The imperious Chaney had not collapsed. Her "head-handkercher" was bestowed in a turban that had two high standing ends like tufts of feathers above her black, resolute face. Her black eyes snapped as she looked beyond him, not at him. She was stepping about, stoutly, firmly, audibly, in her Sunday shoes, for no amount of mourning materialized the lost slip-shod chaussure—pressed deep in the mud of the highway by wagon-wheels and the uninformed hoof of an unimaginative army mule.
Uncle Ephraim gazed up in growing anxiety, not to say fright, for Aunt Chaney's mood was not suave. She suddenly paused on the other side of the stove, and, gesticulating across it with a long spoon, demanded: "You—ole—deestracted—cawnfield—hand! What fur did you send me fur de doctor-man?"
"Whut you go fur, den?"
Aunt Chaney reflected on her appearance on the highway, in her old homespun dress, "coat," as she called it, one slipper, no bonnet, the cake-dough dripping from her hands. She remembered that some wagoners of a forage train, struck by her agitated aspect, had looked back to laugh from their high perches among the hay and fodder; she remembered that some little imp-like boys had twitted her, calling after her in their high, callow chirp, and sorry was she that she had not left all to chase them—to chase them till they died of fright! She—she who was accustomed to flaunt in a "changeable" silk, and her bonnet had an ostrich plume! She wore a bracelet, too, on grand occasions, and this was gold, solid and heavy, fine and engraved, for "Miss Leonora" herself had it bought in New Orleans expressly for her, after she had discovered and unaided extinguished a midnight fire. Not that old Chaney would have wasted all this splendor on the errand for the doctor. If she had thought but for a moment, she would have garbed herself as now, as she did instantly on her return home, to save her self-respect,—in a purple calico and a clean, white, domestic apron, with her respected and respectable green-and-white checked sun-bonnet, all laundered, as ever, to absolute perfection. Her haste had destroyed her judgment.
"Whyn't ye tole me dat de man hed jes' fell downsteers,—when ye come out yere, howlin' lak a painter wid a misery in his jaw. I 'lowed de Yankee had deestroyed his-self on dese yere premises."
"So did I! So did I! He bled—and bled!" Old Ephraim paused, his face fallen. The association of ideas brought by the mention of blood was uncanny.
"What ailed de man dat he hatter fall downsteers?"
"I dunno." The denial was pat.
"Whut's he come down here fightin' in the War without he's able ter keep from fallin' downsteers? De Roscoes kin stan' up! I'll say dat fur 'em."
"Dey kin dat," replied the "double-faced Janus" admiringly, thinking of Julius.