He was
conscious without looking of that broad green earth; it made his work
pleasant to him. Near the shadow at the gable the mother of the little
nigger stood churning. Slowly she raised and let fall the stick in her
hands, murmuring to herself a sleepy chant such as her people love; it
sounded like the humming of far-off bees.
A different life showed itself in the front of the house, where Tant
Sannie's cart stood ready inspanned and the Boer-woman herself sat in the
front room drinking coffee.
She had come to visit her stepdaughter, probably for the last time, as she
now weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, and was not easily able to move.
On a chair sat her mild young husband nursing the baby--a pudding-faced,
weak-eyed child.
"You take it and get into the cart with it," said Tant Sannie. "What do
you want here, listening to our woman's talk?"
The young man arose, and meekly went out with the baby.
"I'm very glad you are going to be married, my child," said Tant Sannie, as
she drained the last drop from her coffee cup. "I wouldn't say so while
that boy was here, it would make him too conceited; but marriage is the
finest thing in the world. I've been at it three times, and if it pleased
God to take this husband from me I should have another. There's nothing
like it, my child; nothing.
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