“I declare to Gawd, Auntie, e ain’ my own. I wouldn’ be shame to own em, if e was. Jedus, no! Three ain’ no worse dan two. ’E’s a fine child, Auntie. Better put em close to my own an’ get em warm.—Git someting to wrop em up in.”
Mary lay back down, and Maum Hannah covered her up with the three babies! Mary never had seen three babies but once before, and one of those was a little runty thing. All three of these were fine big children.
“Auntie, go in de shed room an’ see if Seraphine is wake,” Mary whispered.
“Lawd—I been forgot bout em,” Maum Hannah said with a wise smile.
She opened the shed-room door. It was too dark to see much, but she called, “Is yunnuh all sleep in here?”
There was no answer.
“Wake em up,” Mary said.
“You Ma say you must wake up, Seraphine,” Maum Hannah called, but nobody stirred or answered.
Everybody was sound asleep, Seraphine and all of the rest.
“Try Seraphine one mo’ time,” Mary directed. “If e don’ make answer, I’m gwine to get out of dis bed an’ gi’ em a lickin’ e won’ never forget, whilst e lives. When I say, ‘Git up,’ I mean, ‘Git up!’ ”
“You hear you Mammy say e gwine lick you, enty? Wake up, Seraphine! Wake up!”
There were three beds in the shed room and the covers on all of them moved. Mary’s threat was effective.
“All yunnuh get up an’ come in dis room. I want to look in all you face,” Mary called to them.
“Don’ make dem lil chillen come, May-e, not dem boy-chillen. Dey so sleepy,” Maum Hannah interceded.
Mary reflected a moment, then called sternly:
“Evy one got to come! Evy one! Seraphine, you an’ Keepsie come stand close to dis bed! Right now, too! Dis minute! You low-down no-manners gal. You gone an’ had a gal-child right here in my house, an’ den lay down in de bed an’ make out it my own! I good mind to lick you till I scorch you gown-tail.”
Seraphine and Keepsie were two awkward figures standing there by Mary’s bed, both of them denying most positively any knowledge of the extra child.
“E ain’ my own,” Seraphine declared over and over, and Keepsie echoed, “I know e ain’ my own.”
Finally Mary got tired of questioning them.
“Git on back to bed. I too vexed to fool wid yunnuh. Tomorrow I’m gwine to get up an’ lick all-two. I ain’ gwine let you get away wid any such-a doins in my house. No. I’m gwine lick you haf to death. You wait!”
A good long sleep calmed Mary’s anger, and the morning light showed that the girl-child was the prettiest one of the babies. Mary began feeling as proud of it as she was of her boys.
“I’d as soon take care of three as two. Gal-chillen ain’ de trouble boy-chillen is, nohow.”
Seraphine woke with a fearful toothache. Her throat was sore too, and Mary made her stay in the house while the ground was so wet.
When Doll came to inquire about Mary, Maum Hannah was sitting on the doorstep in the sunshine smoking her pipe. She still had the white cloth on her head and the strange wooden beads around her neck that were the signs of her night’s occupation.
“You look faded, Auntie,” Doll said with sympathy.
“I is, gal. I is,” Maum Hannah affirmed. “I been catchin chillen all night.”
“How much you catch, Auntie?”
Maum Hannah held up both hands to the sky. “Three. Mary had triplets.”
“Three? Si May-e had three? Great Gawd! Dat’s a litter, enty?”
“No, e ain’ no litter. E is triplets. Plenty o people has triplets. I used to wish I could have em myself.”
“Can I look at em, Auntie?”
“Not today, honey, Si May-e is sleepin’ now. ’E’s weary by e had a long hard task last night.”
XXV
Mary mended fast and before long she was her old strong able self, out in the field, doing a regular field hand’s work. Every morning she thanked God that she was well again, and that the babies were all three thriving.
The patches she had planted all around her house were growing well. Cabbages were heading, watermelons and figs and peaches were ripening. Okra and tomatoes were bearing fruit enough to keep a big pot filled with soup. The hens laid and hatched well, and the red rooster strutted about helping them find worms and grass seed for themselves and their children. Portulacas blossomed by the front doorstep, a morning-glory vine had climbed clear up over the shed-room door and held it fast with curly green fingers. Everything went well except Seraphine, who stayed weary and thin and down in the heart.
Mary tried to cheer her up, to make her eat, but all her coaxing and cooking did the girl little good, until Mary took her away off in the woods one morning and talked seriously to her. As they sat on the ground under the tall pines, Mary said that fretting was worse than sickness to thin your blood and dry up your flesh. If she had missed and made a mistake one time, that was not so bad; everybody makes mistakes, that is no disgrace. Not a soul in the whole world but Maum Hannah knew that the nice little girl-baby was not Mary’s own. It was a nice little child. Seraphine ought to be proud of it. It was a good child to have around, because it had never looked on its daddy’s face. That very thing gave it the power to cure sickness, not only things like fevers and rheumatism and thrash in babies’ mouths, but all kinds of bad ailments like swelling and breaking-outs on your skin.
Seraphine listened with a solemn face; tears began pouring out of her eyes, then she bent over and crumpled up no bigger than a little child. Mary put both arms around her and drew her up
