One day we had a visit from Julius Pringle, who was on furlough at the house of an uncle, who was refugeeing about four miles away. This was only the second time I saw him. Mamma and he did all the talking, while I sewed in silence. Mamma went out of the room to order some cake and wine, and he told me he didn’t know the way to Crowley, and had come to a place where four roads crossed, and was puzzling how to decide which road to take “when I saw a track of a tiny foot leading this way, and I followed that and I knew it would bring me to you.” This made me very angry indeed, and I got red and lost the use of my quick tongue. When mamma came back the talk flowed on as easily and pleasantly as possible. She told him what a fine crop of rye she had made in her calf pasture, and what difficulty she had to find a place to put it until she thought of the big piano box, which had helped very much, for it held so much. All this time I sewed in silence, with flaming face. At last he asked me to play. I declined fiercely, but mamma said: “My dear Bessie! Of course you will play for us”—she being quite shocked at my manner. I went to the piano and played as though I were fighting the Yankees. When I returned to my seat Mr. Pringle thanked me, and, turning to my mother, said:

“Mrs. Allston, apparently the piano box is of more use than the piano!” And then they both laughed heartily.

I could have killed him without hesitation. I saw him at church after that, only a moment. And then the day he was to leave to go back to Virginia, mamma wanted to ask him to take a letter, and we drove to the station. And when he shook hands with me and said good-by, the look in his eye was a revelation and declaration of devotion that seemed to compass me and seal me as forever his, near or far, with my own will or without it. From that moment I knew that no other man could be anything to me. It was so strange that in absolute silence, with not a second’s prolonging of the hand-pressure necessary to say a proper, conventional good-by, my whole life was altered; for up to that moment I had no idea that he was devoted to me.

I had always longed to take part in the work going on everywhere for our soldiers. In our little isolated corner we could do nothing but sewing and knitting. Soldiers’ shirts made by an extraordinarily easy pattern which some one had invented we made in quantities. All the ladies in Columbia were cooking and meeting the soldier trains day and night, and feeding them and asking what they needed and supplying their wants. They took it by turns, so that no hour of the day or night could a train come and find no one to give them hot coffee and biscuits and sandwiches, and sometimes fried chicken, too.

CHAPTER XVIII
SORROW

WHEN the spring came papa made us a little longer visit than usual. He was not feeling well, his heart was giving him trouble. I only knew this afterward from mamma, for papa never complained. I remember from my early childhood looking on in wonder at the self-denial he exercised, not once or twice, but all the time. His digestion was weak, and day after day, when we had such delicious things, shrimp, fish, and rice-birds, and coots, and green corn, and lima beans, I saw him dine on a plate of milk-and-rice, or a plate of soup with all the delicious okra and tomatoes and beans strained out. But he never talked of it, nor did it make him cross. He was specially tender and gentle to us all this time. One day he asked me to do something and I answered:

“Papa, I don’t know how, I can’t do it.”

And he laid his hand on my shoulder and said: “Don’t ever say that, my daughter. God has given it to you that whenever you put your whole self to accomplish anything you will succeed. When you fail it will be because you have not tried hard enough. Don’t forget this; it is a great responsibility. Never say again you cannot do a thing!” He spoke so solemnly that I was greatly impressed; and, many times in my life when things have risen up before me which have seemed quite beyond my strength and capacity and endurance, I have remembered that conversation and gone ahead, only to find that he was right.

When papa said he must go back to the plantation, mamma thought it a great risk, as he was so far from strong. She urged him to take another week’s rest; but he said he must go; there was to be a meeting in Georgetown to determine something about the public schools, and he must be there. He would take two days on the drive through the country home, and rest two days before the meeting, for it was most important. He left us March 18, Friday, promising to return to us the next Sunday week.

About a week after he left, early in the morning, a messenger came up on horseback with a note from Mr. Belflowers. He thought it his duty to let mamma know that he thought papa an ill man. He had attended a meeting in Georgetown in very inclement weather, when he was so far from well that he had a mattress put in the carryall, and lay on that instead of going in the carriage. He was afraid “the governor,” as he continued to call papa, would not like it if he knew he was writing this, but he had to do it. Mamma ordered the carriage at once and we prepared to start on the journey. By the mail which came in just before we started, a letter came from papa to her, saying he had taken a bad cold and wished very much he could come back and put himself under her care. That was so much for him to admit that she felt she could name the letter as the cause of her coming and not betray Mr. Belflowers. It was dreadful to have no quicker means of going. We started at nine o’clock; that night we spent at Mrs. Fryer’s, about half-way. The next morning we started by dawn, met a fresh pair of horses, Mr. Belflowers sent to meet us at Union Church, and reached Chicora about five in the afternoon.