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’nt’!’—yo’
po’ mammy will kill you fust!”
Once, when she was tucking him 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 nuth’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
ain’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 troubles o’ dis worl’
is all over—dey don’t sell po’
niggers down the river over yonder.”
She stared 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 just 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.
