Scarlet Sister Mary (1928, Bobbs-Merrill Company)/Chapter 24
"Lawd, we had a time!" Mary said to Maum Hannah when all was over. Then she looked at her two new-born sons and said gently, "Dat picture o' Hell scared me so bad I couldn' wait for de moon to change, enty? An' de pain hit me so hard, I couldn' pray not to save my life! No, Jedus!"
Maum Hannah did not go to bed, but sat by the fire and smoked. She never slept in any bed but her own. Whenever she stayed from home at night she sat by the fire and nodded and smoked without even taking off her shoes.
Mary and the new-born babies were in the big room bed. Mary was too tired even to talk to Seraphine who had unexpectedly come to the landing on the boat that afternoon but could not get home until after the storm. Maum Hannah was mortified for the girl to find Mary lke this. She had been away with fine town people trying to make something of herself, while her mother lived in sin. Mary ought to quit her ways. She had a daughter almost grown now. Maum Hannah talked until the storm had passed and the night was still. She sat close to the hearth, for the rain had chilled the air and the flickering fire gave out a grateful warmth. Mary was glad to see her rest, for hurrying around so fast must have made her tired. She smoked a pipeful and laid her pipe on the hearth and settled herself with folded arms to sleep a little. She had hardly dozed when something roused Mary. She opened her eyes and peered through the dim light at her two babies. They were sound asleep. They did not move the slightest bit. Yet she heard a baby's faint cry. She called Maum Hannah, who hurried to the bed and leaned over and looked. Both the babies were asleep. Sound asleep. But she certainly had heard a baby's voice. One had waked her.
A dream maybe.
Maum Hannah laughed and went back to her chair by the fire. Mary was getting foolish. Waking herself up with dreams.
Maum Hannah sighed, then turned in her chair suddenly. She heard a baby too and she was not ureaming. She hobbled to the bed. No sound came from there. What was it she heard? Where did that cry come from? Not from Mary's boys. Both of them slept. What could it be?
The room was almost dark for the fire burned low. Maum Hannah said she felt nervish. A ghost must be walking around under the house. Mary was too brazen. Something was bound to happen to her. Maybe a plat-eye was outside, screech owls and whippoorwills had both been crying. She had put the shovel in the fire to stop them.
She added a light wood knot to the fire and a blaze flared up bright. At the same time a feeble wail sounded. Mary was sure it was in the room, but Maum Hannah waited to hear it again. Maybe a little goat had gone under the house out of the storm. There it was again. What was it? The old woman went to the corner; the sound seemed there, behind the organ. She didn't feel comfortable close to that organ. Why did Mary have it? Organs were tools of the devil. The idea of Reverend Duncan wanting one in the church.
Could that sound like a baby crying come out of the organ? Satan might be playing it. Mary had talked a lot of impudent talk lately. It made her uneasy.
"Open you eye, Auntie. Wake up, good," Mary called out sharply.
Something strange was in that corner by the shed-room door. What in God's world was it? Where did it come from?
"Open you eyes an' look good, Auntie."
Maum Hannah leaned and picked up something, then she hurried to the fire with it. She broke into a laugh.
"Great Gawd! What is dis? Whe you come f'om, gal? You most scare Aun' Hannah to deat'! Gawd bless you! Lemme wrop you up an' git you warm. Po lil ting! You mos' froze, enty?"
Mary jumped up out of the bed herself.
"Fo Gawd's sake, Auntie, who had dat baby?"
"Gawd knows, gal, I found em in de corner behind de organ. E's most freeze too"
Mary took the child in her hands. The two women looked at each other. Both were perplexed. Whose child was this girl-child?
"May-e—you reckon you could-a had dis chile an' didn' know?" Maum Hannah suggested.
"Do, Auntie!" Mary laughed. "Now how could dat be?"
"Den who dat fetch em here? I been catchin' chillen all dese years. I know I ain' never caught one off de naked flo' befo in my life. Who dat put em on de flo'? Must be somebody."
"I know e ain' me. No, Jedus. When I birth chillen, I know it. Mebbe you had em, Auntie."
"Shut you mout', Si May-e, don' gi' me none o you' slack talk! No! Whose baby is dis? Whose?"
"I declare to Gawd, Auntie, e ain' my own. I wouldn' be shame to own em, if e was. Jedus, no! Three ain' no worse dan two. E's a fine child, Auntie. Better put em close to my own an' get em warm.—Git someting to wrop em up in."
Mary lay back down, and Maum Hannah covered her up with the three babies! Mary never had seen three babies but once before, and one of those was a little runty thing. All three of these were fine big children.
"Auntie, go in de shed room an' see if Seraphine is wake," Mary whispered.
"Lawd—I been forgot 'bout em," Maum Hannah said with a wise smile.
She opened the shed-room door. It was too dark to see much, but she called, "Is yunnuh all sleep in here?"
There was no answer.
"Wake em up," Mary said.
"You Ma say you must wake up, Seraphine," Maum Hannah called, but nobody stirred or answered.
Everybody was sound asleep, Seraphine and all of the rest.
"Try Seraphine one mo' time," Mary directed. "If e don' make answer, I'm gwine to get out of dis bed an' gi' em a lickin' e won' never forget, whilst e lives. When I say, 'Git up,' I mean, 'Git up!'"
"You hear you Mammy say e gwine lick you, enty? Wake up, Seraphine! Wake up!"
There were three beds in the shed room and the covers on all of them moved. Mary's threat was effective.
"All yunnuh get up an' come in dis room. I want to look in all you face," Mary called to them.
"Don' make dem lil chillen come, May-e, not dem boy-chillen. Dey so sleepy," Maum Hannah interceded.
Mary reflected a moment, then called sternly:
"Evy one got to come! Evy one! Seraphine, you an' Keepsie come stand close to dis bed! Right now, too! Dis minute! You low-down no-manners gal. You gone an' had a gal-child right here in my house, an' den lay down in de bed an' make out it my own! I good mind to lick you till I scorch you gown-tail."
Seraphine and Keepsie were two awkward figures standing there by Mary's bed, both of them denying most positively any knowledge of the extra child.
"E ain' my own," Seraphine declared over and over, and Keepsie echoed, "I know e ain' my own."
Finally Mary got tired of questioning them.
"Git on back to bed. I too vexed to fool wid yunnuh. To-morrow I'm gwine to get up an' lick all-two. I ain' gwine let you get away wid any such-a doins in my house. No. I'm gwine lick you haf to death. You wait!"
A good long sleep calmed Mary's anger, and the morning light showed that the girl-child was the prettiest one of the babies. Mary began feeling as proud of it as she was of her boys.
"I'd as soon take care of three as two. Gal-chillen ain' de trouble boy-chillen is, nohow."
Seraphine woke with a fearful toothache. Her throat was sore too, and Mary made her stay in the house while the ground was so wet.
When Doll came to inquire about Mary, Maum Hannah was sitting on the door-step in the sunshine smoking her pipe. She still had the white cloth on her head and the strange wooden beads around her neck that were the signs of her night's occupation.
"You look faded, Auntie," Doll said with sympathy.
"I is, gal. I is," Maum Hannah affirmed. "I been catchin chillen all night."
"How much you catch, Auntie?"
Maum Hannah held up both hands to the sky. "Three. Mary had triplets."
"Three? Si May-e had three? Great Gawd! Dat's a litter, enty?"
"No, e ain' no litter. E is triplets. Plenty o people has triplets. I used to wish I could have em myself."
"Can I look at em, Auntie?"
"Not to-day, honey, Si May-e is sleepin' now. E's weary by e had a long hard task last night."