Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

400 “Mammy, what are you saying?” I grasped her shoulder. and shook her. “Ah never meant to done hit, Lawd! O Lawd! You knows Ah me that was all she would say. Nita seemed to shrink further and further against the wall, while she kept horrified eyes on the form of her husband, and continued to hold her hands away from her. I sank on a near-by chair, too weak fo stand. My mind was paralyzed. I could not think of anything to do but sit and look upon the awful scene before me. Never once did the old negress cease her low moans. ‘‘Ah never meant to done hit!” At last I roused myself. “ Nita! Nita!” IT cried. ‘“ Come away!” I took hold of her, and for the first time her eyes left that ghastly thing on the floor. She looked at me in a dazed way, and let me lead her to- ward the door. When we reached the hall, ’ Mammy rose with a scream. “Great Gawd A’mighty! You-all ain't gwine to leave me wid dat thing!” she cried in a frenzy of terror, running out after us and slamming the door behind her. “ Mammy!” I commanded. ‘“ Stop that screeching and wake the servants.” “Oh, no’m! Ah has to go thru dat dark cou’t, and Mars’ Amédée’s ghost gwine to git me shore!” “T}l go,” I replied. ‘“ You stay with your mistress. We must notify the au- thorities.”’ “De police?” “Ves, of course.”’ “Oh, Mis’ Eleanor, does you think dey’ll,hang me? Oh, Blessed Mother, Ah never meant to done hit!” Nita sat quite still, always with her hands held away from her, hanging in that peculiar droop. Mammy’s wailing voice followed me across the great, dark, indoor garden to the servants’ quarters, and sent waves of horror over me. The negroes fled in panic. I phoned Dr. Richard, and then we three women sat huddled, miserably waiting in Nita’s room, with the thought of that awful thing in the one adjoining us, and the sound of revelry coming to us— those sounds that would ARGOSY AND~-RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. cease only with the dawn of Lent. It some- how brought home to me life’s great drama of suffering and dying within sound of laughter and song. Mammy kept moaning at wide intervals. Nita’s eyes roamed about in a way that in- creased my nervousness. Suddenly she be- gan to speak. It was as if she thought aloud, without realizing ae her lips gave utterance. “T had to get it!” she murmured. “What was I to do?” She turned to me suddenly, and her words came so fast that I could hardly catch them. “I had to get it—the paper of which I told you. So in desperation I made a clean breast of the whole thing, and threw myself on Burns’s mercy. It was then that I learned how good a crude, rough man may be; how in- finitely-more the heart of a man counts than his breeding.” “He was wild at Amédée. He got up and stamped about, calling my husband all sorts of names. It warmed my heart; but I was in a panic, because I did not know what he would do. I humbled myself. ‘ Please,’ I said, ‘ give me the paper. He will kill me if you do not.’ Then I turned to see—Amédee. “ Mr. Burns saw him, too, and he walked up to my husband, and with words of most deadly insult, handed him the paper, hit- ting him in the face with it as he did so. Then he took me back to the ballroom. And Amédée did not dare to resent.” I thought of her as I saw her enter that room, laughing and talking, gay and bril- liant, and I wondered at the deeps of the frivolous-seeming Latin. So busy had I been with watching “her that I had not noticed her companion. Now I recalled the grim look that was upon his face. “ Amédée Mad been artiting heavily,” she went on, “and when we were in our room he told me I had reached the end. I had disgraced him and the De Charleu family. With calm, cold voice and glit- tering eyes he said he was going to send me to meet them. He drew out his knife deliberately. Oh, my God!” She threw her arms over her head. Then all at once she began to scream. commicloooks.conn