She became bitter against men; she did not see how she could ever tolerate the presence of one. Her mother, discussing the subject, remarked, “The reason I married your father was that he was the one good man I knew.”
“How did you know that he was good?” demanded the girl.
“Sylvia!” exclaimed her mother, in horror.
“Miss Margaret” answered hesitatingly, choosing her words for a difficult subject. “I had heard things. Your Aunt Lady told me—how the young men in your father’s set had tried to get him to—to live the wicked life they lived. They made fun of him—called him ‘Miss Nancy’—.” She broke off suddenly. “I cannot talk about such things to my daughter!”
Even from “Aunt Mandy,” the old “black mammy” who had been the first person to hold Sylvia in her arms, the girl now received counsel. “Aunt Mandy” served the coffee in the early morning, and stood in the bedrooms and grinned while the ladies of the family gossiped; she often took part in the conversation, having gathered stores of family wisdom in her sixty-odd years. “Honey, I’se had my cross to bear,” she said to Sylvia, and went on to discuss the depravity of the male animal. “I’se had to beat my old man wid a flatiron, when I ketched him lookin’ roun’ too much—an’ even dat didn’t help much, honey. Now I got dem boys o’ mine, what’s allus up in cou’t, makin’ de Major come to pay jail-fines. But how kin I be cross wid ’em, when I knows it’s my own fault?”
“Your fault, Mammy?” said Sylvia. “Why, you are as good a mother——”
“I know, honey, I’se tried to be good; I’se prayed to de Lord—yes, I’se took dem boys to de foot o’ de cross. But de Lord done tole me it’s my fault. ‘Mandy,’ he says, ‘Mandy—look at de daddy you give dem niggers!’ Oh, honey, take dis from yo’ ole mammy, ef you’se gwine ter bring any chillun into de worl’—be careful what kind of a daddy you gives ’em!”
The family had gathered in a solid phalanx about Sylvia. Uncle Barry, whose plantation was a hundred miles away, and who was a most hard-working and domestic giant, left his overseers and his family and came to beg her to let him give her a hunting party. Uncle Mandeville came from New Orleans to urge her to go to a house party he would give her. Uncle Mandeville it was who had assured Sylvia as a little girl that he would protect her honor with his life; and now he caused it to be known throughout Castleman County that if ever Frank Shirley returned and attempted to see his niece, he, Frank Shirley, would be “shot like a dog.” And this was not merely because Uncle Mandeville was drunk, but was something that he soberly meant, and that everybody who heard him understood and approved.