There was a coolness between us for several days, which gradually thawed into a more genial state of things, but it did not seem to me that it ever became quite as it was before.
All winter there were rumblings deep and continual in the political sky—sometimes the sun broke out, and people said that it was going to clear; but usually the weathercocks predicted a long, southerly storm. I never saw a man so full of prophecy as Mr. Bull. One would have supposed that every hour brought him telegraphic despatches both from the real and the spurious Congress; and that President Lincoln and Jeff. Davis were both convinced of their utter inability to take any steps without the cognizance and approval of Mr. Bull.
Mrs. Bull said mildly that 'she hoped it would blow over;' but Mr. Bull exclaimed indignantly that 'he didn't want it to blow over—he wanted it to blow out and done with it, if it was goin' to, and not keep a threatenin' all to no purpose. It was high time that things was settled, and people knew what was what. If we was goin' to hev a rumpus, he hoped we'd hev it.'
If the old man had not been really good-natured and inoffensive, I should have taken him in hand; but these disconnected remarks appeared to give him so much pleasure that it would have been cruel to deprive him of it.
Helen Legram had a reverential way of speaking of Mr. Summers that provoked me; but she told me one day, when I laughed at this, that no one who knew his life could do otherwise. And how did she 'know his life'? He had never disclosed it to me—and I could not see what there was in Helen Legram to entitle her to this confidence. They certainly were engaged—everything went to prove it; and, if I had been at all in love with Mr. Summers, I should have classed the feeling that pervaded me under the head of jealousy.
Mr. Bull 'guessed that Mr. Summers and that tall gal were goin' to make a match of it;' and, when I assented to the proposition, he added that 'she didn't pretty much, but he kalkilated she'd make a good, stirrin' wife for a young man who had his livin' to get. Should hev kind o' thought,' continued Mr. Bull, who seemed to love the subject, 'that he'd hev fancied you; but there's no accountin' for tastes.'
I glided out of the room unperceived, and the old gentleman probably talked confidentially to the four walls for some time afterward.
Sumter had fallen; and the whole school broke out in badges. Peppersville was on fire, and burning, of course, in red, white, and blue flames. No one bought a dress even that had not the loyal colors displayed somewhere in it; and a man who did not wear a cockade was rather looked askance upon.
Mr. Bull was in his element, and spent his time principally in going to the post office in search of news, and asking everybody's political shibboleth. The subject was discussed at every meal. Mr. Bull thought that half the members of Congress ought to have been hung long ago. Miss Friggs, who sometimes attempted the poetical, said that it made her heart bleed to think of the glorious figure of Liberty wandering desolate and forsaken, with her costly robe of stars and stripes trailing in the dust; and Mrs. Bull, who was one of the wisest women I ever knew, prudently said nothing on a subject which she did not quite understand.