“And so it is, honey,” Miss Imogene replied, “and that’s the reason why nobody did any thinking in those days. The politicians wanted the war, General Toombs and such men didn’t want anybody to do anything but shout for secession. And there were sad things and funny things a-plenty, too. I saw the old flag go down on Fort Sumter. That did not seem sad to me then, though when I learned later that the fort had been evacuated and not surrendered, I confess I felt a throb of pride.”
“What were the funny things?” asked Dorothea.
“Well, there were the newspapers,” Miss Imogene went on. “All the dispatches from the North were printed under the heading ‘Foreign News.’ Just silly pretenses like that, which the politicians encouraged. But I’m silly, too, to be going over an old story.”
“But you were always for the South, Cousin Imogene,” Dorothea remarked half-questioningly.
“To be sure, honey,” came the ready answer. “I was no different from the others. And what else could I do? My home was here. I had no kin outside the South, and besides I was not accustomed to traveling without a gentleman escort. I’m not a strong-minded female, you know.” She laughed a little. “After all I’m just like the others you have met here, except that I learned a lesson when I wasn’t very old which has set me thinking. I don’t like war at all and shall be very glad when this one is over, as I hope it soon will be. But I don’t say that to any one but you. Particularly not to April.”
The life in the May household, of which Dorothea had become a permanent part, went on busily week after week. There were alternating periods of depression and elation as rumors of good or bad fortune for the Confederate armies reached the little town. But no matter whether they won or lost, the confidence of her Southern cousins never flagged. The social gayeties continued unabated, although the lack of young men emphasized the cause of their absence.
“I suppose you’d have us act like the Yanks had scared us till we forgot how to dance,” Harriot told Dorothea, echoing the opinion generally held by those about her.
And so the songs and merriment went on, and if there was a hollow ring in the laughter Dorothea was not able to detect it. The sherbets might be sweetened with watermelon sugar, the cake made of sorghum and rice flour, dresses might be re-dyed and refurbished till they were thread-bare; but the dances and parties never flagged.
Letters from her father had come several times to Dorothea, some by way of Mexico, others in a roundabout way from Canada, but he had warned her that it was becoming increasingly difficult to communicate with her, that few of her letters sent through his agents in England ever reached him. He suggested that in case of necessity a personal item in the Richmond Enquirer which coöoperated with the New York Daily News would be forwarded to him. Meanwhile both must rest assured that no news was good news.