Sally Dows Read online

by,scattering our dust over them." There was something so subtly pleasantin this implied partnership of responsibility, that Courtland forgotthe abrupt refusal and thought only of the tact that prompted it.Nevertheless, here a spell seemed to fall upon his usually ready speech.Now that they were together for the first time in a distinctly socialfashion, he found himself vacantly, meaninglessly silent, content towalk beside this charming, summery presence, brushed by its delicatedraperies, and inhaling its freshness. Presently it spoke.

  "It would take more than a thousand feet of lumber to patch up thecowsheds beyond the Moseley pasture, and an entirely new building withan improved dairy would require only about two thousand more. All theold material would come in good for fencing, and could be used withthe new post and rails. Don't yo' think it would be better to have anout-and-out new building?"

  "Yes, certainly," returned Courtland a little confusedly. He hadnot calculated upon this practical conversation, and was the moredisconcerted as they were passing some of the other couples, who hadpurposely lingered to overhear them.

  "And," continued the young girl brightly, "the freight question isgetting to be a pretty serious one. Aunt Miranda holds some shares inthe Briggsville branch line, and thinks something could be done withthe directors for a new tariff of charges if she put a pressure on them;Tyler says that there was some talk of their reducing it one sixteenthper cent. before we move this year's crop."

  Courtland glanced quickly at his companion's face. It was grave, butthere was the faintest wrinkling of the corner of the eyelid nearesthim. "Had we not better leave these serious questions until to-morrow?"he said, smiling.

  Miss Sally opened her eyes demurely. "Why, yo' seemed SO quiet, Ireckoned yo' must be full of business this morning; but if yo' prefercompany talk, we'll change the subject. They say that yo' and Miss Reeddidn't have much trouble to find one last Sunday. She don't usually talkmuch, but she keeps up a power of thinking. I should reckon," she added,suddenly eying him critically, "that yo' and she might have a heap o'things to say to each other. She's a good deal in yo' fashion,co'nnle, she don't forget, but"--more slowly--"I don't know that THAT'Saltogether the best thing for YO'!"

  Courtland lifted his eyes with affected consternation. "If this is inthe light of another mysterious warning, Miss Dows, I warn you that myintellect is already tottering with them. Last Sunday Miss Reed thrilledme for an hour with superstition and Cassandra-like prophecy. Don'tthings ever happen accidentally here, and without warning?"

  "I mean," returned the young lady with her usual practical directness,"that Tave Reed remembers a good many horrid things about the wah thatshe ought to forget, but don't. But," she continued, looking at himcuriously, "she allows she was mighty cut up by her cousin's manner toyo'."

  "I am afraid that Miss Reed was more annoyed than I was," saidCourtland. "I should be very sorry if she attached any importance toit," he added earnestly.

  "And YO' don't?" continued Miss Sally.

  "No. Why should I?" She noticed, however, that he had slightly drawnhimself up a little more erect, and she smiled as he continued, "I daresay I should feel as he does if I were in his place."

  "But YO' wouldn't do anything underhanded," she said quietly. As heglanced at her quickly she added dryly: "Don't trust too much to peoplealways acting in yo' fashion, co'nnle. And don't think too much nor toolittle of what yo' hear here. Yo' 're just the kind of man to make agood many silly enemies, and as many foolish friends. And I don't knowwhich will give yo' the most trouble. Only don't yo' underrate EITHER,or hold yo' head so high, yo' don't see what's crawlin' around yo'.That's why, in a copperhead swamp, a horse is bitten oftener than ahog."

  She smiled, yet with knitted brows and such a pretty affectation ofconcern for her companion that he suddenly took heart.

  "I wish I had ONE friend I could call my own," he said boldly, lookingstraight into her eyes. "I'd care little for other friends, and fear noenemies."

  "Yo' 're right, co'nnle," she said, ostentatiously slanting her parasolin a marvelous simulation of hiding a purely imaginative blush on acheek that was perfectly infantine in its unchanged pink; "company talkis much pootier than what we've been saying. And--meaning me--for Ireckon yo' wouldn't say that of any other girl but the one yo' 'rewalking with--what's the matter with me?"

