When they came out again to the carriage, the band started "Johnny Comes Marching Home Again," and Crittenden asked feebly:
"What does all this mean?"
Phyllis laughed through her tears.
"That's for you."
Crittenden's brow wrinkled in a pathetic effort to collect his thoughts; but he gave it up and looked at his mother with an unspoken question on his lips. His mother smiled merely, and Crittenden wondered why; but somehow he was not particularly curious—he was not particularly concerned about anything. In fact, he was getting weaker, and the excitement at the station was bringing on the fever again. Half the time his eyes were closed, and when he opened them on the swiftly passing autumn fields, his gaze was listless. Once he muttered several times, as though he were out of his head; and when they drove into the yard, his face was turning blue at the lips and his teeth began to chatter. Close behind came the doctor's buggy.
Crittenden climbed out slowly and slowly mounted the stiles. On the top step he sat down, looking at the old homestead and the barn and the stubble wheat-fields beyond, and at the servants coming from the quarters to welcome him, while his mother stood watching and fondly humouring him.
"Uncle Ephraim," he said to a respectful old white-haired man, "where's my buggy?"
"Right where you left it, suh."
"Well, hitch up—" Raincrow, he was about to say, and then he remembered that Raincrow was dead. "Have you got anything to drive?"
"Yessuh; we got Mr. Basil's little mare."