The anxiety depicted in the countenance of Mrs. Le Rue did not arise from any sympathy for the emaciated and suffering woman before her, but only from that natural vexation with which a farmer would regard the sudden falling lame of a valuable horse. The idea of commiserating Hasty's condition as a human being, as a sister, never for a moment occurred to her; indeed, the sickness of the little poodle dog, which she led by a pink ribbon, would have elicited far more of the sympathies of her nature. In Hasty she saw only a piece of property visibly depreciated by sickness.
"What is the matter with you, girl? Why have you not come to pay me my money?" she asked harshly, as she took the seat that Fanny had carefully dusted off.
"O missus! I'se been too sick to work dis two weeks; but I'se got five dollars saved up for you, and if ever I get well I kin pay you the rest soon."
"Pay the rest soon! Yes, you look very much like that. You are just making a fool of yourself about your husband; that is the way you niggers do. You are just trying to cheat me out of the money. I'll never let one of my women get married again."
While the much-injured lady was delivering this speech, the poodle, who had been intently watching the face of his mistress, and thinking some one must be the offender, sprang at Fanny, viciously snapping at her feet. She, poor girl, had watched every expression in the face of her mistress, with the same anxiety as the courtiers of the sultan watch that autocrat, who holds their lives and fortunes in his hand; and surprised at this assault from an unlooked-for quarter, she jumped aside, and in doing so trod upon the paw of her tormentor, and sent him howling to the lap of his mistress.
This was the last drop that caused the cup of wrath to overflow. Without heeding the protestations of Fanny, she seized her by the arm, and boxed her ears soundly.
"What did you tread upon the dog for, you great clumsy nigger? I'll teach you what I'll do, if you do anything of the kind again; I'll give you a good whipping."
Then turning to Hasty, whose feeble nerves had been intensely excited by this scene, she said: "I want you to get to work again pretty soon, and not lie there too lazy to work. You need not think I am going to lose my money by your foolishness. I shall expect your month's payment as usual, and if I don't get it, I will hire you out like the rest. And there is another thing I have to say; you are not going to keep this lazy girl here to hinder you, and to spend money on. A lady I know wants just such a girl to go to the door, and to wait on her, who will give me two dollars a month for her, and it is quite time she was doing something. I will not take her away now, but next week do you tidy her up and send her to me."
CHAPTER V.
Hasty was dying. She knew that it was to be so. For herself it was a release which she hailed gladly; but the thought of leaving her child rent her heart with anguish. She could see what the lot of that poor waif of childhood, cast upon the sea of Southern despotism, would be, and she longed to protect her from it. Yet what is a slave mother's protection to her child? What blow can she arrest? What temptation avert? None. Even a mother's claim is unrecognized, and the child's affection unregarded. Hasty's strength gradually declined until Sunday, when, feeling that death was near, she sent Fanny for Mrs. Jennings, for the purpose of bidding her farewell, and asking her protection for her daughter. Mrs. Jennings, on learning from Fanny the condition of Hasty, immediately complied with the request. On entering the room she was surprised and shocked at the ravages that mental and bodily suffering had made on the once handsome woman. Seating herself by the bedside, Mrs. Jennings inquired in what way she could ease the mind of the dying mother. With earnestness did Hasty plead that her child might be rescued from her present condition. She entreated Mrs. Jennings to buy Fanny from Mrs. Le Rue, and bring her up in the fear of God, and beyond the reach of a slave girl's perils.