Her eyes greedily took in the splendor of Little Miss’s gifts on each successive visit, carefully looking them over, clothes and beads and toys, like a miser counting gold, and it was enough. This sufficed for days alone in the cane-brake, for nights when the wind was high, even though she was now the Other Maumer and had been set apart.
The spring-time came around, but weeks and months were long, and the winter of loneliness was telling upon the Other Maumer.
She missed the spring-time crop of babies, the wooden cradles with their worn rockers—worn by her foot; she missed the little toddlers that had outgrown the cradles, but more than all, she missed her dignity of position. In the brief time, so long to youth and age, the old back became more bowed, and childishness grew apace.
The butterflies possessed a wonderful fascination—the white and yellow—and the reed mats would drop from her hands in forgetful admiration. But when the brown ones hovered near her, poising on gorgeous velvety wings, the Other Maumer would shiver and cover up her head—“De soul er Cindy’s baby, oh, my Gord! kim back ter claim his place, er ’cusin’ me er de lie! Oh, my Gord!”
“‘FLY, FLY,’ SHE WHISPERED”
How she would fight the brown butterflies away, if they alighted on her doorstep! And carefully she gathered and crushed every wild flower that grew around her cabin, fearful lest they should prove to be an attraction. But the brown butterflies came and came; in swarms they filled and circled the Other Maumer’s cabin, by morning, noon, and evening. Then the nets hung on the racks unmended, the reeds dried unwoven, and the hands of the Other Maumer fluttered over the little heaps of red clay that she brought from beside the new well, to fashion into rude butterflies with outstretched wings. Scores and scores were drying in the sun, and yet the busy fingers worked nervously.
“Fly, fly,” she whispered, “an’ fetch de soul er Cindy’s baby!”