I met one of the two Jems in the pine-avenue one day. He greeted me with the pleasantest of broad smiles.
"Jem," said I, "why don't you come to the house Sunday evenings any more?"
"It don't 'pear practical, missie." Jem was given to large-sized words, when he could get hold of them.
"Mr. Edwards hinders you?"
"Mass' Ed'ards berry smart man, Miss Daisy. He want massa's work done up all jus' so."
"And he says that the prayer-meeting hinders the work, Jem?"
"Clar, missis, Mass' Ed'ards got long head; he see furder den me," Jem said, shaking his own head as if the whole thing were beyond him. I let him go. But a day or two after I attacked Margaret on the subject. She and Jem, I knew, were particular friends. Margaret was oracular and mysterious, and looked like a thundercloud. I got nothing from her, except an increase of uneasiness. I was afraid to go further in my inquiries; yet could not rest without. The house servants, I knew, would not be likely to tell me anything that would trouble me if they could help it. The only exception was mammy Theresa; who with all her love for me had either less tact, or had grown from long habit hardened to the state of things in which she had been brought up. From her, by a little cross questioning, I learned that Jem and others had been forbidden to come to the Sunday readings; and their disobeying had been
visited with the lash, not once nor twice; till, as mammy Theresa said, "'peared like it warn't no use to try to be good agin de devil."
And papa was away on his voyage to China—away on the high seas, where no letter could reach him; and Mr. Edwards knew that. There was a fire in my heart now that burned with sharp pain. I felt as if it would burn my heart out. And now took shape and form one single aim and purpose, which became for years the foremost one of my life. It had been growing and gathering. I set it clear before me from this time.
Meanwhile, my mother's daughter was not willing to be entirely baffled by the overseer. I arranged with Darry that I would be at the cemetery-hill on all pleasant Sunday afternoons, and that all who wished to hear me read, or who wished to learn themselves, might meet me there. The Sunday afternoons were often pleasant that winter. I was constantly at my post; and many a one crept round to me from the quarters and made his way through the graves and the trees to where I sat by the iron railing. We were safe there. Nobody but me liked the place. Miss Pinshon and the overseer agreed in shunning it. And there was promise in the blue sky, and hope in the soft sunshine, and sympathy in the sweet rustle of the pine-leaves. Why not? Are they not all God's voices? And the words of the Book were very precious there, to me and many another. I was rather more left to myself of late. My governess gave me my lessons quite as assiduously as ever; but after lesson-time she seemed to have something else to take her attention. She did not walk often with me as the spring drew near; and my Sunday afternoons were absolutely unquestioned.