“Worthy is our Saviour King.”
Very naturally, now, her thoughts reverted to her governess, and as she listened to the whispering wind sighing through the trees, she fancied it was the voice of Rose bidding her, “come to the Happy Land.” Sweet little Jessie, it was the voices of angel children, which you heard thus calling through the pines; for from their shining ranks one beauteous form was missing, and they would fain allure it back to its native sky.
Come I now to the saddest part of my story. Beneath the evergreens of the sunny South is a little mound, over which the shining stars keep watch, and the cypress spreads its long green boughs, while the children of the plantation, dark browed though they are, tread softly near that grave, which they daily strew with flowers, speaking in low tones of “the Angel of the Pines,” as they term the fair young girl, who passed so suddenly from their midst. It was now nearly five weeks since Mrs. Lansing had fled from the pestilence which walked at noonday, and though it had in a measure abated in the village, there were still frequent cases, and she would not have deemed it safe to return, even if typhoid fever, which she feared nearly as much, had not been in her own house. So there was no alternative but to stay, uncomfortable though she was, for the weather was intensely hot, and she missed many of the luxuries of her home. Still it was healthy there, and this in a measure reconciled her to remain. Occasionally, it is true, she heard rumors of the cholera, on some distant plantation, but it seldom visited the pine regions—it would not come there; she was sure of that; and secure in this belief, she rested in comparative quiet, while each day the heat became more and more intense. The sun came up red, fiery, and heated like a furnace; the clouds gave forth no rain; the brooks were dried up; the leaves withered upon the trees, while the air was full of humming insects, which at night fed upon their helpless, sleeping victims.
At the close of one of these scorching, sultry days, Mrs. Lansing and Ada sat upon the piazza, panting for a breath of pure, cool air. At the side of each stood a negro girl, industriously fanning their mistresses, who scolded them as if they were to blame, because the air thus set in motion was hot and burning as the winds which blow over the great desert of Sahara. As they sat there thus, an old man came up from the negro quarters, saying “his woman done got sick wid the cramps,” and he wished “his mistis jest come down see her.”
But Mrs. Lansing felt herself too languid for exertion of any kind, and telling Uncle Abel that she herself was fully as sick as his wife, who was undoubtedly feigning, she sent him back with a sinking heart to the rude cabin, where his old wife lay, groaning aloud whenever the cramps, as she termed them, seized her. Scarcely, however, had he entered the low doorway, when a fairy form came flitting down the narrow pathway, her white dress gleaming through the dusky twilight, and her golden hair streaming out behind. It was little Jessie, who, from her crib, had heard her mother’s refusal to accompany Uncle Abel, and, stealing away unobserved, she had come herself to see Aunt Chloe, with whom she was quite a favorite.
Unaccustomed as Jessie was to sickness, she saw at a glance that this was no ordinary case, and, kneeling down beside the negress, who lay upon the floor, she took her head upon her lap, and gently pushing back, beneath the gay turban, the matted, grizzly hair, she asked where the pain was.
“Bress de sweet chile,” answered Chloe, “you can’t tache me with the pint of a cambric needle whar ’tain’t, and seems ef ebery jint in me was onsoderin’ when de cramp is on.”
As if to verify the truth of this remark, she suddenly bent up nearly double, and rolling upon her face, groaned aloud. At this moment a negro, who had gained some notoriety among his companions as a physician, came in, and after looking a moment at the prostrate form of Chloe, who was now vomiting freely, he whispered a word which cleared the cabin in a moment, for the mention of cholera had a power to curdle the blood of the terrified blacks, who fled to their own dwellings, where they cried aloud, and praying, some of them, “that de Lord would have mercy on ’em, and take somebody else to kingdom come, ef he must have a nigger anyway.”
Utterly fearless, Jessie stayed by, and when John, or as he was more familiarly known, “Doctor,” proposed going for her mother, she answered, “No, no; Uncle Abel has been for her once, but she won’t come; and if she knows it is cholera, she’ll take me away.”
This convinced the “Doctor,” who proceeded to put in practice the medical skill which he had picked up at intervals, and which was considerable for one of his capacity. By this time, a few of the women, more daring than the rest and curious to know the fate of their companion, ventured near the door, where they stood gazing wonderingly upon the poor old creature, who was fast floating out upon the broad river of death. It was a most violent attack, and its malignity was increased by a quantity of unripe fruit which she had eaten that morning.