With some difficulty Hannah sought and found an old inkstand, a stumpy
pen, and a scrap of paper. It was the best she could do. Stationery was
scarce in the poor hut. She laid them on the table before Herman. And
with a trembling hand he wrote out a check upon the local bank and put
it in her hand, saying: "This sum will provide for the boy, and set you and Gray up in some
little business. You had better marry and go to the West, taking the
child with you. Be a mother to the orphan, Hannah, for he will never
know another parent. And now shake hands and say good-by, for we shall
never meet again in this world."
Too thoroughly bewildered with grief to comprehend the purport of his
words and acts, Hannah mechanically received the check and returned the
pressure of the hand with which it was given.
And the next instant the miserable young man was gone indeed.
Hannah dropped the paper upon the table; she did not in the least
suspect that that little strip of soiled foolscap represented the sum of
five thousand dollars, nor is it likely that she would have taken it had
she known what it really was. Hannah's intellects were chaotic with her
troubles. She returned to the bedside and was once more absorbed in her
sorrowful task, when she was again interrupted.
This time it was by old Dinah, who, having no hand at liberty, shoved
the door open with her foot, and entered the hut.
If "there is but one step between the sublime and the ridiculous," there
is no step at all between the awful and the absurd, which are constantly
seen side by side. Though such a figure as old Dinah presented, standing
in the middle of the death-chamber, is not often to be found in tragic
scenes. Her shoulders were bent beneath the burden of an enormous bundle
of bed clothing, and her arms were dragged down by the weight of two
large baskets of provisions. She was much too absorbed in her own
ostentatious benevolence to look at once towards the bed and see what
had happened there. Probably, if she glanced at the group at all, she
supposed that Hannah was only bathing Nora's head; for instead of going
forward or tendering any sympathy or assistance, she just let her huge
bundle drop from her shoulders and sat her two baskets carefully upon
the table, exclaiming triumphantly: "Dar! dar's somefin to make de poor gal comfo'ble for a mont' or more!
Dar, in dat bundle is two thick blankets and four pa'r o' sheets an'
pilly cases, all out'n my own precious chist; an' not beholden to ole
mis' for any on 'em," she added, as she carefully untied the bundle and
laid its contents, nicely folded, upon a chair.