Dorothy South

As soon as the fire was completely in possession the young master rode away to Haw Branch hill to look after the sick ones and direct the work of building shelters for them. Dorothy was already there, tenderly looking to the comfort of the invalids. The litter-bearers would have set their burdens down anywhere and left them there but for Dorothy’s quiet insistence that they should place them in such shade as she could find, and gather an abundance of broomstraw grass for them to lie upon. To Arthur she offered no explanation of her presence, nor was any needed. Arthur understood, and all that he said was:

“God bless you, Dorothy!” a sentiment to which one of the stricken ones responded:

“He’ll do dat for shuah, Mahstah, ef he knows he business.”

“Dick has returned from the Court House,” said Dorothy reporting. “He says the big tent is there and I’ve sent a man with a wagon to fetch it. These shelters will do well enough for tonight, and we’ll get our hospital tent up soon tomorrow morning.”

“Very well,” responded Arthur. “Now, Dorothy, won’t you ride over to Silver Spring and direct the men there how to lay out the new quarters? I drew this little diagram as I rode over here. You see I want the houses built well apart for the sake of plenty of air. I’m going to put the quarters there ‘for all the time’ as you express it. That is to say I’m going to build permanent quarters. I’ve already looked over the ground carefully as to drainage and the like and roughly laid out the plan of the village so that it shall be healthy. Please go over there and show the men what I want, I’ll be over there in an hour and then you can come back here. I must remain here till the doctors come.”

“What doctors, Cousin Arthur?”

“All the doctors within a dozen miles. I’ve sent for all of them.”

“But what for? Surely you know more about fighting disease than our old-fashioned country doctors do.”

“Perhaps so. But there are several reasons for consulting them. First of all they know this country and climate better than I do. Secondly, they are older men, most of them, and have had experience. Thirdly, I don’t want all the responsibility on my shoulders, in case anything goes wrong, and above all I don’t want to offend public sentiment by assuming too much. These gentlemen have all been very courteous to me, and it is only proper for me to send for them in consultation. I shall get all the good I can out of their advice, but of course I shall myself remain physician in charge of all my cases.”

The explanation was simple enough, and Dorothy accepted it. “But I don’t like anybody to think that country doctors can teach you anything, Cousin Arthur,” she said as she mounted. “And remember you are to come over to Silver Spring as soon as you can. I must be back here in an hour or so at most.”

Just as she was about to ride away Dorothy was confronted with an old negro woman – obviously very old indeed, but still in robust health, and manifestly still very strong, if one might estimate her strength from the huge burden she carried on her well poised head.

“Why, Mammy, what are you doing here?” asked the girl in surprise. “You don’t belong here, and you must go back to Pocahontas at once.”

“What’s you a talkin’ ’bout, chile?” answered the old woman. “Mammy don’t b’long heah, don’t she? Mammy b’longs jes whah somever her precious chile needs her. So when de tidins done comes dat Mammy’s little Dorothy’s gwine to ’spose herself in de fever camp jes to take kyar of a lot o’ no ’count niggas what’s done gone an’ got dey selves sick, why cou’se dey ain’t nuffin fer Mammy to do but pack up some necessary ingridiments an come over and take kyar o’ her baby. So jes you shet up yer sweet mouf, you precious chile, an’ leave ole Mammy alone. I ain’t a gwine to take no nonsense from a chile what’s my own to kyar fer.”

“You dear old Mammy!” exclaimed the girl with tears in her voice. “But I really don’t need you, and I will not have you exposed to the fever.”

“What’s Mammy kyar fer de fever? Fever won’t nebber dar tetch Mammy. Mammy ain’t nebber tuk no fevers an’ no nuffin else. Lightnin’ cawn’t hu’t Mammy anymore’n it kin split a black gum tree. G’long ’bout yer business, chile, an don’t you go fer to give no impidence to yer ole Mammy. She’s come to take kyar o’ her chile an’ she’s a gwine to do it. Do you heah?”

Further argument and remonstrance served only to make plain the utter futility of any and every endeavor to control the privileged and devotedly loving old nurse. She had come to the camp to stay, and she was going to stay in spite of all protest and all authority.

“There’s nothing for it, Cousin Arthur,” said Dorothy, with the tears slipping out from between her eyelids, “but to let dear old Mammy have her way. You see she’s had charge of me ever since I was born, and I suppose I belong to her. It was she who taught me how badly women need somebody to control them and how bad they are if they haven’t a master. She’ll stay here as long as I do, you may be sure of that, and she’ll love me and scold me, and keep me in order generally, till this thing is over, no matter what you or anybody else may say to the contrary. So please, Cousin Arthur, make some of the men build a particularly comfortable shelter for her and me. She wouldn’t care for herself, even if she slept on the ground out of doors, but she’ll be a turbulent disturber of the camp if you don’t treat me like a princess – though personally I only want to serve and could make myself comfortable anywhere.”

“I’ll see that you have good quarters, Dorothy,” answered the young man in a determined tone. “I’d do that anyhow. But what’s all that you’ve got there in your big bundle, Mammy?”

“Oh, nuffin but a few dispensable ingridiments, Mas’ Arthur. Jes’ a few blankets an’ quilts an’ pillars an’ four cha’rs an’ a feather bed an’ a coffee pot an’ some andirons an’ some light wood, an’ a lookin’ glass, and a wash bowl and pitcher an’ jes a few other little inconveniences fer my precious chile.”

