Old Maumer, with shaking limbs, was raking up the smouldering coals upon the hearth when the lively throng of mothers came filing in to nurse their little ones.
“Hi! What ail Maumer? What de matter?” asked Judy, always foremost.
“Chill,” grunted Maumer, as she knelt to woo the fickle blaze. “Go fetch in some chips, Ma’y Ann!” for Ma’y Ann had returned.
Dancing, skipping, like a child let loose for a holiday, came Cely; she had even “hop-scotched” with Ma’y Ann that very morning. Nothing was the matter with her baby—Judy said so, Maumer said so—even old Maumer, who was so jealous; he was still her doll, and how he cooed and kicked for her just before she left him!
Down the long row of cradles she leaped rather than walked, in the fulness and exuberance of life.
“Yo’ Mammy’s comin’, boy, yo’ Mammy’s comin’!” and snatching the baby from the cradle, she tossed it gleefully above her head.
Then a shriek, that startled even the laborers who had not left the field—a shriek of agony, of fear, of a wild thing wounded in the heart, for the little cold mouth turned away from the warm breast so full of life and strength, and the tiny limbs convulsed, and then relaxed forever with the breathing of a sigh.
Holding the dead baby close, and rocking in her woe, the face of Cely seemed hardened and ashened in a moment, like that of an old woman, while, shrill and high, her voice carried even to the clearing.
“Maumer! yo’ pizened my boy! Yo’ kilt him, Maumer!”