Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0146/01461.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 12KB | 215 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01461}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Pudd'nhead Wilson
Chapter III}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{de
en
dey
dat
ain't
gwine
i's
own
now
chile}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Title:       Pudd'nhead Wilson
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1905

Chapter III

     Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows
     how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great
     benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

                    - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.

     Percy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house-minions from
going down the river, but no wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes.  A profound
terror had taken possession of her.  Her child could grow up and be sold down
the river!  The thought crazed her with horror.  If she dozed and lost
herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet flying to her
child's cradle to see if it was still there.  Then she would gather it to her
heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy of kisses, moaning, crying,
and saying, "Dey sha'n't, oh, dey sha'n't! - yo' po' mammy will kill you
fust!"

     Once, when she was tucking it back in its cradle again, the other child
nestled in its sleep and attracted her attention.  She went and stood over
it a long time communing with herself:

     "What has my po' baby done, dat he couldn't have yo' luck?  He hain't
done noth'n'.  God was good to you; why warn't he good to him?  Dey can't
sell you down de river.  I hates yo' pappy; he hain't got no heart - for
niggers he hain't, anyways.  I hates him, en I could kill him!" She paused
awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild sobbings again, and turned away,
saying, "Oh, I got to kill my chile, dey an't no yuther way, - killin' him
wouldn't save de chile fum goin' down de river.  Oh, I got to do it, yo' po'
mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey" - she gathered her baby to her
bosom now, and began to smother it with caresses - "Mammy's got to kill you -
 how kin I do it!  But yo' mammy ain't gwine to desert you - no, no; dah,
don't cry - she gwine wid you, she gwine to kill herself, too.  Come along,
honey, come along wid mammy; we gwine to jump in de river, den de troubles
o' dis worl' is all over - dey don't sell po' niggers down the river over
yonder."

     She started toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it;
midway she stopped suddenly.  She had caught sight of her new Sunday gown -
 a cheap curtain-calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy colors and fantastic
figures.  She surveyed it wistfully, longingly.

     "Hain't ever wore it yet," she said, "en it's jist lovely." Then she
nodded her head in response to a pleasant idea, and added, "No, I ain't gwine
to be fished out, wid everybody lookin' at me, in dis mis'able ole linsey-
woolsey."

     She put down the child and made the change.  She looked in the glass and
was astonished at her beauty.  She resolved to make her death-toilet perfect.
She took off her handkerchief-turban and dressed her glossy wealth of hair
"like white folks"; she added some odds and ends of rather lurid ribbon and
a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally she threw over her shoulders
a fluffy thing called a "cloud" in that day, which was of a blazing red
complexion.  Then she was ready for the tomb.

     She gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its
miserably short little gray tow-linen shirt and noted the contrast between
its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic irruption of infernal splendors,
her mother-heart was touched, and she was ashamed.

     "No, dolling, mammy ain't gwine to treat you so.  De angels is gwine to
'mire you jist as much as dey does yo' mammy.  Ain't gwine to have 'em putt'n
dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David en Goliah en dem yuther
prophets, 'Dat chile is dress' too indelicate fo' dis place.'"

     By this time she had stripped off the shirt.  Now she clothed the naked
little creature in one of Thomas a Becket's snowy long baby-gowns, with its
bright blue bows and dainty flummery of ruffles.

     "Dah - now you's fixed." She propped the child in a chair and stood off
to inspect it.  Straight-way her eyes began to widen with astonishment and
admiration, and she clapped her hands and cried out, "Why, it do beat all! -
 I never knowed you was so lovely.  Marse Tommy ain't a bit puttier - not a
single bit."

     She stepped over and glanced at the other infant; she flung a glance
back at her own; then one more at the heir of the house.  Now a strange light
dawned in her eyes, and in a moment she was lost in thought.  She seemed in
a trance; when she came out of it she muttered, "When I 'uz a-washin' 'em in
de tub, yistiddy, his own pappy asked me which of 'em was his'n."

     She began to move about like one in a dream.  She undressed Thomas a
Becket, stripping him of everything, and put the tow-linen shirt on him.  She
put his coral necklace on her own child's neck.  Then she placed the children
side by side, and after earnest inspection she muttered:

     "Now who would b'lieve clo'es could do de like o' dat?  Dog my cats if
it ain't all I kin do to tell t'other fum which, let alone his pappy."

     She put her cub in Tommy's elegant cradle and said:

     "You's young Marse Tom fum dis out, en I got to practice and git used
to 'memberin' to call you dat, honey, or I's gwine to make a mistake some
time en git us bofe into trouble.  Dah - now you lay still en don't fret no
mo', Marse Tom - oh, thank de good Lord in heaven, you's saved, you's saved!
- dey ain't no man kin ever sell mammy's po' little honey down de river now!"