For answer Arthur turned to Randall, the head carpenter of the plantation, and said:

“Randall, there’s a lot of dressed lumber under the shed of the wheat barn. I’ll have it brought over here at once. I want you to take all the men you need – your Mas’ Archer Bannister is sending over four carpenters to help and your Mas’ John Meaux is sending three – and if you don’t get a comfortable little house for your Miss Dorothy built before the moon rises, I shall want to know why. Get to work at once. Put the house on this mound. Build a stick and mud chimney to it, so that there can be a fire tonight. Three rooms with a kitchen at the back will be enough, but mind you are to have it ready before the moon rises, do you hear?”

“It’ll be ready Mahstah, er Randall won’t let nobody call him a carpenter agin fer a mighty long time. Ef Miss Dorothy is a gwine to nuss de folks while dey’s sick you kin jes bet yer sweet life de folks what’s well an’ strong is a gwine to make her comfortable.”

“Amen!” shouted three or four of the others in enthusiastic unison. Dorothy was not there to hear. She had already ridden away on her mission to direct matters at the Silver Spring.

“It’s queer,” thought the young master of the plantation, “how devotedly loyal all the negroes are to Dorothy. Nobody – not even Williams the overseer, – was ever so exacting as she is in requiring the most rigid performance of duty. Ever since she punished Ben for bringing her an imperfectly groomed horse, that chronically lazy fellow has taken the trouble every night to put her mare’s mane and tail into some sort of equine crimping apparatus, so that they may flow gracefully in the morning. And he does it for affection, too, for when she told him, one night, that he needn’t do it, as we were late in returning from Pocahontas, I remember the fervor with which he responded: ‘Oh, yes, Miss Dorothy, I’ll do de mar’ up in watered silk style tonight cause yar’s a gwine to Branton fer a dinin’ day tomorrer, an’ Ben ain’t a gwine fer to let his little Missus ride in anything but de bes’ o’ style.’ The fact is,” continued Arthur, reflecting, “these people understand Dorothy. They know that she is always kindly, always compassionate, always sympathetic in her dealings with them. But they realize that she is also always just. She never grows angry. She never scolds. She punishes a fault severely in her queer way, but after it is punished she never refers to it again. She never ‘throws up things,’ to them. In a word, Dorothy is just, and after all it is justice that human beings most want, and it is the one thing of which they get least in this world. What a girl Dorothy is, anyhow!”

XIII

THE “SONG BALLADS” OF DICK

IT was “endurin of de feveh” – to use his own phrase by which he meant during the fever – that Dick’s genius revealed itself. Dick had long ago achieved the coveted dignity of being his master’s “pussonal servant.” It was Dorothy who appointed him to that position and it was mainly Dorothy who directed his service and saw to it that he did not neglect it.

For many of the services of a valet, Arthur had no use whatever. It was his habit, as he had long ago said, to “tie his own shoe strings.” He refused from the first very many of Dick’s proffered attentions. But he liked to have his boots thoroughly polished and his clothing well brushed. These things he allowed Dick to attend to. For the rest he made small use of him except to send him on errands.

The position suited Dick’s temperament and ambition thoroughly and he had no mind to let the outbreak of fever on the plantation rob him of it. When Arthur established himself at the quarantine camp, taking for his own a particularly small brush shelter, he presently found Dick in attendance, and seriously endeavoring to make himself useful. For the first time Arthur felt that the boy’s services were really of value to him. He was intelligent, quick-witted, and unusually accurate in the execution of orders. He could deliver a message precisely as it was given to him, and his “creative imagination” was kept well in hand when reporting to his master and when delivering his messages to others – particularly to those in attendance upon the sick. Arthur was busy night and day. He saw every patient frequently, and often he felt it necessary to remain all night by a bedside. In the early morning, before it was time for the field hands to go to their work in the crops, he inspected them at their new quarters, and each day, too, he rode over all the fields in which crop work was going on.

In all his goings Dick was beside him, except when sent elsewhere with messages. In the camp he kept his master supplied with fuel and cooked his simple meals for him, at whatever hours of the night or day the master found time to give attention to his personal wants.

In the meanwhile – after the worst of the epidemic was over – Dick made himself useful as an entertainer of the camp. Dick had developed capacities as a poet, and after the manner of Homer and other great masters of the poetic art, it was his custom to chant his verses to rudely fashioned melodies of his own manufacture. Unfortunately Dorothy, who took down Dick’s “Song Ballads,” as he called them, and preserved their text in enduring form, was wholly ignorant of music, as we know, and so the melodies of Dick are lost to us, as the melodies of Homer are. But in the one case as in the other, some at least of the poems remain to us.

Like all great poets, Dick was accustomed to find his inspiration in the life about him. Thus the fever outbreak itself seems to have suggested the following:

Nigga got de fevah,
Nigga he most daid;
Long come de Mahstah,
Mahstah shake he haid.

Mahstah he look sorry,
Nigga fit to cry;
Mahstah he say “Nebber min’,
Git well by am by.”

Mahstah po’ de medicine,
Mix it in de cup,
Nigga mos’ a chokin’
As he drinks it up.

Nigga he git well agin
Den he steal de chicken,
Den de Mahstah kotches him
An’ den he gits a lickin’.

The simplicity and directness of statement here employed fulfil the first of the three requirements which John Milton declared to be essential to poetry of a high order, which, he tells us must be “simple, sensuous, passionate.” The necessary sensuousness is present also, in the reference made to the repulsiveness of the medicine. But that quality is better illustrated in another of Dick’s Song Ballads which runs as follows:

Possum up a ’simmon tree —
Possum dunno nuffin,
He nebber know how sweet and good
A possum is wid stuffin.

Possum up a ’simmon tree —
A eatin’ of de blossom,
Up creeps de nigga an’
It’s “good-by Mistah Possum.”

Nigga at de table
A cuttin’ off a slice,
An’ sayin’ to de chillun —