"Never do in the world," said she, "to trust them skittish young horses, what hain't done a lick o' work since Pap went away, to that stoopid darky. They'd surely run away and break his neck, which 'd be no great loss, and save lots o' provisions, but they'd smash that new wagon and break their own necks, which are worth more'n $200 apiece."
"Maria, how can you talk so?" said the gentle Mrs. Klegg reprovingly. "It's a sin to speak so lightly o' death o' a feller-creature."
"Well, if he's a feller-creature o' mine," returned the sprightly Maria, "the Lord made a slack-twisted job of him some dark night out o' remnants, and couldn't find no gumption to put in him. He gave him an alligator's appetite instid. And ain't I tryin' to save his life? Besides, I'm nearly dead to see Si. I want to be the first to see him."
This aroused Amanda, but Maria stood on her rights as the elder sister, had her way, as she usually did, and drove away triumphantly fully two hours before train-time.
Upon her arrival at the station she quickly recognized that she was the central figure in the gathering crowd, and she would have been more than a young woman if she had not made the most of her prominence.
Other girls were there with their fathers and mothers who had brothers who had been in the three months' service, or were now in three years regiments, or who had been discharged on account of disability, or who had been in this battle or that, but none of them a brother who had distinguished himself in the terrible battle about which everybody was now talking, who had helped capture a rebel flag, who had been wounded almost to death, who had been reported dead, and who was now coming home, a still living evidence of all this. No boy who had gone from Bean Blossom Creek neighborhood had made the figure in the public eye that Si had, and Maria was not the girl to hide the light of his achievements under a bushel. She was genially fraternal with those girls who had brothers still in the service, affable to those whose brothers had been in, but were now, for any reason, out, but only distantly civil to those whose brothers had not enlisted. Of these last was Arabella Widgeon, whose father had been one of the earliest immigrants to the Wabash, and was somewhat inclined to boast of his Old Virginia family. He owned a larger farm than the Deacon's, and Arabella, who was a large, showy girl, a year or two older than Maria, had been her schoolmate, and, Maria thought, disposed to "put on airs" over her. Arabella's brother Randolph was older than Si, but had chosen to continue his studies at Indianapolis rather than engage in "a war to free the niggers." But Arabella had developed an interest in the war since she had met some engaging young gentlemen who had come through the neighborhood on recruiting duty, and was keeping up a fitful correspondence with two or three of them.
"It must be very nice, Maria," said Arabella, with a show of cordiality, but which Maria interpreted as an attempt to patronize, "to have your brother back home with you again."
"It certainly will be. Miss Widgeon," answered Maria, with strictly "company manners." "One who has never had a brother exposed to the constant dangers of army life can hardly understand how glad we all feel to have Si snatched from the very jaws of death and brung back to us."
"That's a little love-tap that'll settle several scores with Miss Frills," Maria chuckled to herself. "Partickerly the airs she put on over all us girls when she was running around to singing-school and church with that Second Lieutenant, who ain't got across the Ohio River yet, and I don't believe he intends to. Sol Pringle tells me all his letters to her are postmarked Jeffersonville."
Arabella took no seeming notice of the shot, but came back sweetly: