Poor Chloe! Thus they dismissed a subject which gave her a life-long heart-ache. There was no honey in her bridal moon. She told Tom several times she wished he would stay at home; but he was so perseveringly good-natured, there was no possibility of quarrelling with him. By degrees, she began to find his visits on Saturday evening rather more entertaining than talking to herself.
"I wouldn't mind bein' so druv wi' work," said Tom, "ef I could live like white folks do when they gits married. I duz more work than them as has a cabin o' their own, an' keeps a cow and a pig. But black folks don't seem to git no good o' their work."
"Massa Minister says it's 'cause God cussed Ham," replied Chloe. "I thought 'twas wicked to cuss, but Massa Minister says Ham was cussed in the Bible. Ef I could have some o' the fish I clean and dry, I could sen' to Lunnun for a gownd; but Missy Katy she gits all the gownds, 'cause Ham was cussed in the Bible. I don't know nothin' 'bout it; seems drefful queer."
"Massa tole me I mus' work for nothin', 'cause Ham was cussed," rejoined Tom. "But it seems like Ham cussed some black folks worse nor others. There's Jim Saunders, he's a nigger, too; but he gits his feed and six dollars a month."
The words were like a stab to Chloe. She dropped half a needleful of stitches in her knitting, and told Tom she wished he'd hold his tongue, for he kept up such a jabbering that he made all her stitches run down. Tom, thus silenced, soon fell asleep. She glanced at him as he sat snoring by her side, and contrasted him with the genteel figure and handsome features that had been so indelibly photographed on her memory by the sunbeams of love. Tears dropped fast on her knitting-work; but when Tom woke up, she spoke kindly, and tried to atone for her ill-temper. Time, which gradually reconciles us to all things, produced the same effect on her as on others. When the minister asked her, six months afterward, how she and Tom were getting along, she replied, "I's got used to him."
Yet life seemed more dreary to her than it did before she had that brief experience of a free feeling. She never thought of that look without longing to know what it was Jim wanted to say. But, as months passed on, the tantalizing vision came less frequently, and at the end of a year Chloe experienced the second happy emotion of her life. When she looked upon her babe, a great fountain of love leaped up in her heart. She was never too tired to wait upon little Tommy; and if his cries disturbed her deep sleep, she folded the helpless little creature to her bosom, with the feeling that he was better than rest. She was accustomed to carry him to the fish-flake in a big basket, and lay him on a bed of dry leaves, with her apron for an awning. As she paced backwards and forwards at her daily toil, it was a perpetual entertainment to see him lying there sucking his thumbs. But that was nothing compared with the joy of nursing him. When his hunger was partially satisfied, he would stop to smile in his mother's face; and Chloe had never seen anything so beautiful as that baby smile. As he lay on her lap, laughing and cooing, there was something in the expression of his eyes that reminded her of the look she could never forget. He had taken the picture from her soul, and brought it with him to the outer world; but as he lay there, playing with his toes, he knew no more about his mother's heart than did the Rev. Mr. Gordonmammon.
One balmy day in June, she was sitting on a rock by the sea-shore, nursing her babe, pinching his little plump cheeks, and chirruping to make him smile, when she heard the sound of footsteps. She looked up, and saw Jim approaching. Her heart jumped into her throat. She felt very hot, and then very cold. When Jim came near enough to look upon the babe, he stopped an instant, said, in a constrained way, "How d' ye, Chloe," then turned and walked quickly away. She gazed after him so wistfully that for a few moments the cooing of her babe was disregarded. "'Pears like he was affronted," she murmured, at last; and the big tears dropped slowly. Little Tommy had a fit that night; for, by the strange interfusion of spirit into all forms of matter, the quick revulsion of the blood in his mother's heart passed into his nourishment, and convulsed his body, as her soul had been convulsed.
But the disturbance passed away, and Chloe's life rolled on in its accustomed grooves. Tommy grew strong enough to run by her side when she went to the beach. Hour after hour he busied himself with pebbles and shells, every now and then bringing her his treasures, and calling out, "Pooty!" When he held out a shell, and looked at her with his great brown eyes, it stirred up memories; but the pain was gone from them. Her heart was no longer famished; it was filled with little Tommy.
This engrossing love was not agreeable to the Widow Lawton. If less was accomplished in a day than usual, she would often exclaim, "That brat takes up too much of your time." And not unfrequently Chloe was compelled to go to the beach and leave Tommy fastened up in the kitchen; though this was never done without some outcries on his part, and some suppressed mutterings on hers.
On one of these occasions, Sukey Larkin came to make a call. When Mrs. Lawton saw her at the gate, she said to her daughter, "How long do you suppose she'll be in the house before she asks to see your silk gown?"