Hugh Worthington

Had an angel appeared suddenly to the blacks at Spring Bank they would not have been more surprised or delighted than they were with Alice when she came down to breakfast looking so beautifully in her muslin wrapper, with a simple white blossom and geranium leaf twined among her flowing curls, and an expression of content upon her childish face which said that she had resolved to make the best of the place to which Providence had so clearly led her for some wise purpose of his own. She had arisen early and explored the premises in quest of the spots of sunshine which she knew were there as well as elsewhere, and she had found them, too, in the grand old elms and maples which shaded the wooden building, in the clean, grassy lawn and the running brook, in the well kept garden of flowers, and in the few choice volumes arranged in the old bookcase at one end of the hall. Who read those books? Not ’Lina, most assuredly, for Alice’ reminiscences of her were not of the literary kind; nor yet Mrs. Worthington, kind, gentle creature as she seemed to be. Who then but Hugh could have pored over those pages? And with a thrill of joy she was turning from the corner, when the patter of little naked feet was heard upon the stairs, and a bright mulatto child, apparently seven or eight years old, appeared, her face expressive of the admiration with which she regarded Alice, who asked her name.

Curtesying very low the child replied,

“I dunno, missus; Mas’r Hugh don nickname me Muggins, and every folks do that now. You know Mas’r Hugh? He done rared when he read you’s comin’; do this way with his boot, ‘By George, Ad will sell the old hut yet without ’sultin’ me,’” and the little darkey’s fist came down upon the window sill in apt imitation of her master.

A crimson flush overspread Alice’s face as she wondered if it were possible that the arrangements concerning her coming there had been made without reference to Hugh’s wishes.

“It may be; he was away,” she sighed; then feeling an intense desire to know more, and being only a woman and mortal, she said to Muggins, walking round her in circles, with her fat arms folded upon her bosom, “Your master did not know I was coming till he returned from New Orleans and found his mother’s letter?”

“Who tole you dat ar?” and Muggin’s face was perfectly comical in its bewilderment at what she deemed Alice’s foreknowledge. “But dat’s so. I hear Aunt Chloe say so, and how’t was right mean in Miss ’Lina. I hate Miss ’Lina! Phew-ew!” and Muggins’ face screwed itself into a look of such perfect disgust that Alice could not forbear laughing outright.

“You should not hate any one, my child,” she said, while Muggins rejoined,

“I can’t help it—none of us can; she’s so—mean—and so—low-flung, Claib says. She hain’t any bizzens orderin’ us round nuther, and I will hate her!”

“But, Muggins, the Bible teaches us to love those who treat us badly, who are mean, as you say.”

“Who’s he?” and Muggins looked up quickly. “I never hearn tell of him afore, or, yes, I has. Thar’s an old wared out book in Mas’r Hugh’s chest, what he reads in every night, and oncet when I axes him what was it, he say ‘It’s a Bible, Mug.’ Dat’s what he calls me for short, Mug.”

There was a warm spot now in Alice’s heart for Hugh. A man who read his Bible every night could not be very bad, and she blessed Mug for the cheering news, little dreaming whose Bible it was Hugh read, or whose curl of yellow hair served him for a book mark. Mug’s prying eyes had ferreted that out, too, and delighted with so attentive a listener as Alice, she continued:

“Dat’s the thing, then, what teaches us to love the hatefuls. Mug don’t want to read him, though I reckon Mas’r Hugh done grow some better, for he hain’t been hoppin’ mad this good while, like he got at Miss ’Lina ’bout that dress and Miss Adah. He was awful then. He swared, he did.”

“Muggins, you must not tell me these things of your master. It is not right,” Alice interposed and Muggins replied,

“Well, then, I done took ’em back. He didn’t swared, but he do read the Bible, and he do kiss dat curl of yaller har what he keeps in it. I see him through the do’ and I hear him whisper ’bout Golden Har or somethin’ mighty like him.”

