"Maybe your friends," I said after standing dumb for a while, "will be on the Union side."
"No," said she. "I have no relations--and few friends there; but all I have will be on the other side, I reckon. It makes no difference. They've forgotten me by this time. Everybody has forgotten me that once liked me--everybody but Elder Thorndyke and Mrs. Thorndyke. They love me, but nobody else does."
"I thought some others acted as if they did," I said.
"You thought a lot about it!" she scoffed. Then we sat quite a while silent. "I shall think every day," said she at last, "about the only happy time I have had since Ann took sick--and long before that. The only happy time, and the happiest, I reckon, that I ever'll have. I'll think of it every day while you're at the front. I want you to know when you are suffering and in danger that some one thinks of the kindest thing you ever did--and maybe the kindest thing any boy ever did. You don't care about it now, maybe; but the time may come when you will."
"What time was that?" I asked.
"You know, Teunis," the tears were falling in her lap now. "Those days when we were together alone on the wide prairie--when you took me in and was so good to me--and saved me from going wild, if not from anything else bad. I remember that for the first few days, I was not quite easy in my feelings--I reckon your goodness hadn't come to me yet; but one day, after you had been away for a while, there in the grove where we stayed so long, you looked so pale and sorry that I began talking to you more intimately, you remember, and we suddenly drew close to each other, and for the first time, I felt so safe, so safe! Something has come between us lately, Teunis. I partly know what; and partly I don't; but something--"
She stopped in the middle of what she seemed to be saying. At first I thought she had choked up with grief, but when I looked her in the face, except for her eyes shining very bright, I could not see that she was at all worked up in her feelings. She spoke quite calmly to some one that passed by. I was abashed by the thought that she was giving me credit for something I was not entitled to. She spoke of the day when I was in my heart the meanest: but how could I explain? So I said nothing, much, but hummed and hawed, with "I--" and "Yes, I--," and nothing to the point. Finally, I bogged down, and quit.
"We are very poor," said she, nodding toward the elder and grandma. "So, ignorant as I am, I kept a school last summer--did you know that?"
"Yes," I said, "I knew about it. Over in the Hoosier settlement."
"I ain't a good teacher," she said, "only with the little children; but sometimes we shouldn't have had the necessaries of life, if it hadn't been for what I earned. I can't do too much for them. They have been father and mother to me, and I shall be a daughter to them. If--if they want me to go with--with--in circles which I--I--don't care half so much about as for--for the birds, and flowers--and the people back in our grove--and for people who don't care for me any more--why, I don't think I ought to disobey Mrs. Thorndyke. But I don't believe as she does--or did--about things that have happened to you since--since we parted and got to be strangers, Teunis. And neither does any one else, nor she herself any more. People respect you, Teunis. I wanted to say that to you, too, before you go away--maybe forever, Teunis!"