"Me done sing dood," she said, and her eyes shone and flashed, and her bosom rose and fell, as if she were standing before an audience, sure of success and applause.
Jake did clap his hands when she finished, and said to the Colonel, "She done goes on dat way very often. She's wonderful wid her voice an' eyes. 'Specs she'll make a singer. She's a little quar—dem Harrises—"
Here he stopped suddenly, and asked, "Is you cole?" as he saw the Colonel shiver. He knew the Harrises were quar, and this dark-haired, dark-eyed child singing in a shrill, high-pitched, but very sweet voice, seemed to him uncanny, and he shrank from her as she said. "Me sing some mo'."
Jake now interfered, saying, "No, honey; we're gwine to yer mother's grave."
"Me go, too," the child answered, slipping her hand into the Colonel's and leading the way to a little enclosure where the Harrises were buried.
The Colonel felt quar with that hand holding his so tight, and the child hippy-ty-hopping by his side over the boards Jake had put down for a walk to the graveyard.
"Dis mine. Me play here," the child said, more intent upon her play-house than upon her mother's grave.
The play-house was a simple affair, which Jake had constructed. There were two pieces of board for a floor, and a small bench for a table, on which were bits of broken cups and saucers, the slice of bread and molasses the child had left when she went to see the stranger, a rag doll, fashioned from a cob, with a cloth head stuffed with bran, and a book, soiled and worn as from frequent usage. The child made the Colonel look at the doll which she called Judy, "after ole mammy Judy, who came nigh havin' de pow' at de funeral, an' who done made it for her," Jake explained. The book—a child's reader—was next taken up, the little girl saying, "Mamma's book—me read," and opening it she made a pretense of reading something which sounded like "Now I lay me." The Colonel, who had freed his hand from the fingers which had held it so fast, looked inquiringly at Jake, who said, "Miss Dory's book; she done read it a sight, 'case 'twas easier readin' dan dem books from Palatka; an' she could larn somethin' from it, but de long words floored her an' me, too, who tried to help her."
For a moment the Colonel seemed agitated, and taking the book from the child he said, "Can I have it?"
"No, sar!" Jake answered emphatically. "I wouldn't part wid it for de world. It's a part of Miss Dory, an' she tried so hard to read good an' be a lady. Mandy Ann lived a spell wid de quality, an' got some o' dar ways, an' I got some in Virginny, an' we tole 'em to her, an' she done tried till towards de las' she gin it up. ''Taint no use,' she said to me. 'I'm 'scouraged. I can never be a lady. Ef he comes after I'm dead, tell him I tried an' couldn't.' She meant the chile's fader, her husband. Ain't you her husband?"