“Yes, ma’am,” said Ruth, striving to keep her voice from shaking, for the pity she felt for the lady gripped her at the throat. “We are two schoolgirls who have come down to Dixie to play for a few weeks after our graduation from Briarwood Hall.”
“Indeed? I went to school fo’ a while at Miss Chamberlain’s in Washington. Hers was a very select young ladies’ school. But, re’lly, you know, had my po’ eyes not been too weak to study, the family exchequer could scarcely stand the drain,” and she laughed, low and sweetly. “The Grogan fortunes had long been on the wane, you see. No men to build them up again. The war took everything from us; but the heaviest blow of all was the killin’ of our men.”
“It must have been terrible,” said Ruth, “to lose one’s brothers and fathers and cousins by bullet and sword.”
“Yes, indeed!” sighed the lady. “Not that I can remembah it, child! No more than you can. I’m not so old as all that,” and she laughed merrily. “The Grogan plantation was gone, of course, long before I saw the light. But my father was a broken man, disabled by the campaigns he went through.”
“Isn’t it terrible?” whispered Helen to her chum, for it sounded to the unsophisticated girl like a tale of recent happenings.
Miss Catalpa smiled, turning her sightless eyes up to them. “There’s only Unc’ Simmy and I left now. My lawyer, Kunnel Wildah, tells me there is barely enough left to keep us in this po’ place till I’m called to my long rest,” said the lady devoutly.
“But my wants are few. Uncle Simmy does for me most beautifully. He is the last of the family servants—bo’n himself on the old plantation. This was the gateway to the Grogan Place—and it was a mile from the house,” and she laughed again—pleasantly, sweetly, and as carefree in sound as a bird’s note. “The limits of the estate have shrunk, you see.”
“It must be dreadful to have been rich, and then fall into poverty,” Helen said, commiseratingly.
“Why, honey,” said Miss Catalpa, cheerfully, “nothin’ is dreadful in this wo’ld if we look at it right. All trials are sent for our blessin’, if we take them right. Even my blindness,” she added simply. “It must have been for my good that I was deprived of the boon of sight ten years ago—just when almost the last bit of money left to me seemed to have been lost. And I expect if I hadn’t foolishly cried so much over the failure of the Needles Bank where the money was, and which seemed to be a total wreck, I would not have been totally blind. So the doctors tell me.”
“Dear, dear!” murmured Helen, wiping her own eyes.