     She put the heir of the house in her own child's unpainted pine cradle,
and said, contemplating its slumbering form uneasily:

     "I's sorry for you, honey; I's sorry, God knows I is, - but what kin I
do, what could I do?  Yo' pappy would sell him to somebody, some time, en den
he'd go down de river, sho', en I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't stan' it."

     She flung herself on her bed and began to think and toss, toss and
think.  By and by she sat suddenly upright, for a comforting thought had
flown through her worried mind:

     "'T ain't no sin - white folks has done it!  It ain't no sin, glory to
goodness it ain't no sin!  Dey's done it - yes, en dey was de biggest quality
in de whole bilin', too - kings!"

     She began to muse; she was trying to gather out of her memory the dim
particulars of some tale she had heard some time or other.  At last she said:

     "Now I's got it; now I 'member.  It was dat ole nigger preacher dat ole
it, de time he come over here fum Illinois en preached in de nigger church.
He said dey ain't nobody kin save his own self - can't do it by faith, can't
do it by works, can't do it no way at all.  Free grace is de on'y way, en dat
don't come fum nobody but jis' de Lord; en he kin give it to anybody he
please, saint or sinner - he don't kyer.  He do jis' as he's a mineter.  He
s'lect out anybody dat suit him, en put another one in his place, en make de
fust one happy forever en leave t'other one to burn wid Satan.  De preacher
said it was jist like dey done in Englan' one time, long time ago.  De queen
she lef' her baby layin' aroun' one day, en went out callin'; en one o' de
niggers roun' 'bout de place dat was 'mos' white, she come in en see de
chile layin' aroun', en tuck en put her own chile's clo'es on de queen's
chile, en put de queen's chile's clo'es on her own chile, en den lef' her own
chile layin' aroun' en tuck en toted de queen's chile home to de nigger-
quarter, en nobody ever foun' it out, en her child was de king bimeby, en
sole de queen's chile down de river one time when dey had to settle up de
estate.  Dah, now - de preacher said it his own self, en it ain't no sin,
'ca'se white folks done it.  Dey done it - yes, dey done it; en not on'y jis'
common white folks nuther, but de biggest quality dey is in de whole bilin'.
Oh, I's so glad I 'member 'bout dat!"

     She got up light-hearted and happy, and went to the cradles and spent
what was left of the night "practicing." She would give her own child a light
pat and say humbly, "Lay still, Marse Tom," then give the real Tom a pat and
say with severity, "Lay still, Chambers! - does you want me to take somep'n'
to you?"

     As she progressed with her practice, she was surprised to see how
steadily and surely the awe which had kept her tongue reverent and her manner
humble toward her young master was transferring itself to her speech and
manner toward the usurper, and how similarly handy she was becoming in
transferring her motherly curtness of speech and peremptoriness of manner to
the unlucky heir of the ancient house of Driscoll.

     She took occasional rests from practicing, and absorbed herself in
calculating her chances.

     "Dey'll sell dese niggers to-day fo' stealin' de money, den dey'll buy
some mo' dat don't know de chillen - so dat's all right.  When I takes de
chillen out to git de air, de minute I's roun' de corner I's gwine to gaum
dey mouths all roun' wid jam, den dey can't nobody notice dey's changed.
Yes, I gwineter do dat till I's safe, if it's a year.

     "Dey ain't but one man dat I's afeard of, en dat's dat Pudd'nhead
Wilson.  Dey calls him a pudd'nhead, en says he's a fool.  My lan', dat man
ain't no mo' fool den I is!  He's de smartes' man in dis town, less'n it's
Jedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard.  Blame dat man, he worries me wid dem
ornery glasses o' hisn; I b'lieve he's a witch.  But nemmine, I's gwine to
happen aroun' dah one o' dese days en let on dat I reckon he wants to print
de chillen's fingers ag'in; en if he don't notice dey's changed, I bound dey
ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe, sho'.  But I reckon I'll
tote along a hoss-shoe to keep off de witch-work."

     The new negroes gave Roxy no trouble, of course.  The master gave her
none, for one of his speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so
occupied that he hardly saw the children when he looked at them, and all Roxy
had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter when he came about;
then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums, and he was gone again
before the spasm passed and the little creatures resumed a human aspect.

     Within a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that Mr.
Percy went away with his brother the Judge, to see what could be done with it.
It was a land speculation, as usual, and it had gotten complicated with a
lawsuit.  The men were gone seven weeks.  Before they got back Roxy had paid
her visit to Wilson, and was satisfied.  Wilson took the finger-prints,
labeled them with the names and with the date - October the first - put them
carefully away and continued his chat with Roxy, who seemed very anxious that
he should admire the great advance in flesh and beauty which the babies had
made since he took their finger-prints a month before.  He complimented their
improvement to her contentment; and as they were without any disguise of jam
or other stain, she trembled all the while and was miserably frightened lest
at any moment he -

     But he didn't.  He discovered nothing; and she went home jubilant, and
dropped all concern about the matter permanently out of her mind.