"Yes, that is like her hair," Adah said, gazing fondly upon the tiny
lock which was Sam's greatest earthly treasure; then, returning it to
him, she asked: "And where is that Sullivan?" a chill creeping over her
as she remembered how about four years ago the man she called her
guardian was absent for some time, and came back to her with colored
hair and whiskers.
"Oh, he gone long before, nobody know whar. Sam b'lieves, though, he
hear they tryin' to cotch him, but disremembers, got such mizzable
memory."
"You say he had a mark like mine?" Adah continued.
"Yes, berry much, but more so. Show plainer when he cussin' mad, just as
yours show more when you tired. Whar you git dat?" and Sam bent down to
inspect more closely Adah's birthmark.
"I don't know. I was born with it," and Adah half groaned aloud at the
sad memories which Sam's story had awakened within her.
She could scarcely doubt that Sullivan, the negro-stealer, and Monroe,
her guardian, were the same, but where was he now, and why had he
treated her so treacherously, when he had always seemed so kind?
"Miss Adah prays," the old man answered. "Won't she say 'Our Father'
with Sam?"
Surely Hugh's sleep was sweeter that night for the prayer breathed by
the lowly negro, and even the wild tumult in Adah's heart was hushed by
Sam's simple, childlike faith that God would bring all right at last.
Early on Monday afternoon 'Lina, taking advantage of Hugh's absence,
came over for her dress, finding much fault, and requiring some of the
work to be done twice ere it suited her. Without a murmur Adah obeyed,
but when the last stitch was taken and the party dress was gone, her
overtaxed frame gave way, and Sam himself helped her to her bed, where
she lay moaning, with the blinding pain in her head, which increased so
fast that she scarcely saw the tempting little supper which Aunt Eunice
brought, asking her to eat. Of one thing, however, she was conscious,
and that of the dark form bending over her pillow and whispering
soothingly the passage which had once brought Heaven to him, "Come unto
me, come unto me, and I will give you rest."
The night had closed in dark and stormy, and the wintry rain beat
fiercely against the windows; but for this Sam did not hesitate a moment
when at midnight Aunt Eunice, alarmed at Adah's rapidly increasing
fever, asked if he could find his way to Spring Bank.
"In course," he could, and in a few moments the old, shriveled form was
out in the darkness, groping its way over fences, and through the
pitfalls, stumbling often, and losing his hat past recovery, so that the
snowy hair was dripping wet when at last Spring Bank was reached and he
stood upon the porch.