Dan was too weak to ride now. So Chad got Dave Hilton, Melissa's old sweetheart, to take Dixie to Richmond—a little Kentucky town on the edge of the Bluegrass—and leave her there and he bought the old Turner canoe. She would have no use for it, Mother Turner said—he could have it for nothing; but when Chad thrust a ten dollar Federal bill into her hands, she broke down and threw her arms around him and cried.
So down the river went Chad and Dan—drifting with the tide—Chad in the stern, Dan lying at full length, with his head on a blue army-coat and looking up at the over-swung branches and the sky and the clouds above them—down, through a mist of memories for Chad—down to the capital.
And Harry Dean, too, was on his way home—coming up from the far South—up through the ravaged land of his own people, past homes and fields which his own hands had helped to lay waste.
CHAPTER 29.
MELISSA AND MARGARET
The early spring sunshine lay like a benediction over the Dean household, for Margaret and her mother were home from exile. On the corner of the veranda sat Mrs. Dean, where she always sat, knitting. Under the big weeping willow in the garden was her husband's grave. When she was not seated near it, she was there in the porch, and to it her eyes seemed always to stray when she lifted them from her work.
The mail had just come and Margaret was reading a letter from Dan, and, as she read, her cheeks flushed.
"He took me into his own tent, mother, and put his own clothes on me and nursed me like a brother. And now he is going to take me to you and Margaret, he says, and I shall be strong enough, I hope, to start in a week. I shall be his friend for life."
Neither mother nor daughter spoke when the girl ceased reading. Only Margaret rose soon and walked down the gravelled walk to the stile.