Hazel

Charity was right. The shawl did not come out of the trunk until the ship had passed Cape Hatteras and the voyage was nearly at an end. Poor Hazel lay in her upper berth, sick and wretched. When at length she was able to dress and climb to the deck the rough weather was over, and she saw a clear, blue sky and an expanse of soft, tranquil water. She grew better at once, and ate her dinner with an appetite.

The landing was wearying, and the long journey to Alabama in a dirty, ill-ventilated car was inexpressibly tiring. The child grew wretchedly weary, and a big lump rose in her throat when night came on. She was homesick and uncomfortable. Instead of her pleasant bed at home, there was only a hard seat on which to rest. Mrs. Graham pillowed her as well as she could, but the sensitive child lay awake the most of the night: for if she fell asleep from weariness, a vicious jolt of the train shook her awake again. Early in the evening their train stopped to wait until an express overtook it and passed on ahead. Hazel saw the Pullman with its comfortable beds and its brightly-lighted dining car where colored waiters were serving delicious-looking food to white people.

“Why don’t we ride in a car like that?” she asked Mrs. Graham.

But she knew the answer before she heard it. “Colored people are not allowed to in the South.”

All things come to an end, however, even a wakeful night. In the morning Montgomery was reached, and at the station Hazel was met by a kindly colored man who said that his name was Jenks and that he was a friend of Granny’s. He was to look after Hazel and take her to her grandmother’s home. So the little girl bade Mrs. Graham an affectionate good-bye and went with her new companion.

Mr. Jenks lived in a quiet, country-like street, and Hazel picked out his house before they reached it. It had roses growing by the doorway, and a sweet-faced young woman, like her mother, stood on the porch.

“You’re tired out, aren’t you, honey?” the young woman said, giving Hazel a kiss. “You don’t travel again until late afternoon. Come in and have breakfast, and then lie down and sleep.”

The biscuit and egg tasted delicious. To her hostess’s surprise Hazel refused coffee. “My mother doesn’t want me to drink it until I am grown up,” she explained; and instead she had a glass of milk. Breakfast over, she gladly accepted the invitation to lie down in the clean, white bed in the little room upstairs. How good it was to get into a fresh night-gown and creep between the sheets! Her head swam from the motion of the cars, but soon that stopped and she was in the land of dreams.

She dreamed that her mother called, “Come, Hazel, it is time for dinner,” and she answered, “Yes, I’m coming,” and tried to run from the bedroom into the little kitchen; but she could not move. Again the voice called her, and with a great effort she caught her mother’s hand, and awoke to find that she was clutching Mrs. Jenks’ dress.

“You’ve slept a long while, dear,” her hostess said. “There’s only time to wash and dress for dinner. Here is hot water I’ve brought for you. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a bath.”

She washed and dressed, and was just fastening her collar when there was a knock at her door. Opening it she found a little girl of about six who shyly held out to her a bunch of roses.

“Are these for me?” Hazel asked.

The child nodded.

Hazel looked with astonishment at the flowers. They were like hot-house roses. At home they would cost ten, fifteen cents apiece, so much that you only looked at them in the florist’s window. You could never afford to buy them, unless it were for a wedding or a funeral. And she held all these lovely pink and white blossoms in her hand!

“Thank you so much,” she said to the child, who still remained outside. Hazel went to the washstand and filling the glass she found there with water, placed the roses in it. Then, viewing her treasures with great pride, she took out one bud and pinned it to her dress.

It seemed very festive, like a party, to be wearing a pink rose. And the dinner was festive, too, with more roses on the table and Mr. and Mrs. Jenks and their two little daughters talking and laughing. Hazel ate heartily of the chicken and sweet potato and guava jelly, the last a gift from a friend in Florida and only put on the table at special occasions. But this was a special occasion, for while Hazel was only a little girl she was a visitor from the North, and from the North’s best-loved city, Boston.

Dinner over, Hazel and the children played together, building towers of blocks and destroying them only to build others. The time seemed short when Mrs. Jenks called her to make ready to go to the train.

“My husband will take you all the way,” she said to Hazel, who rose reluctantly from the floor. The child went to her room, took the roses out of the water, dried their stems and tied them together with a bit of thread from her traveling bag. They would be a comfort, she thought, in the dirty train. Then putting on her hat and coat she went down stairs.

It was hard to say good-bye to her new friends. The children clung to her and Mrs. Jenks invited her to make them a visit when she returned in the spring. “You haven’t been a bit of trouble,” she answered in reply to Hazel’s thanks for her hospitality. “I wish I could keep you over night.”

Hazel wished the same in her heart, but she only said good-bye again and returned to the railroad station.

“Let me have your check,” Mr. Jenks said. “And have you the money for your ticket?”

“Yes,” answered Hazel, and with a feeling of pride, she took the money needed from her leather purse. The business of ticket and trunk accomplished, the two took their seats in the car and were soon moving out into the big world.

“It isn’t far now, is it?” asked Hazel when they had traveled for an hour and a half.

