An’ lead ’em th’u de pleasant lands.’”
As George stood by her, with tears running down his face, the old mammy spoke to the child. “Honey,” said she, “heah Marse George; doan’ you know Marse George, dat use ter ride you on he shoulder, an’ make de funny little rabbits on de wall by candlelight?”
The child opened her eyes and a look of recognition came into them. George knelt down by her. She tried to put her little arms around his neck, and he gently placed them there. The mother and father knelt by her too.
“My darling,” said the mother, trembling, “don’t you know papa and mamma too?”
The little girl smiled, and whispered: “Yes—papa and mamma and Uncle George and my own dear mammy.”
The next moment her eyes closed. Presently George asked, brokenly:
“Is she asleep?”
“Yes,” calmly answered the devoted old black woman, straightening out the little body; “she ’sleep heah, but she gwi’ wake up in heaben, wid her little han’ in Jesus Chris’s; an’ He goin’ teck keer of her twell we all gits d’yar. An’ po’ ole black mammy will see her honey chile oncet mo’.”
CHAPTER XIV
The next few weeks worked a great and serious change in George. It was the first time he had seen death since he was ten years old, when his father died. That had made a great impression on him at the time, but the feelings of a child of ten and a youth of sixteen are very different. He had loved little Mildred dearly, and the child’s death was a deep sorrow to him. The grief of his brother and sister was piteous. As the case often is, the father was the more overwhelmed, and the poor mother had to stifle her own grief to help her husband. George could not but love and admire his sister the more when he saw her calm fortitude, and how, inspired by love for her husband, she bore bravely the loss of her only child. Both Madam Washington and Betty had come to Mount Vernon the day of little Mildred’s death. Madam Washington was obliged to return, after a few days, to her younger children, but George and Betty remained.