Abe stepped forward, and touched the girl on the shoulder. Then he shook her gently, as he had a thousand times when rousing her from sleep.
"Babe! git up! Git up, honey, an' go in the house. You ought to 'a' been abed long ago. Git up honey." Chichester stood like one paralyzed. For the moment, he was incapable of either speech or action.
"I know what sh'e atter," said Abe tenderly. "You wouldn't believe it skacely, but this yer great big chunk of a gal wants her ole pappy to pick her up an' tote her thes like he useter when she was er little bit of a scrap."
"I think she has been shot," said Chichester. To his own ears his voice seemed to be the voice of some other man.
"Shot!" exclaimed Abe. "Why, who's a-gwine to shoot Babe? Lord, Cap'n! you dunner nothin' 'tall 'bout Babe ef you talk that away.—Come on, honey." With that Abe lifted his child in his arms, and carried her into the house. Chichester followed. All his faculties were benumbed, and he seemed to be walking in a dream. It seemed that no such horrible confusion as that by which he was surrounded could have the remotest relation to reality.
Nevertheless, it did not add to his surprise and consternation to find, when Abe had placed the girl on her bed, that she was dead. A little red spot on her forehead, half-hidden by the glossy curling hair, showed that whoever held the rifle aimed it well.
"Why, honey," said Abe, wiping away the slight blood-stain that showed itself, "you struck your head a'in' a nail. Git up! you oughtn't to be a-gwine on this away before comp'ny."
"I tell you she is dead!" cried Chichester. "She has been murdered!" The girl's mother had already realized this fact, and her tearless grief was something pitiful to behold. The gray-haired grandfather had also realized it.
"I'd druther see her a-lyin' thar dead," he exclaimed, raising his weak and trembling hands heavenward, "than to see her Tuck Peevy's wife."
"Why, gentermen!" exclaimed Abe, "how kin she be dead? I oughter know my own gal, I reckon. Many's an' many's the time she's worried me, a-playin' 'possum, an' many's an' many's the time has I sot by her waitin' tell she let on to wake up. Don't you all pester wi' her. She'll wake up therreckly."