The Voice of the People

d walk below by a flight of rugged stone steps. In the rear of the house, through which a wide hall ran, dividing the rooms of the first floor, there was anot

, which was separated from the yard by what was called "Cattle Lane"-a name derived f

had decayed rapidly, though some few were still tenanted by the former slaves, who gathered as of old in the doorways of an evening to strum upon broken-stringed banjos and to wrap the hair of their small offspring. Beyond this row there was a slight elevation called "Hickory Hill," where Uncle Ishmael had lived for more than seventy years; and at the foot of the hill, on the other side, nea

skeletons in silver, holding grimly aloof from the vivid pink of the crêpe myrtle at their feet. Beyond them was the well-house, with a long moss-grown trough where the horses and the cows came to drink, and across the road began the cornlands, which stretched in rhythmic undulations to the dark belt of the pine forest. On the left of the box walk, in a direct line from the three aspens, towered a huge sycamore, and from one of its protecting arms, shaded by large fan-li

unty to the more thinly settled country surrounding Kingsborough. There the general had passed his boyhood, and there he had

aid to the judge. "Do you think I'd fight for a da

s soon have thought of using a profane word as of alluding in

d principle much better to

his neighbours upon his return home. After an enthusiastic reception at Kingsborough he had mounted a heavy-weight horse and ridden out to the Hall, to find the grounds a tangle of weeds and his wife with the pal

to worse, a letter came from his sister, Miss Christina, and in a few days she arrived with a cartload of luggage and a Maltese cat in a wicker basket. From the moment when she stepped out of the carriage at the end of the avenue and ascended the box-trimmed walk to the stone steps, the difficulties disentangled and the domestic problems dwindled into the simplest of arithmetical sums. By some subtle law of the influence of the energetic she assumed at once the rights of authority. From the master of the house to the field hands in the "quarters," all b

ll black fingers. Even the annual threshing of the harvest was accomplished under the overseeing eye of "Miss Chris," as she was called by the coloured population. During the week that the old machine poured o

the cook, whose tyranny had extended over thirty years, was assisted from her p

rival. "We could not possibly have eaten three dozen chickens withi

a shining black skin, smoothed her

ain't I de cook

is preserved

d severely. "If this keeps up I shall be obliged to let Delphy do the coo

her authority was shaken, and she felt it

otested, and then, beneath the undaunted eye

f 'bout dat. Hit's done en it's been done. Hit don't becomst de quality ter fluster demse'ves over de gwines on uv er low-lifeted fowl. You des' bresh yo'se'f down an st

d, leaving her opponent in po

unlocked in the morning by the hand of Miss Chris, and Aunt

ly failing seized upon her, and she grew huge and unwieldy, the disproportion

gold band. In winter she wore gowns of black Henrietta cloth, made with plain bodices and full plaited skirts; in summer she wore the same skirts with loosely fitting white linen sacques, trimmed in delicate

the twilight of the cedar avenue, or gazing placidly beyond the aspens and the well-house to the streaked ribbons of the ripening corn. It was said that he had never been the same man since the death of his wife. Certainly he laughed as heartily and his jovial face had taken a ruddier tint, but there was a superficiality in his exuberant cheerfulness which told that it was not well rooted below the surface. His jokes were as ready as ever, but he had fallen into an absent-minded habit of repetition, and

IA TU

ED WI

AS B

RIL 3RD

rrection and t

Lo

ually he went alone, and once or twice he re

etween Bernard and Eugenia, whom he adored, and the negroe

ack and moved into the quarters. He hasn't a cent to his name, and he's the most no 'count scamp on earth. It's worse than before the wa

aring propensities, which she regarded as an amiable eccentricity to be overlooked by a special indu

at the beginning of the war, Aunt Griselda says, and he has never been

it? Why, the rascal can't starve. I've just told Sampson to wheel him d

it was an oppo

brick storeroom, where his sister was slicing ripe, red tomatoes

expressing mild apprehension. She had rolled back her linen sleev

himself?" she in

forever. I don't believe he'd die if he were strun

I remember going up there to help him gather hickory nuts when I wasn't six years old. I couldn't have been six because mammy

nces, and she took up a fresh tomato and pe

ess your life, he has gone-gone to that little one-room shanty where his daughter used to live, between my place and Burr's-a

s laughed

," she returned; "but I'll call him up and talk with

he porch, and Miss Chris explained th

. "I ain' got no fault ter fine wid you. You've been used me moughty well, en I'se pow'ful 'b

st his temper

ur age?" he demanded angrily. "Haven't I giv

s so,

ood to

t's

do a lick of work since

true es

like mad to that little, broken-do

his heavy feet and sc

r eat sence I'se gone off, en I ain' had much uv er roof ter kiver me, en I ain' had nuttin

Ishmael left, followed by two small negroes, bearing on t

w the flutter of a blue skirt, and Eugenia emerged from the avenue and came up the walk between the stiff rows of box. It was two o'clock, and

where's

min

zen times not to walk along that road by yourself? Why didn't you wa

one of the long green benches. Then she seated he

lf," she said. "A

Where

ran

hook with laughter. "Bless my soul! What did

high rocker, fanning her he

boy," sh

for breath, and tur

alled. "Here's Eugie been wa

appeared in the doorway, and she hande

r. Phil Carrington telling me once, when I was on a visit there, that the more his man Burr worked the less he accomplished. But, as for Eugenia, that isn't the worst about her. Just the other m

Eugenia, looking up from her father's julep, which she

is face was purple and th

oose a bosom friend of your own colour? What do you wa

t black; she's je

s severely. "Now go upstairs and wash your face and hands be

ngs?" Eugenia asked; but Miss C

he demanded. "How often must I tell you that there's no

her father and the servants not to dispute the authority of Miss Chri

once confided to Delphy, the washerw