[Illustration: MAM' SARAH. "Sumfin' in my elbers en knees keeps on goen.
I never gits tired--I likes it."]
Presently Mam' Sarah took her foot off the treadle, went to the
fire-place, lit her pipe, returned to her seat and puffed away in peaceful
silence. Roberta waited for her to get through, for she knew how dearly
she loved her pipe. After a little Mam' Sarah laid her pipe aside and
looked at the child.
"What's de matter, honey?" she asked. "Your putty eyes full of tears.
Ennybody hurt your feelens?"
The touch of sympathy coming at that tender moment, like a rose-leaf upon
a full vessel of water, caused the pent-up emotion to overflow.
Roberta climbed in Mam' Sarah's lap, put her head down on her shoulder and
sobbed like her heart would burst. The old woman caressed the golden head,
and droned out a quaint lullaby, accompanying it with a kind of swaying
motion of her body as though soothing an infant to slumber:
"Who's dis, who's dis, er coddlen down here?
I spec dis iz black mammy's gyurl;
Her skin so white iz mammy's delite.
And her long golden ha'r in kyurl.
Shoo-oo-oo, shoo-oo-oo--
Rest, white chile, rest, on black mammy's breast.
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