_"Through the shadows of the globe we sweep into the younger day."_
Tennyson
"When the war is over and the boys all get home," Griffith was fond of
saying, as he sat and talked with Katherine, "how good it will seem just
to live! I've seen all the suffering and shadows of tragedy I want to
see for my whole life. The boys and I will make it up to you, Katherine,
and these gray hairs that have come," he touched the wavy hair with
tender fingers, "these gray hairs that have come since we went away,
shall be only memoranda of the past, not heralds of the future."
It was such infinite relief to have him at home and well that Katherine
almost forgot for a time to feel troubled about her sons. News had come
daily from the first about Roy; but now that he was so much improved the
letters gradually grew a little less frequent. Sometimes Emma West wrote
them, and then the letters were very minute indeed, and full of anxious
hopefulness. Her praise of Roy's fortitude, her descriptions of his
wonderful courage and the insistence with which she assured Katherine
that no duty of all their lives--her father's and mother's--had ever
been done with half so hearty a good-will as was the nursing of
the young Captain, had in it all a spirit of devotion and a guarded
tenderness that Katherine thought she understood. Although it is true
that no girl is ever quite good enough to marry any mother's son,
Katherine tried to adjust herself with reasonable fortitude to the idea
of what she thought she saw in the future. Of course it would be many
years in the future before the finality must be faced, and Katherine was
learning to live in the present and to push aside that which threatened
or even promised, as too uncertain to dwell upon. At last short notes,
and then longer ones, from Roy himself began to come, and the time
seemed not far off when the invalid would arrive. It was wholly
unlikely, he said, that he would be fit for service again during the
war, unless the war should last much longer than his original term of
enlistment and he should enlist again. Of his final recovery he felt
certain. The crushed side was doing well, and he would be only slightly
lame, the doctor said. To get him out of the army by even so heroic a
process gave his mother comfort, and she felt that she could keep him
out now even should he recover before his enlistment period were over,
she would, if need be, appeal to Mr. Lincoln, and she felt sure,
from all Griffith had told her, that the President would give Roy an
honorable discharge. Two of her _brood_ were safe again, she argued
with herself, and meantime news from Howard and Beverly was frequent and
assuring. Life seemed about to drop into less tragic lines in the little
household. Griffith fell to humming his favorite hymns once more, and
sometimes as he sat on the porch and watched or greeted the passers-by
or read his paper, he would stop to tell Katherine stories of his recent
adventures, where they did not trench too closely upon the sorrowful
memories of the cold faces and bitter feelings of his one-time friends.
To no one else did he speak of where he had been. His townsmen knew that
he had been away, of course. The Bishop and the college trustees alone
knew why. To all others his few months' absence was no more significant
than many another trip he had taken since he came among them. The duty
he had felt forced to do had been too painful in its nature to make him
willing to discuss it even after it was over. Most of those about him
were bitter toward the South with a bitterness born of ignorance of
conditions and of the times of excitement. To this man, who had passed
through the fire before the general conflagration was kindled, there was
no bitterness. He understood. His sympathy was still with those who were
caught on the under side of the wheel of progress as it had revolved.
His beliefs and convictions had long ago traveled with the advance line;
but he left all sense of unkindness and revenge to those who were less
competent to see the conflict from the side of understanding, and who
judged it through the abundance of their ignorance and prejudice. To
Griffith it was like watching the tide rise on the sea. It was
unavoidable, and those who were caught out beyond the safety line were
bound to go down. He did not blame the sea. He only deplored the
inevitable loss, the sorrow, the suffering, and the mistakes which made
it all possible. That his own part of it was in and of the past
lightened his heart. One day as he sat listlessly on the side porch
reading his Gazette, he noticed vaguely the half-witted girl, now almost
grown to womanhood, circling about the gate and making aimless passes
toward the end of the house. He watched her covertly over his paper for
a moment and went on humming, "He leadeth me, oh, blessed thought!" The
movements of the demented creature seemed to take on more definiteness.
Griffith arose and stepped to the end of the porch. There sat aunt Judy,
smoking her pipe, and swaying her body in time with his humming, "O
words with heavenly comfort fraught! Where'er I go, whate'er I
be,"--Griffith's step had attracted the old woman and she opened her
eyes and looked up at him. "Still 'tis His hand that leadeth me,"
Griffith finished, smiling at her.
