“I’ll go this minute and seize it!” the gallant Colonel vowed, getting to his feet.
“Take care! We unprotected females have a man trap there!” Julia warned him; but fear did not deter the staff officer from taking her arm and leaning on it as they walked away in the twilight. Then the night fell, and Dwight buried Marsena.
THE WAR WIDOW
I
Although we had been one man short all day, and there was a plain threat of rain in the hot air, everybody left the hay-field long before sundown. It was too much to ask of human nature to stay off in the remote meadows when such remarkable things were happening down around the house.
Marcellus Jones and I were in the pasture, watching the dog get the cows together for the homeward march. He did it so well and, withal, so willingly, that there was no call for us to trouble ourselves in keeping up with him. We waited instead at the open bars until the hay-wagon had passed through, rocking so heavily in the ancient pitch-hole, as it did so, that the driver was nearly thrown off his perch on the top of the high load. Then we put up the bars, and fell in close behind the haymakers. A rich cloud of dust, far ahead on the road, suggested that the dog was doing his work even too willingly, but for the once we feared no rebuke. Almost anything might be condoned that day.