This was my first grief. And oh, the awful sadness of the funeral. Everywhere the negro's mellow song was hushed, and the trace-chains no longer jangled. The sun was bright, the rose was fresh, the stiff-neck tulip was proud, but the creek which yesterday went laughing through the pasture was mourning now. The horses stood looking over the fence, the frisky colts were surprised, and turning from their play, stretched themselves out upon the clover. Old Aunt Mag dressed me, with the tears shining on her black face. "Her speret is praisin' de Lawd dis mornin'," she said. "You kin go ter de house now. All de black folks is gwine ter look at her."
I stood at the parlor door, with my knees trembling. Old Master came out to walk up and down the veranda. He saw me looking wistfully at him, and he halted to speak to me, but his chin shook and he walked on. Miss May came to me and told me to come with her. I stepped into the room and my heart leaped into my throat at the sight—Miss Lou lying on a bed of roses. Slowly our people came in, as silent as the pillow of white roses holding that beautiful head, and stood there, awe-struck. From a distant room came the broken lamentations of Old Miss. An old black man, a giant who preached for the negroes, stood at the head of the rose-shroud. He gazed with the tears in his eyes, and turning away he said: "De Lawd neber called home er mo' beautiful speret." Old Master came in, and the two men put their hands upon each other and wept.
There was no hearse, no carriages. Through the garden gate they bore their beautiful burden, and slowly the throng of neighbors followed, the negroes chanting mournfully. A white man spoke of the resurrection and the light, and the old negro giant prayed, with his knees in the clay. Old Master led Old Miss home to the dead hush of the great house; and at midnight I heard the old man's feet pacing up and down the hall. It seemed a crime to let him walk out there alone. Once I thought I heard him stop at my door, and I got up and went to him. "Marster," I said, "won't you please let me walk with you?"
He said nothing, but he sobbed, and then I knew that he would not drive me away. And so I walked with him until daylight was come. "Run along now," he said. "Be a good boy and you will go—go where she has gone."
CHAPTER IV.
The days grew hotter, the green corn waved on the hill-side, the wheat was ripening, but the deep mystery of death was over it all. The boy goes about his play, he shouts and has his daily contentions, his quarrels and fights, but darkness comes, and as he goes to his bed, his mind reverts to a soul that has recently taken its flight. Older people have the consoling prop of religion or the forceful brace of philosophy, but in the boy's nostrils lives the scent of the roses that lay upon the breast of mystic death; a fear possesses him as he peeps in at the parlor door. Ah, many days must fall upon a sad memory before it is sweetened. They told me that my young mistress was in Heaven. I asked Aunt Mag if she would be my mistress there, and she said no, that there was no mistresses in Heaven, no slaves, but all white and the angels of God. And with the flash of iconoclastic reason that comes to youth, I asked her why God made black people belong to white people on the earth and afterward made them all equal in Heaven. The old woman turned from her spinning wheel and held up her hands in fright. "Chile," she said, "you musn't talk like dat. Whut de Lawd do it ain't fur us ter question, an' ef you wan't so young you mout git struck wid lightenin' fur sayin' dem words. Run off ober yander in de yard an' play. I'se er feered de lightenin' mought strike at you anyhow."
That night as Bob and I lay in our room, he in his high canopied bed, and I on my low lounge, I asked him if he knew that all the black people would be white in Heaven. "Yes, of course," he answered. "It would be a funny Heaven with a lot of niggers standing about, grinning."
"But they wouldn't have to grin."