Part 81 (1/2)

Sairy rose, stepped from the porch, and turned the drying apples. Coming back, she touched the girl on the shoulder--very gently. ”They're all fools, Christianna. Once I met a woman who did not know her thimble finger. I thought that beat all! But it's hard to match the men.”

”You've put me out!” said Tom. ”Where was I? Oh--At first, before I came up with the Army, I missed her dreadfully. Billy reminds me of her at times.--It's near roll call, and I must stop. G.o.d bless you both.

Allan.”

Tom folded the letter with trembling hands, laid it carefully atop of the others in the tin box, and took off and wiped his gla.s.ses. ”Yes, if a letter didn't come every two weeks I'd go plumb crazy! I've got to hear him say 'dear Tom' that often, anyhow--”

Christianna rose, pulling her sunbonnet over her eyes. ”Thank you, Mrs.

Cole an' Mr. Cole. I thought I'd like to hear. Now I'll be going back up the mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother is ploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely china asters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 't Richmond--like a great sweet white cup, an' they had pink c.r.a.pe myrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. Thunder Run's so far away. Good mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good mahnin', Mr. Cole.”

The slight homespun figure disappeared around the bend of the road.

Sairy sewed in silence. Tom went back to the newspaper. The yellow cat slept on, the bees buzzed and droned, the sweet mountain air brushed through the trees, a robin sang. Half an hour pa.s.sed. Tom raised his head. ”I hear some one coming!” He reached for the tobacco box.

It proved to be an old well-loved country doctor, on a white horse, with his saddle bags before him. Sairy hurried out, too, to the gate.

”Doctor, I want to ask you something about Tom--” ”Psha, I'm all right,”

said Tom. ”Won't you get down and set a little, doctor?”

The doctor would and did, and after he had prescribed for the tollgate keeper a two hours' nap every day and not to get too excited over war news, Tom read him Allan's letter, and they got into a hot discussion of the next battle. Sairy turned the drying apples, brushed away the bees, and brought fresh water from the well, then sat down again with her mending. ”Doctor, how's the girl at Three Oaks?”

The doctor came back from Maryland to his own county and to the fold which he tended without sleep, without rest, and with little pay save in loving hearts. ”Miriam Cleave? She's better, Mrs. Cole, she's better!”

”I'm mighty glad to hear it,” said Sairy. ”'T ain't a decline, then?”

”No, no! Just shock on shock coming to a delicate child. Her mother will bring her through. And there's a great woman.”

”That's so, that's so!” a.s.sented Tom cordially. ”A great woman.”

Sairy nodded, drawing her thread across a bit of beeswax. ”For once you are both right. He isn't there now, doctor?”

”No. He wasn't there but a week or two.”

”You don't--”

”No, Tom. I don't know where he has gone. They have some land in the far south, down somewhere on the Gulf. He may have gone there.”

”I reckon,” said Tom, ”he couldn't stand it in Virginia. All the earth beginnin' to tremble under marchin' feet and everybody askin', 'Where's the army to-day?' I reckon he couldn't stand it. I couldn't. Allan don't believe he did it, an' I don't believe it either.”

”Nor I,” said Sairy.

”He came up here,” said Tom, ”just as quiet an' grave an' simple as you or me. An' he sat there in his lawyer's clothes, with his back to that thar pillar, an' he told Sairy an' me all about Allan. He told us how good he was an' how all the men loved him an' how valuable he was to the service. An' he said that the wound he got at Gaines's Mill wasn't so bad after all as it might have been, and that Allan would soon be rejoining. An' he said that being a scout wasn't as glorious, maybe, but it was just as necessary as being a general. An' that he had always loved Allan an' always would. An' he told us about something Allan did at McDowell and then again at Kernstown--an' Sairy cried an' so did I--”

Sairy folded her work. ”I wasn't crying so much for Allan--”

”An' then he asked for a drink of water 'n we talked a little about the crops, 'n he went down the mountain. An' Sairy an' I don't believe he did it.”

The doctor drew his hand downward over mouth and white beard. ”Well, Mrs. Cole, I don't either. The decisions of courts and judges don't always decide. There's always a chance of an important witness called Truth having been absent. I didn't see Richard Cleave but once while he was at Three Oaks. He looked and acted then just like Richard Cleave,--only older and graver. It was beautiful to see him and his mother together.” The doctor rose. ”But I reckon it's as Tom says and he couldn't stand it, and has gone where he doesn't hear 'the army--the army--the army'--all day long. Mrs. Cleave hasn't said anything, and I wouldn't ask. The last time I saw her--and I think he had just gone--she looked like a woman a great artist might have met in a dream.”

The doctor gazed out over the autumn sea of mountains and up at the pure serene of the heavens, and then at his old, patient white horse with the saddle bags across the saddle. ”Mrs. Cole, all you've got to do is to keep Tom from getting excited. I'll be back this way the first of the week and I'll stop again--”