Should she do it? Up and down, both ways she looked; there was nobody even in sight, save Ma’y Ann, dawdling far down the spring-path; then the great bell clanged through the Quarters. A spasm stiffened the form of Cindy’s baby, and Maumer, with a stern face and trembling hands, stripped the long shirt and blue beads from Cely’s boy, and throwing them hastily upon her daughter’s child, she laid it in the twentieth cradle, changing Cely’s baby to the cradle just vacated. Old Maumer, with shaking limbs, was raking up the smouldering coals upon the hearth when the lively throng of mothers came filing in to nurse their little ones. “Hi! What ail Maumer? What de matter?” asked Judy, always foremost. “Chill,” grunted Maumer, as she knelt to woo the fickle blaze. “Go fetch in some chips, Ma’y Ann!” for Ma’y Ann had returned. * * * * * Dancing, skipping, like a child let loose for a holiday, came Cely; she had even “hop-scotched” with Ma’y Ann that very morning. Nothing was the matter with her baby—Judy said so, Maumer said so—even old Maumer, who was so jealous; he was still her doll, and how he cooed and kicked for her just before she left him! Down the long row of cradles she leaped rather than walked, in the fulness and exuberance of life. “Yo’ Mammy’s comin’, boy, yo’ Mammy’s comin’!” and snatching the baby from the cradle, she tossed it gleefully above her head. Then a shriek, that startled even the laborers who had not left the field—a shriek of agony, of fear, of a wild thing wounded in the heart, for the little cold mouth turned away from the warm breast so full of life and strength, and the tiny limbs convulsed, and then relaxed forever with the breathing of a sigh. Holding the dead baby close, and rocking in her woe, the face of Cely seemed hardened and ashened in a moment, like that of an old woman, while, shrill and high, her voice carried even to the clearing. “Maumer! yo’ pizened my boy! Yo’ kilt him, Maumer!” But Maumer, with closed eyes, only mumbled over the coals and shivered, though the noon was warm. * * * * * Smiles came through Cely’s tears, smiles of gratification when Little Miss, with eyes and nose all red, refused to be comforted for the loss of her “little nigger,” and brought from the Big House more pretty baby things than Cely had ever seen; while Ole Miss put them on with her own hands; and smoothing down the dainty folds, laid in the brown, doll-like fingers the tiniest, whitest rose-bud that the early frost had spared. Then emotion was stirred to its depths again, and the wild blood of two continents ran riot in her veins, even to the verge of madness, when Cely came to know the meaning of a grave. And Ole Miss had her brought to the Big House, by way of comfort to Henry, who was Ole Marse’s foreman at that time.