Chapter 4

When a few minutes later he went into the back room, he found Aunt Mornin sitting before the big fireplace in which burned a few logs of wood. The light the snapping sticks gave fell full upon her black face, and upon the small bundle upon her spacious knee.

As he entered she turned sharply towards him.

"Don't nobody keer nothin' for this yere?" she said, "ain't nobody comin' nigh? Whar's he? Don't he take no int'rus' in the pore little lonesome child? I 'spect yo'll haf to take it ye'self, Mars' De Willerby, while I goes in dar."

Tom stopped short, stricken with a pang of remorse. He looked down at the small face helplessly.

"Yes," he said, "you'll have to go in there; you're needed."

The woman looked at him in startled questioning.

"Mars De Willerby," she said, "does dat ar mean she's cl'ar gone?"

"Yes," answered Tom. "She's gone, Mornin."

With the emotional readiness of her race, the comfortable creature burst into weeping, clasping the child to her broad bosom.

"Pore chile!" she said, "an' poor chile lef behin'! De Lord help 'em bofe."

With manifest fear Tom stooped and took the little red flannel bundle from her arms.

"Never mind crying," he said. "Go into the room and do what's to be done."

When left alone with his charge, he sat down and held it balanced carefully in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He was used to carrying his customers' children, a great part of his popularity being based upon his jovial fondness for them. But he had never held so small a creature as this in his arms before. He regarded it with a respectful timidity.

"It wasn't thought of," he said, reflectively. "Even she--poor thing, poor thing--" he ended, hurriedly, "there was no time."

He was still holding his small burden with awkward kindliness when the door opened and the man he had left in the room beyond came in. He approached the hearth and stood for a few seconds staring at the fire in a stupefied, abstracted way. He did not seem to see the child. At last he spoke.

"Where shall I lay her?" he asked. "Where is the nearest churchyard?"

"Fifteen miles away," Tom answered. "Most of the people like to have their dead near them and lay them on the hillsides."

The man turned to him with a touch of horror in his face.

"In unconsecrated ground?" he said.

"It doesn't trouble them," said Tom. "They sleep well enough."

The man turned to the fire again--he had not looked at the child yet--and made a despairing gesture with his hands.

"That she--" he said, "that she should lie so far from them, and in