Scarlet Sister Mary

Scarlet Sister Mary

By Julia Peterkin.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Dedication
4. Scarlet Sister Mary
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
   5. V
   6. VI
   7. VII
   8. VIII
   9. IX
   10. X
   11. XI
   12. XII
   13. XIII
   14. XIV
   15. XV
   16. XVI
   17. XVII
   18. XVIII
   19. XIX
   20. XX
   21. XXI
   22. XXII
   23. XXIII
   24. XXIV
   25. XXV
   26. XXVI
   27. XXVII
   28. XXVIII
   29. XXIX
   30. XXX
   31. XXXI
   32. XXXII
5. Colophon
6. Uncopyright

Imprint

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To
William George Peterkin

Scarlet Sister Mary

I

The black people who live in the Quarters at Blue Brook Plantation believe they are far the best black people living on the whole “Neck,” as they call that long, narrow, rich strip of land lying between the sea on one side and the river with its swamps and deserted rice-fields on the other. They are no Guinea negroes with thick lips and wide noses and low ways; or Dinkas with squatty skulls and gray-tinged skin betraying their mean blood; they are Gullahs with tall straight bodies, and high heads filled with sense.

Since the first days of slavery they have been the best of field workers. They make fine mechanics and body servants for their masters. Their preachers and conjure doctors have always known many things besides how to save men’s lives and souls.

The old owners of Blue Brook must have been careful to buy slaves that were perfect, for they built up a strain of intelligent, upstanding human beings, just as they bred racehorses and hunting dogs that could not be excelled. The slaves destined to be skilled laborers were sent across the sea to learn their trades from the best workmen in the world, and the house and body servants came into close contact with masters and mistresses who were ladies and gentlemen and not common white trash, or poor buckras. When the war between the states freed them and broke up the old plantation system, the black people lived on in the old plantation Quarters, shifting for themselves and eking out a living as best they could. The lack of roads and bridges afforded them little contact with the outside world, and so, instead of going away to seek new fortunes, new advantages, easier work and more money, they kept faithful to the old life, contented with old ways and beliefs, holding fast to old traditions and superstitions.

When their time is out and death takes their souls back to their Maker, their bodies are laid with those others lying so thick in the old graveyard that room can scarcely be found for another resting-place.

The world made by the old plantation is drawn to a simple pattern. The loamy red fields are bordered by quiet woodlands. A cluster of ancient cabins near the river is sheltered by a grove of giant moss-hung live oaks. A great empty Big House, once the proud home of the plantation masters, is now an old crumbling shell with broken chimneys and a rotting roof. Ghosts can be heard at sunset rattling the closed window-blinds upstairs, as they strive for a glimpse of the shining river that shows between the tall cedars and magnolias.

The earth’s richness and the sun’s warmth make living an easy thing. Years go by without leaving a mark or footprint. Sometimes black years come in determined to break the tranquil monotony. Earthquakes tumble down chimneys, storms break trees and houses, floods wash the earth so bare that its very bones are exposed, droughts burn up crops and weeds with impartial cruelty, but the old plantation is swift to hide every scar made by all this wickedness. New chimneys are quickly built and houses mended; trees thrust up young branches to fill empty spaces; new crops and weeds thrive under gentle rains and hot sunshine.

Life fills and enfolds everything here, never overlooking in the press of work to be done the smallest or most insignificant creature, and silently, with weariless patience and diligence, strange miracles are wrought as youth rises out of decay and death becomes only another beginning.

II

Mary had grown up in Maum Hannah’s old house in the Quarters like a weed, and, although she could remember her mother faintly, Maum Hannah and Budda Ben were the only parents she knew. Maum Hannah was old and Budda Ben was crippled, but Mary had laughed and played through most of her fifteen years with clothes enough to wear and food enough to eat and pleasure enough to keep her happy. She worked almost every day in the fields, picking cotton, stripping fodder from the corn, planting or gathering potatoes and peas; never working