The woman followed readily, keeping close to Woodward. To her distracted eyes he took the shape of her murdered son. Poteet was strangely reticent. His tremendous stride carried him ahead of the horses, and he walked with his head held down, as if reflecting. Once he turned and spoke to Parmalee—
"Oh, Sid!"
"Ah-yi?"
'S'posen it had thes a bin a man?'
"Good-bye, Mr. Man!"
It is not necessary to describe the marriage of Sis and Woodward, or to recite here the beautiful folk-songs that served for the wedding music. As Mrs. Poteet remarked after it was all over, "They wer'n't a bobble frum beginnin' to en';" and when the wedding party started down the mountain in the early hours of the morning to take conveyances at Gullettsville for the railroad station, thirty miles away, Uncle Jake Norris was sober enough to stand squarely on his feet as he held Sis's hand.
"Ez St. Paul says, I prophesy in perportion to my faith. You all is obleege to be happy. Take keer of thish 'ere gal, Cap!"
Teague Poteet went down the mountain a little way, and returned after a while like a man in a dream. He paused at a point that overlooked the valley and took off his hat. The morning breeze, roused from its sleep, stirred his hair. The world, plunging swiftly and steadily through its shadow, could not rid itself of a star that burned and quivered in the east. It seemed to be another world toward which Sis was going.
An old woman, grey-haired, haggard, and sallow, who had been drawn from the neighbourhood of Hog Mountain by the managers of the Atlanta Cotton Exposition to aid in illustrating the startling contrasts that the energy and progress of man have produced, had but one vivid remembrance of that remarkable display. She had but one story to tell, and, after the Exposition was over, she rode forty miles on horseback, in the mud and rain, to tell it at Teague Poteet's.
"I wish I may die," she exclaimed, flinging the corners of her shawl back over her shoulders and dipping her clay pipe in the glowing embers—"I wish I may die ef I ever see sech gangs, an' gangs, an' gangs of folks, an' ef I git the racket out'n my head by next Chris'mas, I'll be mighty lucky. They sot me over ag'in the biggest fuss they could pick out, an' gimme a pa'r er cotton kyards. Here's what kin kyard when she gits her han' in, an' I b'leeve'n my soul I kyarded 'nuff bats to thicken all the quilts betwix' this an' Californy. The folks, they 'ud come an' stan', an' star', an' then they 'ud go some'rs else; an' then new folks 'ud come an' stan', an' star', an' go some'rs else. They wuz jewlarkers thar frum ever'wheres, an' they lookt like they wuz too brazen to live skacely. Not that I keer'd. No, bless you! Not when folks is a plumpin' down the cash money. Not me! No, siree! I wuz a-settin' thar one day a-kyardin' away, a-kyardin' away, when all of a sudden some un retched down' an' grabbed me 'roun' the neck, an' bussed me right here on the jaw. Now, I hain't a-tellin' you no lie, I like to 'a' fainted. I lookt up, an' who do you reckon it wuz?"