“Sing again,” said Barney abruptly. His voice sounded deep and hoarse, and Dick, looking curiously at him, said apologetically, “Music, when it's good, makes him quite batty.”
But Iola ignored him. “Did you ever hear this?” she said to Barney. She strummed a few chords on her guitar. “It's only a little baby song, one my old mammy used to sing.”
“Sleep, ma baby, close youah lil winkahs fas',
Loo-la, Loo-la, don' you gib me any sass.
Youah mammy's ol', an' want you to de berry las',
So, baby, honey, let dose mean ol' angels pass.
CHORUS:
“Sleep, ma baby, mammy can't let you go.
Sleep, ma baby, de angels want you sho!
De angels want you, guess I know,
But mammy hol' you, hol' you tight jes' so.
“Sleep, ma baby, close youah lil fingahs, Meah,
Loo-la, Loo-la, tight about ma fingahs heah,
De dawk come close, but baby don' you nebbeh feah,
Youah mammy'll hol' you, hol' you till de mawn appeah.
“Sleep, ma baby, why you lie so col', so col'?
Loo-la, Loo-la, do Massa want you for His fol'?
But, baby, honey, don' you know youah mammy's ol'
An' want you, want you, oh, she want you jes' to hol'.”
A long silence followed the song. The girl laid her guitar down and sat quietly looking straight before her, while Barney played the refrain over and over. The simple pathos of the little song, its tender appeal to the mother-chords that somehow vibrate in all human hearts, reached the deep places in the honest hearts of her listeners and for some moments they stood silent about her. It was with an obvious effort that Dick released the tension by crying out, “Partners for four-hand reel.” Instantly the company resolved itself into groups of four and stood waiting for the music.
“Strike up, Barney,” cried Dick impatiently, shuffling before Iola, whom he had chosen for his partner. But Barney, handing the violin to his father, slipped back into the shadow where his mother and Margaret were standing. The boy's face was pale through its swarthy tan.
“Come away,” he said to his mother in a strained, unnatural voice.
“Isn't she beautiful?” cried Margaret impulsively.
“Is she? I didn't notice. But great goodness! What a voice!”
“Um, some will be thinking so, I doubt,” said Mrs. Boyle grimly, with a sharp glance at her son.
But Barney had become oblivious to her words and glances. He moved away as in a dream to make ready for the home going of his party, for soon the dancers would be at Sir Roger's. Nor did he waken from his dream mood during the drive home. He could hear Dick chattering gaily to Margaret and his mother of his College experiences, but except for an occasional word with his father he sat in silence, gazing not upon the fields and woods that lay in all their moonlit glory about them, but upon that new world, vast, unreal, yet vividly present, whose horizon lay beyond the line of vision, the world of his imagination, where he must henceforth live and where his work must lie. For the events of the afternoon had summoned a new self into being, a self unfamiliar, but real and terribly insistent, demanding recognition. He could not analyse the change that had come to him, nor could he account for it. He did not try to. He lived again those great moments when, having been thrust by chance into the command of these fifty mighty men, he had swung them to victory. He remembered the ease, the perfect harmony with which his faculties had wrought through those few minutes of fierce struggle. Again he passed through the awful ordeal of the operation, now holding the light, now assisting with forceps or cord or needle, now sponging away that ghastly red flow that could not be stemmed. He wondered now at his self-mastery. He could see again his fingers, bloody, but unshaking, handing the old doctor a needle and silk cord. He remembered his surprise and pity, almost contempt, for big Tom Magee lying on the floor unable to lift his head; remembered, too, the strange absence of anything like elation at the doctor's words, “My boy, you have the nerve and the fingers of a surgeon, and that's what your Maker intended you to be.”