"Min made up that piece to-day," responded Bud, in a roaring whisper. "Maw an' me's been scared pretty nigh to death. Miss Tina say it ain't Min singin', but that spell workin' on her."
The voice was sweet and rich, with an undercurrent of sadness running through that went to the heart. It seemed to wait and tremble, then float and float away, dying into softest melody. It was not the untaught music of the plantation singers; it was a voice exquisitely trained.
"Lord! Lord!" ejaculated Religion. The words held a heartful of trouble. She lowered the shafts gently and led Beck round the house.
"That you, Religion?" inquired a voice from somewhere in the yard.
She could hear milk straining into a pail, and the tramp of some animal over dry shucks.
"It's me, maw, an' I got enough to pay the rent, and there'll be some over."
"Youna mus' had good luck. Min'll be more'n middlin' glad of a few crackers. I thought sure the gal was gone to-day, Religion," and a tall form rose up from beside the cow and came towards the girl. "I sut'n'y thought she was gone to-day," continued the mother. "She just died off, and didn't 'pear to have no more life in her than a dead bird. I was mighty scared."
"Chile, I didn't want to worry youna. Then the neighbors come in, 'kase I did a big piece o' hollerin', an' they worked on her and fotched her back; I 'ain't been no 'count since. See how my hand trembles now."
She placed her hand on her daughter's arm. It was large and hard, but all the ploughing, hoeing, and wood-cutting that she had done had not destroyed its fine shape. It was cold and trembling.
Religion took it between her own square thick ones. "Never mind, maw; she's better now, 'kase she's singin' a new piece. I'll go an' eat and do the errands, so as to git back. You won't feel so bad when I'm here."
The single thing which made the room she entered different from all the other rooms in the quarter was a white bed. The two other beds had the usual patchwork quilts and yellow slips. Religion touched a light-wood splinter to the fire, and holding the light above her head, went up to the white bed. The face on the pillow was of that pure lustrous whiteness which is sometimes seen in very young children; the features were perfect. She seemed a creature of an entirely different sphere--as different from Religion as a butterfly from a grub, and yet there was an indefinable likeness between the two.