After two days there, the party had come back as far as Lanes and had there taken the branch road for Georgetown, at the mouth of the Pee Dee River, one of the oldest towns in the South, and around which linger many memories of Revolutionary days. The guests would not see this old town until a later date, however.
Leaving the train at a small station in the forest, they were met by this handsome equipage and were now approaching the Merredith plantation. Ruth, as silent as her companions, was contrasting in her own mind this beautiful carriage and pair with the old Grogan barouche, the knock-kneed horse, and Unc’ Simmy.
“Two phases of the new South,” she thought, for Ruth was rather prone to a kind of mental problem that does not usually interest young folk of her age. “Here is the progressive, up-to-date, money-making class represented by Mrs. Parsons, reviving the ancient fortunes of her house. While poor Miss Catalpa and her single faithful servant represent the helpless and hopeless class, ruined by the war and—probably—ruined before the war, only they had not found it out!
“The Southern families who are reviving will, in time, be wealthier than they were under the old regime. But how many poor people like Miss Catalpa there must be scattered through this Dixieland!”
The party soon came to where two huge oaks, scarred deeply by the axe, intermingled their branches over the roadway.
“This is our gateway,” said Mrs. Parsons. “Here is the beginning of the Merredith plantation.”
“Oh, Mrs. Parsons!” cried Helen, pointing to one side. “What is that pole there? Or is it a dead tree?”
“A dead pine. And it has been dead more than a hundred years, yet it still stands,” explained the lady. “They say that to its lowest branch was hung a British spy in Revolutionary times—‘as high as Haman’; but re’lly, how they ever climbed so high to affix the rope over the limb, I cannot say.”
She spoke to the coachman in a minute: “Jeffreys!”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the black man.