Mollie Bragg wondered a good deal about Lily. Berry treated the colored girl as if she had the same right to friendship and kindness as if her skin were white. In fact, to Mollie it sometimes seemed that Berry was more kind and thoughtful toward Lily than toward anyone else, and this sadly puzzled Mollie; and, one day when the two little friends were making a playhouse under the big oak tree behind the Arnold cabin, Mollie said:
“Berry, Lily’s a nigger, ain’ she?”
Berry, who was carefully building a “make-believe” fireplace, stopped and gazed at Mollie in astonishment.
“Why, Mollie! You know just as well as I do that Lily’s a negro girl. My mother says Lily couldn’t be any blacker!” she responded.
“Well, you treats her jes’ like you treats white folks; you says ‘please’ to her when you asks her to do things, an’ you says ‘thank you’ after she’s150 done ’em. I’ve heard you, Berry,” and Mollie nodded solemnly, as if expecting Berry would promptly deny it.
But Berry also nodded, and only looked more and more surprised.
“Of course I say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’” she said; “and of course I treat her just as I would a white girl. I guess I ought to treat her better than I do,” Berry continued thoughtfully, “because she has never had anyone to be kind to her until she came to live with us. Lily can’t help being black. Just suppose your skin was black, Mollie, you’d be Mollie just the same inside of your skin, wouldn’t you?”
“Mebbe I would,” Mollie replied soberly.
“And just think how many things Lily knows that we don’t,” Berry continued eagerly. “Don’t you remember that wood pewee’s nest she showed us between the forked twigs of the young oak tree near our gate? and the cat-bird’s nest in the cedar tree? and all the stories she tells us, Mollie. About the thrush that pounds acorns on the ground until the shells are broken and he can get the nut; and she made that beautiful basket; and—and——” Berry hesitated for a moment in her list of Lily’s achievements and then said,151 “And, anyway, she is ‘Lily,’ and I like her just as well as if she were white.”
Mollie nodded. She could understand Berry’s final reason better than any other: to like Lily “Just because she is Lily” satisfied her.
“I likes you, Berry, jes’ because you are Berry,” she said; and the two little friends resumed their play. Neither of them imagined that Lily had heard every word of the conversation from her perch on one of the lower branches of the big oak tree. It was Lily’s secret hiding-place. Perched there among the branches she could look far down the ravine in one direction, and toward Shiloh church in the other, and with little danger of being discovered. She had just settled herself there at the time when Berry and Mollie arrived beneath the tree, and so could not help hearing Mollie’s questions and Berry’s reply. And as she eagerly listened to Berry’s declaration that she, Lily, knew many things that the little white girls did not know, that she was “just the same inside her skin” as if she were a white girl, and Berry’s assertion of affection toward her, Lily nearly tumbled from the tree. Tears came to her eyes, and a new sense of happiness filled her heart. For the first time in her152 life the homeless, uncared for negro girl knew that she was loved. “Jes’ like I was white,” she whispered to herself. And her affection for Berry deepened, and she again made solemn vows that no harm should ever come near “Missie Berry.”
It was the next day when Berry confided to Lily the news that Confederate troops might, at any day, appear on the Corinth road.
“That is, unless the union soldiers march to Corinth first,” explained Berry. “And, Lily, my brother Francis is a union soldier; he’s fighting to set you free!” she continued, her brown eyes resting solemnly upon Lily.
“Yas, Missie Berry. I reckon yo’ brudder would do dat,” Lily responded, “an’ yo’ don’ wan’ de Confedrits ter ketch de odder army? Yo’ means ter watch out fer ’em?” questioned Lily.
“Yes, Lily, and you must help me. And it must be a secret. Not even Mollie Bragg is to know,” cautioned Berry. “We must begin to-day,” she added.
“Yas, Missie Berry,” Lily promptly agreed. Whatever Berry wanted done Lily would do without question. But there was something on Lily’s mind that troubled her. She knew that153 Berry made daily visits to the red-buds, ready to fulfil the promise to the “witch”; and Lily now resolved to tell her young mistress that the voice Berry had heard at midnight as the wind swept down the ridge had been the voice of the man of whom Berry seemed afraid. And now the colored girl began to wonder if this man might not be one of those Confederates for whom Berry meant to watch.
“Missie Berry, yo’ knows w’ot I tells yo’ ’bout de witch-tree? An’ yo’ ’members de night yo’ wen’ down dar, wid de win’ a-howlin’ an’ a-screechin’, an’ de dark jes’ lak’ a black wall? I wus clus beside yo’, Missie Berry! An’ dat wan’ no witch w’ot call yo’ ‘boy,’ an’ makes yo’ promis’ ter kerry a letter. No, Missie! ’Twas dat man we saw a-cookin’ a burd ober der fire by de ledge!”
It was now Berry’s turn to be surprised. But she instantly realized that Lily was right; and when Lily added, “I follered arter dat man an’ I knows,” Berry looked at her companion admiringly. “Lily!” she exclaimed, “my father thought that man was a spy; and probably the letter he means to hide at the witch-tree will be for some Confederate general.”
