It is a beautiful moonlight night, some one proposes a walk. As Cash is giving Winthrop his first lessons in flirtation, they, of course, go together; Sim and Neelie, Miss Milburn and Ezra are the next to start, and Frank is waiting to go with me. Hill stays in camp, in conversation with Mr. Kerfoot and Mr. Milburn.
He is more like an old man than the boy that he is, not twenty yet. After we had gone a short distance, Miss Milburn asked to be excused, and returned to camp; Ezra, of course, going with her.
We walked on for a mile or more, enjoying the beautiful moonlight, and having lots of fun, as happy young people will have. When we returned and I had said good-night to the others, I climbed into the wagon to finish my writing for the day by the light of the lantern.
The front of Mr. Milburn’s wagon almost touches the back of ours, forming an angle. I had been writing a few moments when I heard sobbing. I was out in a jiffy, and had gone to the front of their wagon without stopping to think whether I was intruding. “May I come in?” I asked, as I stepped upon the wagon-tongue.
“Oh, yes, come in, Miss Sallie, but I am ashamed to let you see me crying, somehow I could not help it. I felt so lonely and homesick.”
“I am sorry you feel lonely and homesick. Did any of us say, or do anything this evening that could have hurt you?”
“Oh, no; not at all, only I always feel that I am one too many, when I am with you all; you seem so light-hearted and happy, so free from care, so full of life and fun, that I feel that I am a damper to your joyousness, for I cannot get over feeling homesick and sad, especially when night comes.”
“How sweetly Ernest sleeps, and how much he seems to enjoy this manner of life.”
“Yes; he is a great comfort to me, as well as a great care. He is dearer to me than to any one else in the world; his father seems to be weaned from him, since they have been separated so long. He has not seen him more than half a dozen times since his mother died. I feel that he is altogether mine. May God help me to train him for Heaven. He will never know what I have sacrificed for him. I have a mind to tell you, if you care to hear, why I am here, and why I am not happy.”
“It may perhaps relieve you, and lighten the burden, to share it.”