“Why don’t you answer the first time I call you? Come here and go hunt the Colonel and tell him I want him directly. He is around the house somewhere.”
George Washington, aged ten, his woolly head full of sticks, his blue-jeans sadly perforated and the lower portion of his ebony limbs guiltless of covering, came out from behind the kitchen quarters and shambled off in search of his master.
“That boy shows old Rachel’s blood,” soliloquized the mistress of Wavertree Hall; “he would not run if there were a bomb under him!”
It was one of those balmy days in Virginia, when the sly, deceptive October sun kisses one into the belief that summer will remain always. Mrs. Driscoe sat down on the back steps of the verandah and watched two cocks fighting in the yard, as she awaited the appearance of her husband. She looked, herself, not unlike a bird of ruffled plumage, for the bit of lace and pink ribbon with which she ornamented her scanty locks was awry, while her crocheted shawl—pink to match the ribbon—hung off one shoulder, and her whole aspect presented a disheveled appearance which in her indicated a perturbed state of mind. Now and then she glanced at an open letter in her hand, the contents of which seemed to displease her, for she shook the paper as if it were a live thing she were chastising and tapped her foot impatiently.
Presently a voice behind her said mildly: “Did you want me, my dear?”
“Want you? Certainly I wanted you! What do you suppose I sent for you for if I didn’t want you?” Mrs. Driscoe drew up her pink shawl with a gesture that spoke volumes.
“Won’t you get a headache, Nancy, sitting out there in the sun?” asked the Colonel solicitously.
Concern for her physical welfare touched his wife’s vanity and appealed to her heart. She softened perceptibly.
“Maybe I had better come up and sit in a chair,” she said. “It’s those girls that have upset me. I believe they’re clean daft.”
He helped her up and pulled a chair into a shady part of the verandah, waiting until she was comfortably ensconced before seating himself.