Aftermath / Part second of A Kentucky Cardinal""

Time has swept on, the world run round; but I have stood motionless, abiding the hour of my marriage as a tree the season of

at thenceforth she would settle down into something like a state of prenuptial domestication, growing less like a swift and more like a hen. But there is nothing gallinaceous about my Georgiana. I took possession of her vow and the emery-ball, not of her; the privilege was merely given to

er falls upon me, be it frost or sun, and warranted to waste away only by a sort of impersonal disintegration at the rate of half an inch to the thousand years. Meantime she exacts for h

s but the deepening of excitement on the verge of captivity; I know t

until the neighbors are filled with despair and ready to stretch their heads on the block to any more merciful executioner. Nor does Georgiana sing to company in the parlor. That is Sylvia's gift; and upon the whole it was this un

lowed it backward in search of the spring. It may lead to the edge of a dark wood; thence inward deeper and deeper; disappearing at last in a nook of coolness and shadow, green leaves and mystery. The overheard rill of

hey beat upon my ear like the musical reveries of future mother hood-th

how we should gather our rose-buds while we may. The warning could not have been addressed t

of such coarse and brutal unconcern that it had left me not only remorseful but resentful. As we sat together the other

"do you know what b

t have lain upon my words, for she an

it bu

turn to be

you s

it; I showed them the very spot-under

er that she shoul

u; they never buried it. They threw it on the ash-pile. The pigs tore it

nds, and turned toward

th her face aside

d that I knew of this

othing. I have wai

ater she said,

lieve it, and to blame me." Then folding her hands

s, after we are married-as long as I live, that you will n

-!" I cried, trying to draw her to me,

flash of white inward light. "I know that you can neve

ds. The subject has been a sore one. Besides, my whole life is gradually changing under the influence

es. The manifestations and passages scarce made a scrimp volume. There was Jacob, who lived on his symptoms and died without any; there was and there is Mrs. Walters-may she last to the age of the eagle. In town, a couple of prose items of cheap quality: an old preacher who was willing to save my soul while my strawberries were ripe, and an

it may end in my ceasing to be a lover of birds, and running for the Legislature. Seeing me so much on the streets, one of my fe

s well that Georgiana does not demand in me the capering or strutting manners of those young men of my day who likewise are exerting themselves to m

nature, but forced to acquire the tediousness of civilization; meantime leading a desperately hampered life; wondering at his own teeth and claws, and sorely put to it to invent a decent occupation. So am I; and as the raccoon paces everywhere after the carpenter, so do

his brother-in-law to be, he was sitting on the front porch surrounded by a subdued family, Georgiana alone remaining unawed. He looked me over indifferently, as though I wer

inted with the use of fire-arms. Whereupon I remarked that I would sometimes hit big game if it were so close that I could not miss it, and

at I could get breakfast when I returned. I shared this scant bite with my young soldier-to Dilsy's abject mortification, I not having told her of his coming. Then we set off at a brisk pace towards a great

ired to take enough squirrels home to make Jack a squirrel-skin overcoat, and asked him to carry while I killed; loaded him with squirrels, neck, shoulders, breast, back, and loins, till as he moved he tottered and swayed like a squirrel pyramid; about sundown challenged h

But he was nearly dead. He has saluted me since as though I w

cent act of Congress was to locate a military asylum for disabled soldiers; and had they stayed much longer they must have had themselves admitted to their own institution as foremost of the disabled. Having spent some time at the Lower Blue Lick Springs, the proposed site-where this summer are over five hu

in his home. He had not been there many days before he manoeuvred to establish a private military retreat for himself in the affections of Mrs. Cobb. So that his presence became a prof

r, busy with my pruning-shears, when he was decoying her around her garden-just over the fence-buckled in to suffocation, and with his long epaulettes golden in the sun like tassels of the corn. I was e

een marri

ultless brown; and I, being at work near the garden fence, would hear him tramping up and down the walk on the other side and swearing at a family that had such irregular meals. The camel, a lean beast, requires an extraordinary supply of food, which it proceeds to store away in its hump as nourishment to be drawn upon

itself: Mrs. Cobb and the general, Georgiana and I the sewing-girl and the carpenter; for I had forgotten to note how quickly these tw

se more southern groves, but never visits ours; and while there I stepped by accident on this discovery: There never was any Mr. Walters. It is her maiden name. But as I see the freedom of her life and reflect upon the things that a widow can do and an old maid cannot-with her own sex and with mine-I commend her wisdom and leave her at peace. Indeed I have go

used as one of a class, and she herself must always be spoken of alone. However, if Sylvia had been L

o Georgiana, and in which she invited me to correspond with her secretly. The letter was of a singularly adhesive quality as to the emotions. Throughout she referred to herself as "the exile," although it was plain that she wrote in the highest spirits; a

l excess, and can scarcely claim to reflect the polish of her calmer art; but they are of value to me a

TO M

was a lo

ty and

le, love-

, dark b

the gent

I heave

he told me s

only

thought w

save my t

on an older

more tha

ave and i

is witty

more now than an

as tw

need not

ot your tea

good use,

ne remai

where we a

ernal Hom

you be no

with only

d "composed" this poem. It is known to be the work of another hand, though Sylvi

s ago she brought with her a distant cousin of her own age-a boy, enormously fat-whom she soon began to decoy around the garden as her mother

es of Paradise, or warbling elegies under the green sea in regard to Araby's daughter. There is a real aptness in the latter reference; for this boy's true place in nature is the deep sea

to me with her hair flying a

cried, her face k

letter from the grea

cepting a poem she ha

place among his vast a

e title of the poem wa

but

aid, gravely, "that your

ia. "Oh, his peerle

ing such an editor and such a lover; but I really think that your

lvia. "I would sp

ntinued, further, "you will want to be very nice to

usly; the subject is no

n he was fifteen he could parse every sentence in Virgil and Homer. And if he could do t

Mr. Prentice's studious regard for much of the poetry that he

most terrible troub

oof, he mounted the chimney. Glancing down this, he perhaps reached the conclusion that it was more like nature and a hollow tree than anything that civilization had yet been able to produce, and he proceeded to descend to the ground again by so dark and friendly a passage. His progress was stopped by a bundle of straw at the bottom, which he quickly tore away, and having emerged from a grove of asparagus in the fireplace, he found himself not on the earth, but in Mrs. Walters's bedroom. In what wa

and every door locked, as is her custom. She threw open her door and started in, but paused

caught sight of what had once been her bed. Sitting up in it was the raccoon, his long black jaws be

d and lock

or, to the boy who had brought her market

ed the sheriff, sternly, meetin

she cried, wringing her hand

nter, laughing; for by this tim

coon!" said th

are like Little Red Rid

exclaimed the sheriff, red in t

ppy, excited Mrs. Walters, bursting into tear

amaritan to her desperately wounded neighbor, and at nightfall, over the bed, now peaceful and snowy once more, she sp

th her at bedtime, "it seems to me that

hout a shiver and a glance at the chimney. I begrudge her the quilt for

e had had those bedclothe

elt that she couldn't hav

should y

l-about

Mr. Walters. I imagine that very few women ever come to k

haps wi