Surely I could. "Auntie, was the information--bad news?"
"It wasn't good, my dear; I may tell you about it to-morrow."
"Hadn't I better go back to father at once?"
"Oh, my child, not for our sake; if you're not too lonesome we'd rather keep you. Let me see; has Mingo ever danced for you? Why, tell Sidney to make Mingo come dance for you."
Mingo came; his leaps, turns, postures5, steps, and outcries were a most laughable wonder, and I should have begged for more than I did, but I saw that it was a part of Sidney's religion to disapprove6 the dance.
"Sidney," I said, "did you ever hear of the great clock in the sky? Yes, there's one there; it's made all of stars." We were at the foot of some veranda7 steps that faced the north, and as she and Mingo were about to settle down at my feet I said if they would follow me to the top of the flight I would tell this marvel8: what the learned believed those eternal lamps to be; why some were out of view three-fourths of the night, others only half, others not a quarter; how a very few never sank out of sight at all except for daylight or clouds, and yet went round and round with all the others; and why I called those the clock of heaven; which gained, each night, four minutes, and only four, on the time we kept by the sun.
"Pra-aise Gawd!" murmured Sidney. "Miss Maud, please hol' on tell Mingo run' fetch daddy an' mammy; dey don't want dat sto'y f'om me secon' haynded!" Mingo darted9 off and we waited. "Miss Maud, what de white folks mean by de nawth stah? Is dey sich a stah as de nawth stah?"
I tried to explain that since all this seeming movement of the stars around us was but our own daily and yearly turning, there would necessarily be two opposite points on our earth which would never move at all, and that any star directly in line with those two points would seem as still as they.
"Like de p'int o' de spin'le on de spinnin'-wheel, Miss Maud? Oh, yass, I b'lieve I un'stand dat; I un'stan' it some."
I showed her the north star, and told her how to find it; and then I took from my watch-guard a tiny compass and let her see how it forever picked out from among all the stars of heaven that one small light, and held quiveringly to it. She hung over it with ecstatic sighs. "Do it see de stah, Miss Maud, like de wise men o' de Eas' see de stah o' Jesus?"
I tried to make plain the law it was obeying.
"And do it p'int dah dess de same in de broad day, an' all day long?--Pra-aise Gawd! And do it p'int dah in de rain, an' in de stawmy win' a-fulfillin' of his word, when de ain't a single stah admissible in de ske-eye?--De Lawd's na-ame be pra-aise'!" Her father, mother, and brother were all looking at it with her, now, and she glanced from one to another with long heavings of rapture10.
"Miss Maud," said Silas, in a subdued11 voice, "dat little trick mus' 'a' cos' you a mint o' money."
"Silas," put in Hester, "you know dass not a pullite question!" But she was ravening12 for its answer, and I said I had bought it for twenty-five cents. They laughed with delight. Yet, when I told Sidney she might have it, her thanks were but two words, which her lips seemed to drop unconsciously while she gazed on the trinket.
They all sat down on the steps nearest below me, and presently, beginning where I had begun with Sidney, I went on to point out the polar constellations13 and to relate the age-worn story of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the divine Perseus.
"Lawd, my Lawd !" whispered the mother, "was dey--was dey colo'd?"
I said two of them were king and queen of Ethiopia, and a third was their daughter.
"Chain' to de rock, an' yit sa-ave at las'!" exclaimed Sidney.
While her husband and children still gazed at the royal stars, Hester spoke14 softly to me again. "Miss Maud, dass a tryin' sawt o' sto'y to tell to a bunch o' po' niggehs; did you dess make dat up--fo' us?"
"Why, Hester," I said, "that was an old, old story before this country was ever known to white folks, or black," and the eyes of all four were on me as the daughter asked: "Ain't it in de Bi-ible?"
As all but Sidney bade me good night, I heard her say; "I don' care, I b'lieb dat be'n in de Bible an' git drap out by mista-ake!"
In my room she grew queerly playful, and continued so until she had drawn15 off my shoes and stockings. But then abruptly16, she took my feet in her slim black hands, and with eyes lifted tenderly to mine, said: "How bu'ful 'pon de mountain is dem wha' funnish good tidin's!" She leaned her forehead on my insteps: "Us bleeged to paht some day, Miss Maud."
I made a poor effort to lift her, but she would not be displaced. "Cayn't no two people count fo' sho' on stayin' togetheh al'ays in dis va-ain worl'," and all at once I found my face in my hands and the salt drops searching through my fingers; Sidney was kissing my feet and wetting them with her tears.
At close of the next day, a Sabbath, my uncle and aunt called all their servants around the front steps of the house and with tears more bitter than any of Sidney's or mine, told them that by the folly17 of others, far away, they had lost their whole fortune at one stroke and must part with everything, and with them, by sale. Their dark hearers wept with them, and Silas, Hester, and Sidney, after the rest had gone back to the quarters, offered the master and mistress, through many a quaintly18 misquoted scripture19, the consolations20 of faith.
"I wish we had set you free, Silas," said uncle, "you and yours, when we could have done it. Your mistress and I are going to town to-morrow solely21 to get somebody to buy you, all four, together."
"Mawse Ben," cried the slave, with strange earnestness, "don't you do dat! Don't you was'e no time dat a-way! You go see what you can sa-ave fo' you-all an' yone!"
Hester had a question. "Do it all go to de credito's anyhow, Miss 'Liza, no matteh how much us bring?" and when aunt said yes, Sidney murmured to her mother, "I tol' you dat." I wondered when she had told her.
Uncle and aunt tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed; nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret23 one bit 'bout4 dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism24 in her eyes that I remembered afterward25. "'De Lawd is perwide!'"
"Strange," said my aunt to uncle and me aside, smiling in pity, "how slight an impression disaster makes on their minds!" and that too I remembered afterward.
As soon as we were alone in my chamber26, Sidney and I, she asked me to tell her again of the clock in the sky, and at the end of her service and of my recital27 she drew me to my window and showed me how promptly28 she could point out the pole-star at the centre of the clock's vast dial, although at our right a big moon was leaving the tree tops and flooding the sky with its light. Toward this she turned, and lifting an arm with the reverence29 of a priestess said, in impassioned monotone:
"'De moon shine full at His comman'
An' all de stahs obey.'"
She kissed my hand as she added good-by. "Why, Sidney!" I laughed, "you mean good night, don't you?"
She bent30 low, tittered softly, and then, with a swift return to her beautiful straightness, said: "But still, Miss Maud, who eveh know when dey say good night dat it ain't good-by?" She fondled my hand between her two as she backed away, kissed it fervently31 again, and was gone.
When I awoke my aunt stood in broad though sunless daylight at the bedside, with the waking cup of coffee which it was Sidney's wont32 to bring. I started from the pillow. "Oh! what--who--wh'--where's Sidney? Why--how long has it been raining?"
"Oh! were we in such bad need of rain?"
"They were--precisely when it came. Rain never came straighter from heaven."
"They?"--I stared.
"Yes; Silas and Hester--and Sidney--and Mingo. They must have started soon after moonrise, and had the whole bright night, with its black shadows, for going."
"For going where, auntie; going where?"
"Then the rain came in God's own hour," she continued, as if wholly to herself, "and washed out their trail."
I sprang from the bed. "Aunt 'Liza!"
"Yes, Maud, they've run away, and if only they may get away. God be praised!"
Of course, I cried like an infant. I threw myself upon her bosom34. "Oh, auntie, auntie, I'm afraid it's my fault! But when I tell you how far I was from meaning it----"
"Don't tell me a word, my child; I wish it were my fault; I'd like to be in your shoes. And, I don't care how right slavery is, I'll never own a darky again!"
One day some two months after, at home again with father. Just as I was leaving the house on some errand, Sidney--ragged, wet, and bedraggled as a lost dog--sprang into my arms. When I had got her reclothed and fed I eagerly heard her story. Three of the four had come safely through; poor Mingo had failed; if I ever tell of him it must be at some other time. In the course of her tale I asked about the compass.
"Dat little trick?" she said fondly. "Oh, yass'm, it wah de salvation35 o' de Lawd 'pon cloudy nights; but time an' ag'in us had to sepa'ate, 'llowin' fo' to rejine togetheh on de bank o' de nex' creek36, an' which, de Lawd a-he'pin' of us, h-it al'ays come to pass; an' so, afteh all, Miss Maud, de one thing what stan' us de bes' frien' night 'pon night, next to Gawd hisse'f, dat wah his clock in de ske-eye."
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1
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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2
plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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3
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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4
bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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postures
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| 姿势( posture的名词复数 )； 看法； 态度； 立场 | |
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6
disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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7
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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8
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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9
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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10
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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11
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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12
ravening
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| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
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13
constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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14
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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15
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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17
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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18
quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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19
scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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20
consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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24
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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25
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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26
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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27
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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28
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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29
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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30
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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31
fervently
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| adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地 | |
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32
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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33
pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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34
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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35
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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36
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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