“She is quite accustomed to these attentions, for all her life adoration has been her daily bread.”
“I should like to know how you are so well posted?” asked Frost, with a dark flash in his grey eyes.
Robert Milburn lifted his head proudly, and answered quietly: “I have known her since she was a little slip of a lass.”
“And how did the meeting come about? you were brought up in Maryland, I believe.”
“True, but in the early ’80s I spent one spring and summer South. I was at ‘Ashland.’ You know that is the old home of Henry Clay. It is about in the center of the region of blue grass, down in Kentucky. Clay’s great grandson, by marriage, Major McDowell, owns this historic place. He is a well-mannered and distinguished host, and allowed me to fancy myself an artist then, and I made some sketches of his horses—he is a celebrated stock breeder.”
“How I should enjoy seeing a good stock farm; that is one pleasure I am still on this side of,” put in Willard. “Go on, I meant not to interrupt you.”
“The Major often saddled two of his fine steppers and invited me to ride over the country with him. It was upon one of these jaunts that I met the girl. It happened in this way: We were in the blue grass valley just this side of the mountainous region. A turn-row, running through a field of broken sod was our route, to avoid a dangerous creek ford. With heartsome calls and chirruping, six plowmen went up and down the long rows. The light earth, creaming away from the bright plowshare, heaped upon their bare feet. I thought, ‘What is so delicious as the feel of it—yielding, cool, electrical, fresh.’ We stopped to watch them. They tramped sturdily behind the mules, one hand upon the plow-handle, the other wrapped about with the line that ran to the beast’s head. Presently, they all fell to singing a song—a relic, it must have been, from the old care-free days. Over and over they chanted the rude lilt, and their voices were mildly sweet. We stopped to listen, for their song was like no other melodies under the sun.”
“But where does the girl come in? I expected to hear something of her,” interrupted Willard, with an impatient gesture.
“Oh, yes! She is just down a trifle farther in the pasture lands with an ‘ole Auntie.’ The Major addressed the negress as ‘Aunt Judy.’ They were welcoming the new comer—a calf. The Auntie wore a bandana and a coarse cotton print, over which was a thin, diamond-shaped shawl. Her subdued face was brown—the brown of tobacco—and her weary eyes stole quick, wondering glances at us, and instinctively she took the child’s hand, as if to be sure she was safe.
“Now I come to Cherokee—let me try to describe her to you. In coloring, delicacy, freshness, she was a flower. Her hair was combed straight back, but it was perversely curly; and the short hairs around her forehead had a fashion of falling loosely about, which was very pretty. She was slim, her drooping-lashed eyes wore a soft seriousness. She at once chained my vagrant fancy and I promised myself that would not be the only time I should look upon her. On the homeward way the Major told me she was the only child of Darwin Bell, an excellent man. A man of good blood, good sense and piety, ‘but the best of all,’ continued the Major, ‘he was a gallant Confederate captain.’