“No,” her companion replied, “we shall soon be at the station; and then we drive three miles to your grandmother’s.”

The station was reached at last, and when they got out Hazel met a colored man whom Mr. Jenks called John, and whom he seemed to know very well. John took the check for Hazel’s trunk, and placed the luggage on the back of his wagon. Then giving the reins to Mr. Jenks, he walked away.

“See you right soon,” he called.

“I’m to drive you. Jump in,” Mr. Jenks commanded, and Hazel climbed to the seat by his side.

It was sunset. There was but one house near the station, and their road led through a sparsely tenanted country. Slender pines stood in the fields, and beyond the sky glowed golden. The air was clear and fragrant, and Hazel found herself drinking in deep breaths. Suddenly from the meadow came a bird’s note, long and sweet and plaintive. Again and again the bird called.

“A meadow lark,” Mr. Jenks said.

The child pressed her hands together. She felt exquisitely sad, and yet full of awe and wonder. The bird sang on and on from the meadow, and when at length she left it behind, the sunset had changed to red and the air was growing chill.

“Yes, I have a warm coat,” she said in answer to Mr. Jenks’ look, and she buttoned the blue coat about her neck.

Fields and pines and pines and fields. The sunset light, purple now, a single star shining in the west. Then a cabin by the road, and the horse stopped.

Hazel trembled as Mr. Jenks lifted her down. The cabin door opened and a tall, large woman came down the steps, put her arm about Hazel and spoke to Mr. Jenks.

“You done brought my child,” she said. “Come in and rest yourself.”

“Not to-night,” Mr. Jenks answered. “I’m going back to John’s.”

He took the trunk from the wagon and placed it on the ground.

“Good-night, Hazel. Good-night, Aunt Ellen,” and turning his team, he drove away.

The room that Hazel entered was lighted by a kerosene lamp and a fire of logs that sent forth a rich, yellow flame. Her grandmother helped the child take off her hat and coat, and then, sitting on a low chair by the blaze, drew the little girl toward her.

“You favors your mother, honey,” she said, “but your eyes looks at me like your father’s did. They’s dark and tired, now. You’s come over the sea and over the land clear to your granny. Put your head on my breast where your daddy rested when he was a baby.”

Hazel put her arms around the old woman’s neck and held her tight. Little warm pulses of feeling swept through her. The pines, the sunset, the bird’s note, and this loving welcome by the open fire, all made her heart beat fast and her body shake. She was sobbing before she knew it.

Granny understood what to do. She put the little girl in her chair, and leaving her for a moment came back with a gray kitten, very small and warm and helpless. Hazel ceased crying as she took it on her lap and gently stroked its fur.

“Is it named?” she asked after a moment.

“No, honey; it’s been saving for you.”

“Then, please, I will call it Lucy after my mother.”

She stroked it tenderly and thought of the purring black and white kitten in the kitchen at home.

“You has a sweet, loving mother, I know.”

“I’ve her picture for you.” And that settled the question of whether Granny’s present should be kept until Christmas.

It was decided not to open the trunk until morning. A warm supper was eaten before the fire, and then Granny declared that it was time good little girls were in bed.

The room in which they sat seemed very large to Hazel. Granny’s big bed was at one end, and the fire-place at the other. A door to the left of the fire-place lead into Hazel’s bedroom, the one other room of the house.

“Here your father used to sleep, honey,” Granny said, “and here you rest to-night.”

But in this last statement Granny was mistaken. After Hazel had said her prayers and had crept among the soft feathers a terrible feeling of loneliness came over her. She heard her grandmother walking in the other room, and then the light grew less and she knew the lamp was out. Her door was open and she could see shadows on the wall beyond.

“Granny,” she called. “Are you going to bed?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Could I have pussy Lucy with me?”

Her grandmother brought her the little kitten and placed it on the pillow.

“Shut your eyes, honey, and the sand man will come.”

But the sand man refused to visit the little room. Granny went to bed, and Hazel could hear no sound save the chirp of a late cricket outside the open window. Out there were the heavens, where her father had gone, filled with their myriad stars. Was her mother gazing at them and thinking of her? She hugged the kitten, and looked for comfort into the other room. It seemed to her, as she watched the flickering shadows, that the light was growing less. Yes, the fire would go out, and she would be left alone in darkness. Her heart pounded and a strange terror possessed her. She did not yet know this new home, and while she loved the light of the moon and the stars, she hated blackness. If she should wake up alone, the fire gone, only the black night about!

Her throat grew hot. Holding the kitten in one hand against her warm neck and cheek, she left her bed and walked into Granny’s room. The firelight showed her standing there, a slim, timid figure.

She sat by the hearth a minute and watched the blaze just as her father had watched it when he was a little boy. The kitten tumbled to her lap, and crawled to the floor.

Then she heard a sweet, drawling voice, “Lonely, baby? Come by the big bed to-night.”

And the lonely baby climbed into the great pile of feathers, and with one hand pillowing her cheek, the other touching the warm face of her father’s mother, fell fast asleep.