MORIAH'S MOURNING

and Other Half-Hour Sketches

By

RUTH McENERY STUART

Author of "In Simpkinsville","A Golden Wedding" etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1898

Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.

Printed in New York, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

PAGE

• MORIAH'S MOURNING3
• AN OPTICAL DILEMMA19
• THE SECOND MRS. SLIMM37
• APOLLO BELVEDERE. A CHRISTMAS EPISODE OF THE PLANTATION53
• NEAREST OF KIN (ON THE PLANTATION)71
• THE DEACON'S MEDICINE93
• TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE113
• THE REV. JORDAN WHITE'S THREE GLANCES131
• LADY. A MONOLOGUE OF THE COW-PEN157
• A PULPIT ORATOR165
• AN EASTER SYMBOL. A MONOLOGUE OF THE PLANTATION175
• CHRISTMAS AT THE TRIMBLES'181
• A MINOR CHORD211

ILLUSTRATIONS

• "'THANK THE LORD! NOW I CAN SEE TO LOOK FOR 'EM!'"Frontispiece
• "A SURPRISED AND SMILING MAN WAS SITTING AT HER
  POLISHED KITCHEN TABLE"Facing p. 8
• "'I'M AC-CHILLY MOST AFEERD TO SEE
  YOU CONVERTED'"Facing p. 40
• "'I PROMISED HIM I'D PUT ON MO'NIN' FOR HER
  SOON AS I MARRIED INTO DE FAMILY'"Facing p. 74
• "SAYS SHE, 'OPEN YORE MOUTH!' AN' OF CO'SE
  I OPENED IT"Facing p. 98
• "I DES LETS 'EM LOOSE P'OMISKYUS, TELL
  EV'YBODY SEE BLUE LIGHTNIN'"Facing p. 134
• "SALVATION'S KYAR IS MOVIN'!"Facing p. 148
• "'WON'T YER, PLEASE, SIR, SPELL DAT WORD
  OUT FUR ME SLOW?'"Facing p. 168

MORIAH'S MOURNING

Moriah was a widow of a month, and when she announced her intention of marrying again, the plantation held its breath. Then it roared with laughter.

Not because of the short period of her mourning was the news so incredible. But by a most exceptional mourning Moriah had put herself upon record as the most inconsolable of widows.

So prompt a readjustment of life under similar conditions was by no means unprecedented in colored circles.

The rules governing the wearing of the mourning garb are by no means stringent in plantation communities, and the widow who for reasons of economy or convenience sees fit to wear out her colored garments during her working hours is not held to account for so doing if she appear at all public functions clad in such weeds as she may find available. It is not even needful, indeed, that her supreme effort should attain any definite standard. Anybody can collect a few black things, and there is often an added pathos in the very incongruity of some of the mourning toilettes that pass up the aisles of the colored churches.

Was not the soul of artlessness expressed in the first mourning of a certain young widow, for instance, who sewed upon her blue gown all the black trimming she could collect, declaring that she "would 'a' dyed de frock th'oo an' th'oo 'cep'n' it would 'a' swunked it up too much"? And perhaps her sympathetic companions were quite as naïve as she, for, as they aided her in these first hasty stitches, they poured upon her wounded spirit the healing oil of full and sympathetic approval, as the following remarks will testify.

"Dat frock mo'ns all right, now de black bows is on it."

"You kin put any colored frock in mo'nin' 'cep'n' a red one. Sew black on red, an' it laughs in yo' face."

"I'm a-sewin' de black fringe on de josey, Sis Jones, 'case fringe hit mo'ns a heap mo'nfuler 'n ribbon do."

Needless to say, a license so full and free as this found fine expression in a field of flowering weeds quite rare and beautiful to see.

Moriah had proven herself in many ways an exceptional person even before the occasion of her bereavement, and in