  He could not help smiling, though he hesitated. "Nothing! but othershave been disappointed."

  "And that bothers YO'?"

  "I mean I have as yet had no right to put your feelings to any test,while"--

  "Poor Chet had, yo' were going to say! Well, here we are at thecemetery! I reckoned yo' were bound to get back to the dead again beforewe'd gone far, and that's why I thought we might take the cemetery onour way. It may put me in a more proper frame of mind to please yo'."

  As he raised his eyes he could not repress a slight start. He had notnoticed before that they had passed through a small gateway on divergingfrom the road, and was quite unprepared to find himself on the edge of agentle slope leading to a beautiful valley, and before him a long vistaof tombs, white head-stones and low crosses, edged by drooping cypressand trailing feathery vines. Some vines had fallen and been caught inlong loops from bough to bough, like funeral garlands, and here andthere the tops of isolated palmettos lifted a cluster of hearse-likeplumes. Yet in spite of this dominance of sombre but graceful shadow,the drooping delicacy of dark-tasseled foliage and leafy fringes,and the waving mourning veils of gray, translucent moss, a gloriousvivifying Southern sun smiled and glittered everywhere as through tears.The balm of bay, southernwood, pine, and syringa breathed through thelong alleys; the stimulating scent of roses moved with every zephyr,and the closer odors of jessamine, honeysuckle, and orange flowers hungheavily in the hollows. It seemed to Courtland like the mourning ofbeautiful and youthful widowhood, seductive even in its dissemblingtrappings, provocative in the contrast of its own still strong virility.Everywhere the grass grew thick and luxuriant; the quick earth wasteeming with the germination of the dead below.

  They moved slowly along side by side, speaking only of the beauty of thespot and the glory of that summer day, which seemed to have completedits perfection here. Perhaps from the heat, the overpowering perfume,or some unsuspected sentiment, the young lady became presently as silentand preoccupied as her companion. She began to linger and loiter behind,hovering like a butterfly over some flowering shrub or clustered sheafof lilies, until, encountered suddenly in her floating draperies, shemight have been taken for a somewhat early and far too becoming ghost.It seemed to him, also, that her bright eyes were slightly shadowed bya gentle thoughtfulness. He moved close to her side with an irresistibleimpulse of tenderness, but she turned suddenly, and saying, "Come!"moved at a quicker pace down a narrow side path. Courtland followed. Hehad not gone far before he noticed that the graves seemed to fall intoregular lines, the emblems became cheaper and more common; wooden headand foot stones of one monotonous pattern took the place of carvedfreestone or marble, and he knew that they had reached that part of thecemetery reserved for those who had fallen in the war. The long linesdrawn with military precision stretched through the little valley, andagain up the opposite hill in an odd semblance of hollow squares, ranks,and columns. A vague recollection of the fateful slope of Snake Rivercame over him. It was intensified as Miss Sally, who was still precedinghim, suddenly stopped before an isolated mound bearing a broken marbleshaft and a pedestal with the inscription, "Chester Brooks." A fewwithered garlands and immortelles were lying at its base, but encirclingthe broken shaft was a perfectly fresh, unfaded wreath.

  "You never told me he was buried here!" said Courtland quickly, halfshocked at the unexpected revelation. "Was he from this State?"

  "No, but his regiment was," said Miss Sally, eying the wreathcritically.

  "And this wreath, is it from you?" continued Courtland gently.

  "Yes, I thought yo' 'd like to see something fresh and pooty, instead ofthose stale ones."

  "And were they also from you?" he as
ked even more gently.

  "Dear no! They were left over from last anniversary day by some of theveterans. That's the only one I put there--that is--I got Mr. Champneyto leave it here on his way to his house. He lives just yonder, yo'know."

  It was impossible to resist this invincible naivete. Courtland bithis lip as the vision arose before him of this still more naif Englishadmirer bringing hither, at Miss Sally's bidding,