while he was dressing next morning martin wondered whether his ride had been spoiled by accident or by conspiracy. had his cousin rachel, whom he always found a bore, gone into the woods on her own account, or had the girl entreated her company? well, no matter. he was a match for the two of them. the only person he didn’t want to offend was his aunt sapphy, who had urged him to visit her, and who seemed almost to be playing into his hand. as he shaved his ruddy cheeks he forgot everything except that he wanted his ham and eggs.
mrs. colbert was awaiting him in the dining-room. now that martin was here, she rose early in order to be dressed and coiffed before she joined him at breakfast. after breakfast martin wheeled his aunt out on the porch to take the air, excused himself, and went upstairs to his room, where he expected to find nancy making his bed. but she was not there, and the bed was still as he had left it.
nancy was playing truant: that morning, when she came up from the miller’s room, she had caught up a basket and run away to the old cherry trees behind the smokehouse. finding no ladder handy, she went into the smokehouse to get pappy jeff’s wooden chair. jeff was there himself, tending the fire in a big iron kettle set deep in the earth floor. all day long, through spring and summer, the smoke from hickory chunks went up to cure and season the rows of hams and bacon hanging from the rafters of the roof.
“pappy, kin i have your cheer to climb up a cherry tree?”
jeff rose from his squatting position. “sho’ly, sho’ly, honey. i don’t espect no comp’ny.”
but at that very moment sampson’s tall figure darkened the doorway. “see, now,” jeff chuckled, “i ain’t done said no comp’ny, an’ here come sampson! run along, chile, him an’ me’s got a little bizness to fix. he don’t need no cheer. he kin squat on the flo’, like me.”
sampson carried the chair out for her and planted it under a tree. nancy scrambled nimbly up to the first big limb, where she could sit comfortably; could reach the cherries shining all about her and bend down the branches over her head. the morning air was still so fresh that the sunlight on her bare feet and legs was grateful. she was light-hearted this morning. she loved to pick cherries, and she loved being up in a tree. someway no troubles followed a body up there; nothing but the foolish, dreamy, nigger side of her nature climbed the tree with her. she knew she had left half her work undone, but here nobody would find her out to scold her. the leaves over her head laughed softly in the wind; maybe they knew she had run away.
she was in no hurry to pick the cherries. she ate the ripest ones and dropped the hard ones into her basket. presently she heard someone singing. she sat very still and gently released the branch she was holding down. he was coming from the stables, she thought.
down by de cane-brake, close by de mill,
dar lived a yaller gal, her name was nancy till.
should she scramble down? likely as not he would go along the path through the garden, and then he could not see her for the smokehouse. he wouldn’t come prowling around back here among the weeds. but he did. he came through the wet grass straight toward the cherry trees, his straw hat in his hand, singing that old darky song.
martin had gone to the kitchen to complain that nancy had not done his room, and bluebell told him nancy was out picking cherries. there never was a finer morning for picking cherries or anything else, he was thinking, as he went out to the kitchen garden and round the stables. he didn’t really intend to frighten the girl, though he owed her one for the trick she played him yesterday.
“good morning, nancy,” he called up to her as he stood at the foot of the tree. “cherries are ripe, eh? do you know that song? can you sing, like bluebell?”
“no, sir. i can’t sing. i got no singin’ voice.”
“neither have i, but i sing anyhow. can’t help it on a morning like this. come now, you’re going to give me something, nancy.”
his tone was coaxing, but careless. she somehow didn’t feel scared of him as he stood down there, with his head thrown back. his eyes were clear this morning, and jolly. he didn’t look wicked. maybe he only meant to tease her anyhow, and she just didn’t know how young men behaved over in the racing counties.
“aren’t you going to give me something on such a pretty day? let’s be friends.” he held up his hand as if to help her down.
she didn’t move, but she laughed a soft darky laugh and dropped a bunch of cherries down to him.
“i don’t want cherries. they’re sour, and i want something sweet.”
“no, mr. martin. the sour cherries is all gone. these is blackhearts.”
“stop talking about cherries. you look awful pretty, sitting up there.”
nancy giggled nervously. martin was smiling all the time. maybe he was just young and foolish like, not bad.
“who’s your beau, anyhow, nancy till?”
“ain’t got none.”
“you goin’ to be a sour old maid?”
“i reckon i is.”
“now who in the world is that scarecrow, comin’ on us?”
nancy followed his eyes and looked back over her shoulder. the instant her head was turned martin stepped lightly on the chair, caught her bare ankles, and drew her two legs about his cheeks like a frame. nancy dropped her basket and almost fell out of the tree herself. she caught at the branch above her and clung to it.
“oh, please get down, mr. martin! do, please! somebody’ll come along, an’ you’ll git me into trouble.”
martin laughed. “get you into trouble? just this? this is nothin’ but to cure toothache.”
the girl had gone pale. she was frightened now, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t pull herself up with him holding her so hard. everything had changed in a flash. he had changed, and she couldn’t collect her wits.
“please, mr. martin, please let me git down.”
martin framed his face closer and shut his eyes. “pretty soon. — this is just nice. — something smells sweet — like may apples.” he seemed murmuring to himself, not to her, but all the time his face came closer. her throat felt tight shut, but she knew she must scream, and she did.
