power. Into their souls in hours of trial she poured the healing and inspiration of a beautiful spirit. The mistress of Arlington was delicate and frail in body. But out of her physical suffering the spirit rose to greater heights with each day's duty and service.
This mysterious power caught the warm imagination of the negroes. They were "servants" to others. They were her slaves and they rejoiced in the bond that bound them. They knew that her body had no rest from morning until far into the hours of the night if one of her own needed care. The master could shift his responsibility to a trained foreman. No forewoman could take her place. To the whole scheme of life she gave strength and beauty. The beat of her heart made its wheels go round.
The young Westerner studied her with growing admiration and pity. She was the mistress of an historic house. She was the manager of an estate. She was the counselor of every man, woman and child in happiness or in sorrow. She was an accomplished doctor. She was a trained nurse. She taught the hearts of men and women with a wisdom more profound and searching than any preacher or philosopher from his rostrum. She had mastered the art of dressmaking and the tailor's trade. She was an expert housekeeper. She lived at the beck and call of all. She was idolized by her husband. Her life was a supreme act of worship—a devotion to husband, children, friends, the poor, the slave that made her a high-priestess of humanity.
The thing that struck Phil with terrific force was that this beautiful delicate woman was the slave of slaves.