(The following story combines the accuracies of fact with the romance of fiction. Aunt Silly lived at Silver Springs until her death, about sixteen years ago, and was seen by many who visited the Springs. It is from the gifted pen of Mrs. Maley Bainbridge Crist):
Near Florida's celebrated Silver Springs lives an old negress, known to the entire surrounding country as "Aunt Silly," whose claim to being 110 years old is borne out by her appearance. Aunt Silly is wrinkled and decrepit, and the wool peeping from her bandanaed head is white as snow, while the blackness and weirdness of her face is intensified by a heavy crop of snow-white beard. As long as the oldest citizen of Ocala can remember Aunt Silly has looked just as ancient as she does now; identified always with Silver Springs, and hobbling about them from morning until night, leaning upon her short, thick staff.
That she was a participant in a tragedy is known only to a very few of Ocala's oldest citizens, and seldom referred to by any of them. In the near vicinity of Ocala, when first it was settled, stood a splendid old mansion owned by Capt. Harding Douglass, a South Carolinian of considerable wealth. His only child was a son, who, with his mother's beauty of countenance, had inherited her tender, shrinking nature, and, like herself, was a slave to the old man's iron will. In the beautiful little City of Ocala lived Bernice Mayo, whose blond beauty won, at first sight, the heart of Claire Douglass. Although of Virginia ancestry, Bernice was a true child of the "Land of Flowers," passionate and impulsive. Her eyes were blue and clear as the waters of Lake Munroe, beside which she had spent her childhood, in the fair little City of Sanford. Her hair was as golden as Florida's own sunshine, and Florida's tropical splendor ran riot in her blood. For six months Bernice Mayo and Claire Douglass were constant companions, and Silver Springs was their favorite resort. For half a day at a time they would drift about on the bosom of the splendid, placid curiosity of nature.
Bernice seemed never to tire of going into the depths of the subterranean world. "If I were a mermaid, Claire," she would say, "and lived in yon crystal cavern, and some fair day I should wander forth among the palmettos and mosses of the springs, and, sitting on yonder ledge of rocks, should 'comb my golden hair with a shell,' and your boat should come drifting by, and you were to see me in the water beneath, would you love me well enough to plunge, plunge to the depths beneath to woo me?" Then would Claire stop her merry chatter with his kisses, and pledge to her his eternal love as they drifted over the transparent mirror of water, pausing now and then to study the rocks and shells, the mosses, palmettos, the fish, which were as visible eighty feet below the transparent water as were the trees and woodland about them. There is nothing fairer than Ocala's "Lover's Lane," and yet no spot held for these young people the attraction of Silver Springs, their constant trysting place. But there came a fatal day, destined to separate them. A day wherein Claire Douglass declared to his father his love for beautiful, penniless Bernice Mayo, and his determination to make her his wife. Stormily, his father vowed it should never be, and secretly planned a separation.
When Claire Douglass had been speedily dispatched abroad on important business for his father, then it was that Bernice learned the truth, and her proud, delicate nature lay crushed and bleeding beneath the cruel blow and still more cruel separation.
Vainly she strove to rally; all life seemed but an empty blank to her. A year dragged wearily by, and the scenes frequented by merry Bernice Mayo knew her no more. Paler and thinner she daily grew. Fragile, she was, as the white blossoms of her well-loved springs. The little chain of gold that Claire had locked on her arm would have slipped across the wasted, transparent hand, but for the ribbon that held its links. One day (her last upon earth) the girl, by dint of desperate energy, crept to Silver Springs. Even Aunt Silly was unprepared for the white, emaciated little creature who tottered into her cabin and fell fainting in her arms. Consciousness soon returned, but it was apparent even to the old black woman that death had set its gray, unmistakable seal upon the young face.
"Aunt Silly," gasped the girl, "I have come to you to die, and you must obey my last request; the grave divulges no secrets. Ere tonight's sun sets I shall be in heaven. This separation from the man I love has been my death, but in that death we shall be united. I have asked God, and He has heard me. But you, Aunt Silly, you must obey my request. You love me; you will do as I ask. Tonight when the moon comes out, row my body to Boiling Springs, and bury me there. You know the spot—make no mistake. Do this, and God will attend to the rest."
"Good Gord A'mighty, chile, you think Aunt Silly am gwine tote dade body off in the lonesomely night?" asked the old woman, her very teeth chattering with the superstitious fear peculiar to her race. The girl realized the risk of her plan being thwarted, and raising herself to a sitting posture she seized the old woman's hands and fixed her dying eyes full on her face.
"Aunt Silly," she gasped, "I am a dying woman; I am very near to God; I have talked with Him, and He has answered me. My will has been crushed in life, I swear it shall not in death. Before twenty-four hours Claire Douglass shall join me in the crystal cavern of Silver Springs. If you do not grant my request every spirit of evil shall surround you. Palsied and blind you shall grow, and deaf—deaf to every sound but the ghosts of the dead, which shall pursue you by day and haunt you by night. Do you swear to obey my dying request, or will you refuse me, and reap the prophecy of a dying woman, which shall rest upon your cowardly head for refusing to obey God's will?"
The old woman was shaking like an aspen. Her eyes protruded with fear, and great beads of perspiration rolled down her cheeks. The strength of the dying girl's will had prevailed, and the old woman answered: "I promises, honey; I promises."