But this is to anticipate.
No vision of future glory, however, arose before the poor weaver's
imagination as she sat in that old hut holding the wee boy on her lap,
and for his sake as well as for her own begrudging him every hour of the
few days she supposed he had to live upon this earth. Yes! Hannah would
have felt relieved and satisfied if that child had been by his mother's
side in the coffin rather than been left on her lap.
Only think of that, my readers; think of the utter, utter destitution of
a poor little sickly, helpless infant whose only relative would have
been glad to see him dead! Our Ishmael had neither father, mother, name,
nor place in the world. He had no legal right to be in it at all; no
legal right to the air he breathed, or to the sunshine that warmed him
into life; no right to love, or pity, or care; he had nothing--nothing
but the eye of the Almighty Father regarding him. But Hannah Worth was a
conscientious woman, and even while wishing the poor boy's death she did
everything in her power to keep him alive, hoping all would be in vain.
Hannah, as you know, was very, very poor. And with this child upon her
hands she expected to be much poorer. She was a weaver of domestic
carpets and counterpanes and of those coarse cotton and woolen cloths of
which the common clothing of the plantation negroes are made, and the
most of her work came from Brudenell Hall. She used to have to go and
fetch the yarn, and then carry home the web. She had a piece of cloth
now ready to take home to Mrs. Brudenell's housekeeper; but she
abhorred the very idea of carrying it there, or of asking for more work.
Nora had been ignominiously turned from the house, cruelly driven out
into the midnight storm; that had partly caused her death. And should
she, her sister, degrade her womanhood by going again to that house to
solicit work, or even to carry back what she had finished, to meet,
perhaps, the same insults that had maddened Nora?
No, never; she would starve and see the child starve first. The web of
cloth should stay there until Jim Morris should come along, when she
would get him to take it to Brudenell Hall. And she would seek work from
other planters' wives.
She had four dollars and a half in the house--the money, you know, that
old Mrs. Jones, with all her hardness, had yet refused to take from the
poor woman. And then Mrs. Brudenell owed her five and a half for the
weaving of this web of cloth. In all she had ten dollars, eight of which
she owed to the Professor of Odd Jobs for his services at Nora's
funeral. The remaining two she hoped would supply her simple wants until
she found work. And in the meantime she need not be idle; she would
employ her time in cutting up some of poor Nora's clothes to make an
outfit for the baby--for if the little object lived but a week it must
be clothed--now it was only wrapped up in a piece of flannel.