“pappy! oh, pappy! come quick!”
the moment she screamed, martin stepped down from the chair. old jeff came running round the end of the smokehouse, up to the foot of the tree where nancy sat, still holding on to the limb above her. “whassa matter, chile? whassa matter?”
sampson followed more deliberately, looking about him, — looking at martin colbert, which it was not his place to do.
nancy said she was “took giddy like” in the tree, and was afraid she would faint and fall. sampson got on the chair and lifted her down, but before he did so he took it in that there were already wet boot tracks on the seat. martin, standing by, remarked that if the girl had had any sense, he would have helped her get out of the tree.
“co’se you would, mr. martin,” jeff jabbered. “young gals has dese sick spells come on ’em, an’ den dey ain’t got no haid. come along, honey, you kin walk, pappy’ll he’p you.”
sampson picked up the chair and carried it back to the smokehouse. martin strolled down the path, muttering to himself. “god, i’d rather it had been any other nigger on the place! that mill-hand don’t know where he belongs. if ever he looks me in the face like that again, i’ll break his head for him. the niggers here don’t know their place, not one of ’em.”
that afternoon martin went for a ride. he was a trifle uncomfortable in mind. he knew he had made a blunder. he hadn’t meant to do more than tease her. but after he caught her and felt against his cheeks the shiver that went over her warm flesh, he lost his head for an instant. he knew she must be pursued carelessly and taken at the right moment, off her guard. he was vexed that he had let a pleasant contact, an intoxicating fragrance, run away with him. never mind; he would keep at a distance for a while, as if he had forgotten the cherry tree.
riding home by the road from the post office, he spied bluebell over yonder in the big vegetable garden. immediately he dismounted and led his horse across the field toward her.
“hello, bluebell, what are you up to?”
“i’se a-pickin’ lettuce fo’ yo’ supper, mr. martin.” the slim black girl straightened up and stood with her bare feet wide apart between rows of lettuce.
“you don’t get outdoors much, do you? i always see you in the kitchen.”
“yes, sir. i’se mos’ly heppin’ mammy.” this was spoken plaintively, as if she had a hard life.
martin laughed. he knew she was useless, except as a companion to lizzie.
“you find time to sing, though. aunt sapphy’s going to have you and lizzie come into the parlour and sing for me some night. i like to hear you. maybe i could teach you some new songs. i’m not just crazy about these hymn tunes.”
bluebell grinned. “oh, we sings ‘home, sweet home,’ an’ ‘the gipsy’s warming.’”
martin chuckled. “it’s ‘warning,’ not ‘warming,’ my girl.”
“yes, sir. seems jist alike when you sings it.”
“look-a-here, bluebell, why don’t they send you up to fix my room and make my bed for me? that yaller gal’s no account, and solemn as a funeral. i don’t like solemn girls around me.”
bluebell giggled. “dey says how i ain’t so handy wid de bedrooms. marster, he won’t let me come a-nigh his room at de mill. he prefer nancy.” she gave a sly suggestiveness to “prefer,” lifted her eyebrows and twisted her shoulders languidly.
“he does? i can’t understand that. she don’t suit me.” martin patted his restive horse to quiet him. “you say she always takes care of the mill room for uncle henry?”
“‘deed she do. he won’t have nobody else roun’ him. oh lawdy no! i dassen’ set foot in de place. yes sir, nancy do all de housekeepin’ at de mill. why, ev’ybody know dat. she carry down his washin’ an’ shine his brass mugs, an’ take him bowkays. laws, ah don’ know what all she don’ do at de mil-l-l.”
“damn this horse! give me some of that green stuff to keep him still, will you?” martin was interested.
but bluebell took a twist of brown paper from a pocket in her very full skirt and produced a lump of crumbly brown sugar.
“dis’ll quiet him. i mos’ly carries a little to keep on han’.”
martin winked. “comes in handy to be round the kitchen, don’t it? but tell me, don’t that make the other girls jealous, her going to the mill so much? are you and nancy good friends?”
“we gits along,” languidly. “we’s mos’ly friendly. mammy don’ have no patience wid her, ‘cause she’s stuck up, havin’ white blood. when de missus use’ to favour her terribul, dat set all de culled folks agin her. but it ain’t so now no mo’. miss sapphy turned on nancy some while back.”
“why, what had nancy done?”
bluebell shrugged indifferently.
“ah don’ know. ah don’ foller nobody’s doin’s. some folks s’picions de marster favour her now, an’ de missus don’ relish her goin’ down to de mill so much. ah don’ know. ah never listens to no talk.”
“that’s a good rule. and you’re a smart girl, belle. don’t anybody round here call you belle?”
“no, sah. dey always calls me bluebell. dey’s anoder belle on de place; sampson’s wife, what is de haid mill-han’.”
“then i’ll call you bluebell. i certainly wouldn’t call you by the name of anything belongin’ to that sampson. now i’m going to ask aunt sapphy to let you fix my room for me. the yaller gal puts on too many airs.”
martin turned and led his horse toward the hitch-post. he walked rapidly, and there was more energy in his step than common. when little zach ran up to take his bridle, he threw him the reins without a glance, but he looked very angry, and he was talking out loud to himself. zach caught a few words:
“by god, if i thought that old sinner had been there before me — ”
the little nigger boy stared after the young man, wondering what had put him out.
