But Maumer, with closed eyes, only mumbled over the coals and shivered, though the noon was warm.
Smiles came through Cely’s tears, smiles of gratification when Little Miss, with eyes and nose all red, refused to be comforted for the loss of her “little nigger,” and brought from the Big House more pretty baby things than Cely had ever seen; while Ole Miss put them on with her own hands; and smoothing down the dainty folds, laid in the brown, doll-like fingers the tiniest, whitest rose-bud that the early frost had spared. Then emotion was stirred to its depths again, and the wild blood of two continents ran riot in her veins, even to the verge of madness, when Cely came to know the meaning of a grave. And Ole Miss had her brought to the Big House, by way of comfort to Henry, who was Ole Marse’s foreman at that time.
Ole Miss tried to teach her to sew and to spin, but restraint was galling, the Big House with its civilization had no attraction after the novelty had worn off, and suddenly the wheel burred, the thread snapped, and Cely would leap like a tiger-cat through the doorway and beyond the wood-lot, where later they would find her, tenderly nursing in her arms a doll made of a folded towel.
But time was kinder even than Ole Miss, and after a while the laugh and smile came back, Henry’s cabin was cheery again, and before the picking was over, Cely was rivalling Susan and Rachel in the field.
Down in a little cabin by the cane-brake, old Maumer, now “the Other Maumer,” lived alone, weaving shuck mats, mending nets for the fishermen, and “hooking” mittens for the negroes against the coming of the winter; for Maumer was deposed, another Maumer reigned over the little wooden cradles, and her foot was not permitted to cross the threshold; for Maumer had been tried and convicted of murder by a jury of her peers.
Ole Marse, upon careful investigation, could find nothing culpable in Maumer save the failure to report the illness, which was made the cause of removal. The charge, made by Cely and the other negroes, of poisoning could not be substantiated; though the attack appeared to have been very sudden, it could not be proved that the child had died from other than a dreaded infantile trouble.
Throughout the trial and investigation Maumer preserved a sullen silence. She neither appealed to Ole Marse nor to any of the negroes. She did not plead her long life of usefulness, and she denied none of the charges, that grew each day with the rapidity of Jonah’s gourd.
Now and again she smiled grimly as she looked upon the thriving child in sleepy Cindy’s arms and heard that Little Miss had taken him for her own. That was glory enough; that was honor, immortality. He would grow up a house nigger—“high quality”—her grandchild, in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of even Cindy, for she could not trust Cindy with her secret, and Cindy was too stupid to know the difference.