02 Morning at Jalna by Mazo de La Roche Read Free Book Online Page A

friendly with strangers, Boss. I have talked with them. The older woman is fat; for one thing she is heavy with child.”
    “Tck!” exclaimed Wilmott.
    “Yes indeed, Boss.”
    “Is the man her husband?”
    “No, Boss. She left her husband and three children in the South because she is so devoted to her mistress — just as I would leave my wife and my children, if I had them, to go with you.”
    “I should advise you,” said Wilmott, “not to question these Negroes. Better keep away from them, Tite.”
    “I am a friendly man, Boss.” The half-breed showed his white teeth in a smile. “Also I have no class-consciousness. I myself am of mixed blood. I am scarcely white. Yet a young white lady once told me that I had a mouth like a pomegranate flower. Do you think that was meant as a compliment, Boss?”
    “Don’t remind me of that affair, Tite,” Wilmott said sternly.
    “That was years ago, and I am of a more noble character now. You have heard of the noble red man, Boss?”
    “I am glad to hear of your nobility,” said Wilmott, wondering whether education had been good for Tite.
    “The young woman slave” — Tite spoke in a judicial tone — “is a mulatto — the shade of café au lait. You see, I know a little French. She is a very pretty girl, Boss.”
    “I want you to keep strictly away from that young woman.”
    “Yes, indeed,” said Tite with dignity. “Still, she is very pretty and her name is Annabelle. Her face is sensitive — a quality you don’t find very often in women.”
    “Keep away from her,” repeated Wilmott, “or you may get into trouble.”
    “Trouble with whom, sir?”
    “Probably with the Negro man.”
    “Oh, no, Boss. Annabelle is miles above him. He is an ignorant fellow who knows not how to read or write, though he can do arithmetic in his head.”
    “How do you come by all this information, Tite?”
    “I keep my eyes and ears open. That is what makes life interesting.”
    Tite drifted away. He fished in a shady pool of the stream which abounded in fish. He cleaned and cooked fish for the evening meal. He washed up. When dusk fell he took the narrow path to Jalna by which Adeline had come that morning.
    The sounds and smells of night were stealing out, at first as though timidly, then taking possession of the darkness. The scent of virgin soil, of cedar, of pine, of the balm of Gilead tree, weighed sweetly on the night air. The twittering of small birds, the confidential croaking of frogs, the newly awakened chorus of the locusts, joined in the dismissal of day and the welcoming of night.
    The half-breed did not consciously give himself to these pleasures. He absorbed them through his very pores — the soles of his feet, the skin of his dark face. Plainly this night walk was not aimless, for he turned abruptly from the path that led to Jalna, descended another path that would have been difficult to find, had he been less sensitive to the feel of the earth and the change in the air, as he followed the path down into the ravine. Down there a stream was moving swiftly, unseen but clearly heard in its nocturnal singing. It was spanned by a rustic bridge and walking across it was a large white owl whose hearing, even more acute than Tite’s, detected the coming of the young man. It rose, with a heavy flutter of wings, into the shelter of a massive tree.
    Tite gave a little laugh and, raising an imaginary bow, sent an imaginary arrow into the owl’s white breast. As though in wonder, it uttered a loud “whoo-whoo.” Tite now went and stood on the bridge listening. He had not long to wait. A dark figure stole out from the undergrowth. The young mulatto girl joined him silently on the bridge.
    He took her hand and they stood so linked for a moment. Then he said, “You did well, Annabelle, not to keep me waiting. I am an impatient fellow and would have searched till I found you — and then —”
    “What then?” she breathed.
    “I can’t tell you. I do things on