A strange chance, or, perhaps, a kindly Providence, brought Sarah Ann Peters and old black mammy together that spring at the railway station near Ellsworth, where both were then living.
The indefatigable white woman was laid low with la grippe, and her husband, in seeking a maid-of-all-work to fill her place, could find no one to take the situation but the aged Virginia.
As six of the large brood of sons were away at school, mammy undertook "to do for the rest," as she expressed it; and the last of March found her domesticated at the six-roomed frame house on the edge of the woods, a mile from the station.
Here the thrifty Peters family had lived for ten years throughout the winters, removing each spring to the lonely saw-mill in the mountains, where by hard, unremitting toil they succeeded in earning enough money to send their children to good schools in the cold weather.
Already Peters was making his arrangements to remove to the woods in April, when his good wife was stricken with a heavy cold that laid her low during the last three weeks of March; though her sturdy constitution triumphed then, and she sat up the first day of April, a little pale and wasted, but, as she expressed it, "feeling just as stout as ever, but glad to have mammy there awhile yet to take the heft of the work off her tired shoulders."
In her secret heart black mammy felt cruelly hurt at having come down, in her old age, to work for ordinary "po' w'ite trash;" but she had fallen on evil days in this latter end of her pilgrimage.
After the terrible misfortune that had befallen Love Ellsworth, his heartless step-mother had made full use of her power to oppress all who had taken the part of poor Dainty Chase.
For many years mammy, with her son and her daughter-in-law, had inhabited rent free, their cabin on the Ellsworth estate, Love also allowing them the use of a patch of ground for their garden. The negroes having belonged to his ancestors in slavery times, he felt that this kindness was but their honest due.
But no sooner had Mrs. Ellsworth usurped the reins of government than she proceeded to drive away the poor negroes from the cabin. Thereupon mammy's son and his wife removed to the coal mines of Fayette County, and left the old woman to shift for herself.
Though she did her work faithfully for Mrs. Peters, she did not fail to impress on the good woman the superiority of the position from which she had fallen, and the grandeur of the family that had formerly owned her, always adding that "Massa Love wouldn't a let her kem to sech a pass ef he had kep' his mind."
Mrs. Peters, with the kindest heart and warmest sympathies in the world, listened patiently to black mammy's tales, till the loquacious old negress at last confided to her the whole story of her young master's blighted love dream, down to the moment when Franklin had brought Dainty Chase to the station, bought her ticket, and sent her on to her mother in Richmond.
Then the interested Mrs. Peters also had a story to tell, for she had recognized in the heroine of the story the lovely patient she had tended so faithfully, last fall, at the logging camp in the woods.
"And I believe she told the truth to that wicked woman, that she was secretly married to Mr. Ellsworth," she affirmed. "For, Virginny, I'll tell you a secret that hain't never passed my lips before, not even to Peters, and I don't often keep secrets from my good old man. But this is it: I more nor suspected that that pore young chile was in a way to become a mother."
"Lord, have mercy!" ejaculated black mammy, and the tears rolled down her fat, black cheeks.
After that the two women could talk of little else but sweet Dainty and her sorrowful plight--an unacknowledged wife soon to be a mother.
They counted up the months on their fingers, and found that the important event was almost at hand--must happen within the next two weeks--and mammy exclaimed:
"I see it all plain as daylight now! Massa Love was 'fraid sumpin' would happen to 'vent de marriage, so he took his sweetheart off on de sly, an' dey got married; den he sent me home an' fix up dat room nex' to his own fer his bride, so 'at he kin tek keer ob her ebery night--dat's it. An' den dey bofe feel so easy in dey min's, little finkin' what turrible fings gwine happen on de birfday. Oh! ain't it de awfules' 'fliction you ebber hear on, Mis' Peters? Dat pore man wif de bullet in his haid, an' his senses gone, an' dat pore wife druv away in poverty, an' dem wretches rollin' in gold dat belongs to Massa Love an' his sweet bride! An' to fink dat I is cheated, too, out o' a hunnerd dollars! fer I done match dat torn piece ob torchon lace to Sheila Kelly's night gownd long ago, an' ef Massa Love was in his senses, I could claim dat big reward."
That night, the last of March, Mrs. Peters confided the whole story to her surprised and sympathizing husband.
"I never heard anything to ekal it!" he declared, indignantly; adding: "I wish sumpin' could be done to git that poor young wife her rights, and I'm willin' to spend time and money helpin' ef I only knew which end to begin at! Them wimmen at Ellsworth ought to be tarred and feathered and rid on a fence rail, I swow! But likely they'll make it hot for any one as tries to bring home their sins to 'em."
The next day he rode over to the station at sunset on his old gray mare Stonewall, for some groceries from the store, and the supper things being cleared away, mammy took her black pipe and sat down by the roadside to smoke, just outside the front gate.
By and by, through the cloud of smoke and the purple haze of twilight, she saw him returning with his bundles, and, sitting behind him on old Stonewall's back was a woman, whom he presently lifted down, exclaiming, cheerfully:
"Git up, mammy. Come out to the gate, Sairy Ann! I've brought you gran' company from the train, and you must spread a feast and rejoice! Come in, and welcome, Mrs. Ellsworth!"
"Oh, mammy! I've come back to you to die!" sobbed Dainty, falling wearily on the old woman's ample breast.
