“Well, we buried Marse Chan dyar in de ole grabeyard, wid de fleg wrapped roun’ ‘im, an’ he face lookin’ like it did dat mawnin’ down in de low groun’s, wid de new sun shinin’ on it so peaceful.
“Miss Anne she nuver went home to stay arfter dat; she stay wid ole marster an’ ole missis ez long ez dey lived. Dat warn’ so mighty long, ’cause ole marster he died dat fall, when dey wuz fallerin’ fur wheat—I had jes’ married Judy den—an’ ole missis she warn’ long behine him. We buried her by him next summer. Miss Anne she went in de hospitals toreckly arfter ole missis died; an’ jes’ fo’ Richmond fell she come home sick wid de fever. Yo’ nuver would ’a’’ knowed her fur de same ole Miss Anne. She wuz light ez a piece o’ peth, an’ so white, ’cep’ her eyes an’ her sorrel hyar, an’ she kep’ on gittin’ whiter an’ weaker. Judy she sut’n’y did nuss her faithful. But she nuver got no betterment! De fever an’ Marse Chan’s bein’ kilt hed done strain her, an’ she died jes’ fo’ de folks wuz sot free.
“So we buried Miss Anne right by Marse Chan, in a place whar ole missis hed tole us to leave, an’ dey’s bofe on ’em sleep side by side over in de ole grabeyard at home.
“An’ will yo’ please tell me, marster? Dey tells me dat de Bible sey dyar won’ be marryin’ nor givin’ in marriage in heaven, but I don’ b’lieve it signifies dat—does you?”
I gave him the comfort of my earnest belief in some other interpretation, together with several spare “eighteen-pences,” as he called them, for which he seemed humbly grateful. And as I rode away I heard him calling across the fence to his wife, who was standing in the door of a small whitewashed cabin, near which we had been standing for some time:
“Judy, have Marse Chan’s dawg got home?”
“POSSON JONE’”
BY