One day a little scene occurred about which nothing of import clambered, and yet I would give it here; for it pleases me when now I'm fallen in the vale of years, and the General and Peg and those others who were my friends are dead and gone from out my hands, to remember such frail matters for their sweetness rather than their consequence; and truth to say, they stay by me, too, with gentle clearness when events that were of moment are clean faded from my mind.
Peg, then, was dragging me about by the hand—for she was as much the romp as any child—and we journeyed from room to room, and from picture to picture. We were standing in front of that portrait of Washington which Dolly Madison once slashed from its frame to save from vandal British.
“Come,” said Peg, tugging at my wrist with the two hands of her, “I'm weary of these. Doubtless he was a wondrous fine gentleman”—pointing to the painted figure of our first president—“and lived well aware of it, himself, as one may know by the satisfied smirk of him. But show me some other picture, one more beautiful and less grand—and not so satisfied with itself, and respectable. All the folk I hate are respectable, and I begin to loathe the word!”
“I can show you the most beautiful picture in the world,” I retorted; and, whirling her by the shoulders, I stood her before a mirror.
Peg looked upon her kindly reflection for long in silence; then her eyes filled up.
“It isn't your compliments I cry for,” said Peg, breaking into a catchy laugh; “but your tone is so queer with the sheer kindness of it, that I am taken by the heart. You dear, true friend; you at least think good of little Peg!” And with that, she came quite close, and turned her face in wistful yet trusting fashion up to mine.
An hour later—and it was growth of this—I did a foolish action; and yet no harm turned of it, but only a better friendship between myself and the coxcomb Pigeon-breast. It fell forth when Peg was gone home, and I alone near the north door of the big East Room, and none save myself in the broad expanse of that mighty apartment. My soul was somewhat in arms over Peg, for the wintry moan in her tones when she spoke of my faith in her goodness was still working on me, and I would have bartered ten years of my life to have had set before me some specific male of my species who should avow himself Peg's evil-thinker. My vengeance was starving and wolfish, and I would have fed it with him.
While in this vein of fret and tumult, I caught the voice of Jim in the hallway outside the door.
“Do I know d'Marse Major?” I heard Jim say, apparently in answer to the question; “does Jim know d'Marse Major? Well, Jim should say likely; for, you hyar me! Jim's been all through him with a lantern. You-all may tell them gambler-gentlemen somethin' new about a ace of clubs; an 'mebby you could post Jim of somethin' he aint heerd about corn whiskey; but I don't allow thar's anythin' mo' for Jim to learn about d'Marse Major. 'Cause why; 'cause he's Jim's Marse Major, an' I jes' nacherally raise him, I does, from a colt.”
When I stepped into the vestibule to answer to my own name, and put a stop to the extravagances of Jim, I saw, to my astonishment, that the caller was no less a personage than Pigeon-breast. Without pausing to hear his mission, I took him by the arm and led him out upon the lawn.