Missy: A Novel

by Miriam Coles Harris

"Sit down, Jay," cried Missy; "don't you see there isn't room for the stage to pass. I tell you to be quiet." Missy had her hands full in managing Jay, and getting the pony out of the road, with his head up into the bushes. This was the only part of the narrow road where they could pass, so she had to draw up on one side, and wait while the heavy stage crawled up the hill. The information was soon telegraphed through the gloomy ranks, which presented a sullen front. The stage was driven by one Moses, who had always driven it since any one could remember. He sat bent up like a bow, with years of long and lazy driving; his hat pushed a little back on his head. He nodded indifferently to Missy. It was all he did to any one, so no one could complain. Beside him sat Léon, dark and scowling; behind them sat Michael, red and wrathful; behind him again, the dismissed cook, laundress, nurse, and last of all, Alphonsine. It was the wreck of a household, indeed. Missy felt a momentary elation when she saw them all together. She had not realized how many there were, before, and to what a complete rout she had put them. It was rather awkward, drawing up by the roadside, and having them all pass in review before her, as it were; but it could not be helped—the condition of a Long Island road never can be helped. A heavy wagon, driven by one of the sons of Moses, the stage-driver, filled with the trunks of the departing servants, crawled on after the stage. The boy was rather rakish-looking; he sat on one of the trunks and smoked a very bad cigar, which he was not at the pains to remove from his mouth when he approached the lady. She glanced quickly at the trunks, and a wandering wish passed through her mind that she might see the inside of them, and estimate roughly the degree to which the master had been plundered. She cast her eyes down after this, or only allowed them to rest on her pony, who did not like being crowded up into the bushes, and did not stand quite still. It is very possible that all might have gone well, if Jay could have behaved himself decently; but his old wrath returned when he saw Michael, and saw him from a friend's side.

"Hurrah!" he shouted, getting on his feet on the seat. "Hurrah! You have got sent away, and it was because you got drunk, and was bad yesterday, and I am glad of it, I am."

Michael was too angry and too much the worse for the last night's revel, to control himself. "You little devil," he cried, and shook his fist at the boy.

Even then, if the boy could have been subdued, it is possible that the habit of decent silence before their betters, would have kept them all quiet till they were out of hearing of the party in the pony carriage. They all knew or suspected that Missy was their enemy, but she was dignified, and no word had ever broken their habit of respect to her. She flushed up and tried to keep Jay quiet, and did not look towards the stage, now floundering through the sand alongside. But she had also the pony to keep under, and he required both hands. Jay did not like to be called a little devil, and there was no one to stop him, except by counsel, which he did not ever much regard; he made a dash with the whip, and lurching forward, struck towards Michael with all his small might. The end of the lash, fine and stinging, reached that person's red, and sun-scorched cheek.

"I'll teach you to call me little devil," cried Jay, as he dealt the blow.

A howl of rage escaped the man, though it must have hurt him very little. He made a spring for Jay. The stage was going so slowly it was not difficult for him to leap from it and land beside the little carriage. Moses pulled up, much interested. Moses' son, behind, pulled up, interested quite as much. Michael caught the boy with a fierce hand. Missy leaned forward, exclaiming, "Don't touch the child. I forbid you. Don't touch him, unless you want to get yourself in trouble!"

A chorus of indignation burst from the crew in the stage. Michael, backed by this, shook the child fiercely in her very lap, boxed his ears, with one brutal hand after the other, and then hurled him back upon her, and swung himself into the stage again. A shower of coarse and horrid words assailed poor Missy's ears, as she caught him in her disengaged arm. It had never been her luck before to be assailed by an Irish tongue, loosed from the decency of servitude. She had never had "words" with any of her mother's servants. This was quite a new experience. She was white to her fingers' ends. Jay did not cry. He was white too. Not cowed, but overpowered by brute strength, and stunned by the blows he had got. Missy never knew exactly what they said; some horrid words always stuck in her memory, but it was all a confused hideous jumble besides. The women's tongues were the worst, their voices the shrillest, the things they said the ones that stuck in the memory most. Moses was so interested he sat open-mouthed and gazed and listened. His son, infinitely delighted, gazed and listened too. At last, Missy found voice to say, above the general babel:

"Moses, will you drive on, and let me pass? You will lose the train if you don't go at once."

This recalled to him the fact that he had the mail-bag at his feet, and losing the train meant losing the patronage of the Government of the United States.

"By Jingo, that's a fact!" said Moses, gathering up the reins, and calling out "gee-up" to the lean horses, who had been very glad to rest. The stage lumbered on, and left the pony-carriage free to move, after the baggage-wagon should have passed. But the baggage-wagon was driven by Moses' son, and he had no desire to shorten or renounce the fun. He did not carry the United States mail. He was probably not unfamiliar with Billingsgate, and was not shocked, only pleasantly excited, by the language employed. He even hurrahed a little, and laughed, and struck his hands upon his knees, as Jay was pitched back into the carriage, white and silenced. He liked a fight exceedingly, he did—any kind of a fight.