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“Do yo’ reckons ’twill be fer sum Confedrit gen’ril?” questioned Lily.
“Yes; because he has been about Shiloh all winter, I’m sure he has; keeping watch of the Tennessee River, so that he could send word of union troops being landed. And the time I met him at the brook I bragged of how fast I could run,” Berry continued eagerly, “and that’s what made him want me for a messenger. He must have been hiding near the brook, Lily, the day you told me about witches.”
“Dat’s so, Missie Berry! An’ I reckon he got de cake an’ de honey,” Lily responded regretfully.
“He’s exactly like the cupboard mouse that Mrs. Bragg told me about,” Berry declared, remembering how difficult it had been for her to secure the cake, and how much trouble she had taken to please some possible witch, only to have the woodsman laugh at her folly.
“I ain’ nebber heard no story ’bout de cupboard mouse,” said Lily; and Berry repeated it, greatly to the negro girl’s satisfaction.
“Dat am a fine story, Missie, an’ maybe we’s gwine ter set de cat af’er dis mouse dat kep’ all de cake ter hisse’f,” she chuckled.
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Berry was sure that any message this wandering spy might leave at the red-bud tree, trusting to her promise to run her swiftest to deliver it to whomever it might be addressed, would be a message of great importance to both the contending armies. It might be to inform General Johnston of the progress of Grant’s army, or it might even tell when it would be best for Johnston’s troops to march toward Pittsburg Landing, thought Berry; and her brown cheeks flushed with excitement at the possibility that she, Berenice Arnold, a little Yankee girl from far-off Vermont, of whom General Grant had never heard, might do this great soldier a real service by delivering this message, whatever it might prove to be, into his hands.
“For the army that knows first what the other army plans to do will surely have the best chance,” she gravely decided, and resolved that it should be through no fault of hers if the message did not promptly reach the commander of the union forces.
Berry could now think of but little else than her plans to outwit the spy. She realized that henceforth a constant watch must be kept, that either Lily or herself must be steadily on the alert,156 so that the moment a message was deposited at the witch’s tree she could start instantly for the race that she firmly believed might result in the triumph of the union forces.
As all these thoughts went swiftly through her mind, Berry stood flushed and silent, while the negro girl watched her, wondering what her young missie was thinking about, and when at last Berry exclaimed: “Lily! Instead of standing here we ought to be on the outlook for that man,” Lily nodded her head soberly and promptly agreed; and when her young mistress said that Lily must start at once for Shiloh church, carefully keeping out of sight of any possible traveler along the trails, Lily was quite ready to obey.
“And if you see any signs of him, or get a glimpse of him, hurry back as fast as you can and tell me,” said Berry as Lily started off.
For a moment the negro girl hesitated; she knew that Mrs. Arnold would expect her to return to the cabin with Berry, and she remembered that there was work for her to attend to; beside this Lily was sure that, as she could not explain her absence, Mrs. Arnold would think she had purposely neglected her duties, and as Lily was157 always eager to win Mrs. Arnold’s approval she now had to choose between being praised and approved by Mrs. Arnold for returning promptly, and so disappointing Berry, or obeying Berry’s wish and having Mrs. Arnold think her a thoughtless and ungrateful girl. But her indecision lasted only a moment. Berry would always hold the first place in Lily’s affections; to please Berry seemed the most important thing. Lily would never forget that it was Berry who had rescued her from the dangers and hardships of her perilous flight from slavery, and brought her to the safety and comfort of her own home; so Lily started off toward Shiloh church, going almost noiselessly along the rough path.
As Lily made her way up the slope she thought of all the trouble this woodsman spy was making.
“’Pears like ’tain’ only dat he am a-botherin’ ob Missie Berry, but he am a-stirrin’ up trubble fer dat Gen’l Grant an’ fer Missie Berry’s brudder, an’ dey’s a-fightin’ ter set me free; looks like I orter do somet’ing to dat spy to stop his doin’s,” she whispered to herself, and her thoughts flew to possible aid from “witches,” but she shook her head remembering how they had failed her young mistress.
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“Looks ’s if I’d got to conjure up some way by myse’f,” she decided, and before Lily reached the woods that bordered on the little clearing where stood the rough cabin-like structure known as Shiloh church, she had thought of several plans by which she could prevent this threatening stranger from being of further trouble either to Berry or Berry’s brother, or to General Grant. But, notwithstanding the making of plans, Lily’s eyes had been sharply on the alert for any noise that might indicate someone near at hand, and she had frequently stopped to listen for sounds of movements that would betray any traveler along those mountain trails. But beyond the bubbling song of the wood-thrush, the musical calls of the pewee and scarlet tanager, and now and then the rush through the underbrush of some small woodland creature, there was nothing to be heard, and a quick glance about the clearing proved that there was no lurking stranger in sight.
Close by where Lily had halted grew a bunch of slender ash saplings, and, after she had satisfied herself that there was no one within sight or hearing, Lily drew out the pocket-knife that Mr. Arnold had............