Alice was in a tremor of distress. She knew Muggins ought not to disclose Hugh’s secrets, and she saw no way to stop her except by sending her away, and this she was about to do when a new idea was suggested to her. Possibly she could keep her from repeating the story to others, so she asked if “Muggins had ever told this about the curl to any one else.”

“Nobody but Chloe, and she boxt my ears so that I done forgot till I see you, and that har of your’n makes me ’member the one Mas’r Hugh kissed—real smackin’ loud, so,” and Muggins illustrated on her own hand.

“Well, then,” Alice said, “promise you will not. Your master would be very angry to know you watched him through the door, and then told what you saw. You must be a good girl, Muggins. God will love you if you do. Do you ever pray?”

“More times I do, and more times when I’se sleepy I don’t,” was Muggins’ reply, her face brightening up as she continued, “But I can tell you who does—Miss Adah and Uncle Sam, over dar in the cornfield. They prays, both of ’em, and Sam, is powerful, I tell you. I hears him at the black folk’s meetin’. Hollers—oh! oh!” and Muggins stopped her ears, as if even the memory of Sam’s prayers were deafening; but if the ears stopped, the tongue was just as busy as the talkative child went on: “Sam prays for Mas’r Hugh, that God would fetch him right some day, and Miss Adah say God will, ’case she say he see and hear everyting. Mug don’t believe dat; can’t cheat dis chile, ’case if he hear and see, what made him hold still dat time Miss ’Lina licked me for telling Mas’r Harney how’t she done up her har at night in fourteen little braids, and slep’ in great big cap to make it look wavy like yourn. Does you twist yourn up in tails?” and as she had all along been aching to do, Muggins laid her hands on the luxuriant tresses, which Alice assured her were not done up in tails.

Here was a spot where Alice might do good; this half-heathen, but sprightly, African child needed her, and she began already to get an inkling of her mission to Kentucky. She was pleased with Muggins, and suffered the little dusky hands to caress her curls as long as they pleased, while she questioned her of the bookcase and its contents, whose was it, ’Lina’s or Hugh’s?

“Mas’r Hugh’s in course. Miss ’Lina can’t read!” was Muggins’ reply, which Alice fully understood.

’Lina was no reader, while Hugh was, it might be, and she continued to speak of him. Did he read evenings to his mother, or did ’Lina play to them?

“More’n we wants, a heap!” and Muggins spoke scornfully. “We can’t bar them things she thumps out. Now we likes Mas’r Hugh’s the best—got good voice, sing Dixie, oh, splendid! Mas’r Hugh loves flowers, too. Tend all them in the garden.”

“Did he?” and Alice spoke with great animation, for she had supposed that ’Lina’s or at least Mrs. Worthington’s hands had been there.

But it was all Hugh, and in spite of what Muggins had said concerning his aversion to her coming there she felt a great desire to see him. She could understand in part why he should be angry at not having been consulted, but he was over that, she was sure from what Aunt Eunice said, and if he were not, it behooved her to try her best to remove any wrong impression he might have formed of her. “He shall like me,” she thought; “not as he must like that golden haired maiden, whose existence this sprite of a negro has discovered, but as a friend, or sister,” and a softer light shone in Alice’s blue eyes, as she foresaw in fancy Hugh gradually coming to like her, to be glad that she was there, and to miss her when she was gone.

“What time did he come home last night?” she asked, feeling more disappointed than she cared to confess at Muggin’s answer that, “he hadn’t come at all!”

Alice was but human, and it must be confessed that she had made her toilet that morning with a slight reference to Hugh’s eyes, wondering if he liked white, and wondering, too, if he liked flowers, when she placed the wax ball in her hair.

“You are sorry?” Mug said, interpreting her looks aright.

“Yes, I am sorry. I want to see your master, Hugh. I mean to like him very much.”

“I’ll tell him dat ar,” thought Muggins. “I ’members how’t he say oncet that nobody done love him,” and, spying Claib in the distance, the little tattler ran off to tell him how beautiful the new missus was, and how she let her smooth her har, all she wanted to.