Part 46

The old woman looked at the waif shrewdly.

"You hongry?" she asked. "Well, one thing's shore--nobody ever come to Freedom Hill hongry an' went away hongry. You sho' gwine have somethin' to eat. Den we sen' you home."

She led the way into a kitchen, spacious and cool. She made them wash their hands while she looked on, shaking her head at the condition of one pair of them. She set them down to a table and placed before them biscuits and butter and jam, and cold milk from the refrigerator. But while she performed this act of hospitality her face showed the determination she had expressed.

The kitchen opened by a white-panelled passageway into the dining room, and the dining room into the big front hall. She left the two of them and went into the hall. They heard her ringing the telephone, and while they ate her talk came to them.

"Dat you, Mr. Davis? Mr. Davis, dis me. Mr. Davis, dey's a strange chile here. Tommy say he foun' him in de woods. He won't tell who he ma an' pa is, or whar he come from. Tommy say he los'. Mr. Steve ain't comin' back till to-morrow. What I gwine do, Mr. Davis? Call up Mr. Bob Kelley? All right, suh--yes, suh. Das what I'll do."

Joe looked at Tommy with a grin.

"What's that ol' nigger talkin' about?" he asked.

Tommy's eyes narrowed. Old Aunt Cindy wasn't to be called that even by such a travelled and honoured gentleman as his present guest.

"Don't call her a nigger," he said. "Hear?"

Joe nodded. There was a touch of wistfulness in his eyes now--there had been, ever since he entered this mansion stocked with biscuit and jam.

The old woman's voice came to the diners clearly now. She always grew excited when she talked over the telephone.

"Dat you, Mr. Bob Kelley? Dis Cindy over at Mr. Steve Earle. Mr. Kelley, dey's a stray chile here. Yes, suh, jus' drap from de clouds. Mr. John Davis he say you likely git some inquiries about him. Mr. Kelley, I gwine sen' him over to yo' house by Jake. Yes, suh--dis evenin', right away."

Tommy slid down from his chair. Joe went on with his biscuits and jam. A dirty little hand that two bathings had not whitened closed tight around a slender white glass of cold milk. Tommy ran into the hall.

"You ain't goin' to send him away!" he cried. "He's goin' to stay here wif me. He's goin' to sleep wif me. Hear, Aunt Cindy?"

Still protesting, he was following her through the hall, out on the high-columned front porch, and around the house toward the barn.

"Hit won't do, honey," she was saying over and over. "You listen to yo' mammy now, you 'pen' on her. He ain't de chile for you to play wid. You can't touch de kittle an' not git smut on you. Yo' ol' mammy know. She raise you from a baby. Don't pull at my skirts, honey. It don't do no good. Yo' ol' mammy always is ak de bes' way for you, honey, an' she always will. Mis' Bob Kelley, she'll be good to him. Mr. Bob Kelley, he'll fin' out whar de chile belong."

She stopped in the back yard, near the lot.

"Jake!" she called. "Oh, Jake!"

From a cabin beside the garden an elongated darky uncoiled himself out of a split-bottom chair and sauntered leisurely toward her.

"Jake, hitch up Nelly to de buggy. Dey's a los' chile here. I done spoke to Mr. Bob Kelley 'bout him, an' I want you to take him over dar."

Then Tommy broke loose; then the future master of Freedom Hill asserted his authority. He might obey the old woman in such minor matters as washing his face and putting on a clean nightgown, but here was something different. He stood before Aunt Cindy and Jake with blazing eyes and defied them. He forebade Jake to hitch up Nelly.

"He's goin' to stay here, I tell you! He's goin' to stay wif me!"

"Lordy, lordy!" laughed Jake, and fell back three steps, his hand over his mouth. "Ain't dat boy like he paw!"

"He's goin' to stay wif me! He's goin' to stay wif me!"

And even Aunt Cindy gave in. The spirit of Steve Earle had spoken in Steve Earle's child.

When they went back into the kitchen an oblivious diner sat at the kitchen table, bent over a plate, and still mopped up blackberry jam with buttered biscuit.

That night the full moon, declining over the sheltering eaves of the mansion, sent its rays into the windows of the big upstairs bedroom. First they fell on a bed where lay one boy asleep, as he had slept all his life, on soft mattresses, between white sheets. Then the silver light crept slowly over the bed, across the floor, where it seemed to linger a while on a pile of toys--an engine with three passenger cars, a red hook and ladder whose fiery horses galloped forever, a picture book open at the place where a man in shaggy skins, with a shaggy umbrella, stared with bulging eyes at a track in the sand. And last this gentle light climbed upon another bed and embraced a swarthy little figure lying on its side, one arm stretched out, one fist closed tight, as if to keep fast hold on this chance life had thrown his way.

Never before had this child slept on a soft mattress, never before in a clean nightgown; never before that night had he seen a tiled bathroom and a white tub where water ran. On one sturdy leg that braced the body as it lay on the side the moonlight revealed a ridged place, a scar, purple and hard. But the hard grin was gone now, the face in repose; and the peering moon, which so silently inspected that room and its inmates, might have had a hard time deciding, so serene were the two small faces, which, in the years to come, would be, please God, the gentleman, and which, God forbid, the ruffian!