Holly: The Romance of a Southern Girl

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Take that street over yonder,” said the agent, “and it’ll fetch you right square to the Major’s office, sir. I’ll look after your bag until you send for it. You tell the nigger to ask me for it, sir.”

So Winthrop yielded the bag, coat and umbrella and started forth. The station and the adjoining freight-shed stood, neutral-hued, under the wide-spreading branches of several magnificent live-oaks, in one of which, hidden somewhere in the thick greenery, a thrush was singing. This sound, with that of the panting of the tired engine, alone stirred the somnolent silence of mid-afternoon. A road, deep with white sand, ambled away beneath the trees in the direction of the wide street which Winthrop had seen from the car and to which he had been directed. It proved to be a well-kept thoroughfare lined with oaks and bordered by pleasant gardens in front of comfortable, always picturesque and sometimes handsome houses. The sidewalks were high above the street, and gullies of red clay, washed deep by the heavy rains, divided the two. In front of the gates little bridges crossed the gullies. The gardens were still aflame with late flowers and the scent of roses was over all. Winthrop walked slowly, his senses alert and enravished. He drew in deep breaths of the fragrant air and sighed for very contentment.

“Heavens,” he said under his breath, “the place is just one big rest cure! If I can’t get fixed up here I might as well give up trying. I wonder,” he added a moment later, “if every one is asleep.”

There was not a soul in sight up the length of the street, but from one of the houses came the sound of a piano and, as he glanced toward its embowered porch, he thought he caught the white of a woman’s gown.

“Someone’s awake, anyhow,” he thought. “Maybe she’s a victim of insomnia.”

The street came to an end in a wide space surrounded by one- and two-story stores and occupied in the centre by a stone building which he surmised to be the court-house. He bore to the right, his eyes searching the buildings for the shingle of Major Cass. A few teams were standing in front of the town hitching-rails, and perhaps a dozen persons, mostly negroes, were in view. He had decided to appeal for information when he caught sight of a modest sign on a corner building across the square. “L. Q. Cass, Counsellor at Law,” he read. The building was a two-story affair of crumbling red brick. The lower part was occupied by a general merchandise store, and the upper by offices. A flight of wooden steps led from the sidewalk along the outside of the building to the second floor. Winthrop ascended, entered an open door, and knocked at the first portal. But there was no reply to his demands, and, as the other rooms in sight were evidently untenanted, he returned to the street and addressed himself to a youth who sat on an empty box under the wooden awning of the store below. The youth was in his shirt-sleeves and was eating sugar-cane, but at Winthrop’s greeting he rose to his feet, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and answered courteously:

“Waynewood is about three-quarters of a mile, sir,” he replied to the stranger’s inquiry. “Right down this street, sir, until you cross the bridge over the branch. Then it’s the first place.”

He was evidently very curious about the questioner, but strove politely to restrain that curiosity until the other had moved away along the street.

The street upon which Winthrop now found himself ran at right angles with that up which he had proceeded from the station. Like that, it was shaded from side to side by water-oaks and bordered by gardens. But the gardens were larger, less flourishing, and the houses behind them smaller and less tidy. He concluded that this was an older part of the village. Several carriages passed him, and once he paused in the shade to watch the slow approach and disappearance of a creaking two-wheeled cart, presided over by a white-haired old negro and drawn by a pair of ruminative oxen. It was in sight quite five minutes, during which time Winthrop leaned against the sturdy bole of an oak and marvelled smilingly.