Her own life builded and moulded itself upon the child; he
tinged her every dream and idealized her every effort. No
hands but hers must touch and garnish those little limbs; no
dress or frill must touch them that had not wearied her
fingers; no voice but hers could coax him off to Dreamland,
and she and he together spoke some soft and unknown tongue
and in it held communion. I too mused above his little white
bed; saw the strength of my own arm stretched onward
through the ages through the newer strength of his; saw the
dream of my black fathers stagger a step onward in the wild
phantasm of the world; heard in his baby voice the voice of
the Prophet that was to rise within the Veil.
And so we dreamed and loved and planned by fall and
winter, and the full flush of the long Southern spring, till the
hot winds rolled from the fetid Gulf, till the roses shivered
and the still stern sun quivered its awful light over the hills of
Atlanta. And then one night the little feet pattered wearily to
the wee white bed, and the tiny hands trembled; and a warm
flushed face tossed on the pillow, and we knew baby was
sick.
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