All night the candle glimmered through the cracks in Maumer’s cabin; all night she physicked and the baby cried; while Cindy, heavy-eyed and stupid, slept soundly until day. The door was closed; Maumer knew that she was disobeying orders, for Ole Miss had peremptorily commanded that she was to be notified in case of serious illness. But Maumer was sly and cunning; Ole Miss should not be told.
Convulsion after convulsion shook the tiny frame, all of the remedies were used without effect, and towards daybreak she tried the baby’s fortune, “come life er come death”; then Maumer made up her mind.
The old oak was casting its soft shade across the lawn, where the Nursery toddlers sat sedately munching the sweet corn pone that it was one of old Maumer’s duties to provide, while Ma’y Ann was just starting to the spring for a bucket of cool water.
“SHOULD SHE DO IT?”
“An’ min’, yo’ fetch me my gourd yo’ lef’ on de battlin’-bench ’side de branch, an’ min’ yo’ herries, ’fore I beat de life outen yo’!”
Ma’y Ann’s eyes widened and “bucked” at Maumer’s unwonted proposition, as she idly swung the bucket along the hill-path, singing an irrelevant, foolish little song.
The great bell would ring in a moment; Maumer knew it by the shadow of the oak, as well as by the old dial just across the lawn.
Should she do it? Up and down, both ways she looked; there was nobody even in sight, save Ma’y Ann, dawdling far down the spring-path; then the great bell clanged through the Quarters. A spasm stiffened the form of Cindy’s baby, and Maumer, with a stern face and trembling hands, stripped the long shirt and blue beads from Cely’s boy, and throwing them hastily upon her daughter’s child, she laid it in the twentieth cradle, changing Cely’s baby to the cradle just vacated.