"Lawd amassy, honey, I des been a settin' heah wid my po' ole eyes shet,
a listenin' to dat dar song er yoahrn! Hit sholy do seem des lack ole
times come back agin t' heah yoh sing dat a way! Hit sholy do! Lawsy,
honey, dey want no singin' 'roun' heah whilse you wus gone all dat
longtime. Dey want dat! Hit wus des dat gloomysome dat hit seem lack
somebody daid _all_ de time. Hit sholy do go good t' set heah an' listen
ter yoh singin' agin! Hit sholy do, Mos' Grif." She suddenly looked
toward the street. "Mos' Grif, what dat dare fool gal doin'? She des do
like dat a way _all_ de time. I hain't nebberseed her when she don't do
des dat er way. I ax her wat she want, an I ax er wat ails'er, an' she
don't say nothin' 'tall. She des keep on doin' dat way."
"She's afflicted, aunt Judy. She's a poor afflicted creature and--"
"Lawsy, honey, anybody kin see dat she's 'flicted; but wat I axes yoh
is, what fer she do dat away at me? She ain' do dat a way at yoh, an'
she ain' do dat a way at Mis' Kate--an' she ain' do dat a way at Mis'
Marg 'et, needer. Des at me. She tryin' ter witch me. Dat's what!"
Griffith laughed. The point of view was so unexpected and yet so wholly
characteristic that it struck him as humorous beyond the average of aunt
Judy's mental processes. His laugh rang out loud and clear. His broad
shoulders shook. He had grown quite portly, and his face was the picture
of health and fine vigor.
"What fer yoh laugh dat a way, Mos' Grif? Dat dar fool gal would a
witched me long time ago if hit hadn't a been fer dat." She took from
her bosom, where it hung from a string, the rabbit foot: "Dat's so. Des
as sho' as yo' bawn, honey; dey ain' no two ways 'bout dat!"
The fascination of the strange black face for this clouded intellect
seemed never to lose its power. Whenever and wherever Judy had crossed
her path all else faded from the half vacant brain, and such mind and
attention as there was, fixed itself upon the old colored woman. Judy
had tried every art she possessed to engage the girl in conversation,
but with no results. She would continue to circle about and make her
passes of indirection with one hand outstretched and the other hung
aimlessly pen dent at her side in that helpless fashion which defies
simulation. Judy had even tried threatening the girl with her cane;
but no threat, no coaxing and no cajolery served to free her from this
admirer who seemed transfixed as a bird is fascinated by a snake--with
the fascination of perplexity and fear--in so far as the vacant soul
could know such lively and definite sensations. Judy had finally--long
ago--taken refuge in her rabbit foot, and made up her mind that in
competition in the black art, only, was safety. She shook the foot at
the girl, who responded in the usual fashion. How long the contest might
have lasted it would be difficult to say, had not Griffith walked toward
the gate. The instant the bulk of his body hid the old black woman from
her eyes, nature did the rest. The vacant mind, no longer stimulated
by the sight of the uncanny face, lost all interest and continuity of
thought and wandered aimlessly on; forgetful alike of her recent object
of attention and equally unguided by future intent, her steps followed
each other as a succession of physical movements only, and had no object
and no destination. Aimlessly, listlessly, walking; going no one knew
where; thinking no one knew what--if, indeed, her poor vague mental
operations might be classified as thought--living, no one knew why;
following the path of least resistance, as how many of her betters have
done and will do to the end of time; looking no farther than the scope
of present vision; remembering nothing; learning nothing; an object of
pity, of persecution, of fear or of aversion according as she crossed
the path of civilized or savage, of intelligent and pitiful or of
pitiless ignorance. Griffith watched her as she wove her devious way
and wondered where, in the economy of Nature, such as she could find
a useful place, and why, in the providence of God, she had been
cast adrift to cumber the earth, to suffer, to endure and at last to
die--where and why and how? He was not laughing as he returned to the
house, and aunt Judy scanned his face narrowly, and then carefully
replaced the rabbit foot in its resting-place in her bosom.
"Druv' er off. She know! _She_ know a preacher o' de gospil o' de Lawd
Jesus Chris' w'en she see'um! Dey ain't no two ways 'bout dat--'flicted
or no 'flicted. Dat dar gal's 'flicted o' course, but she know 'nuf
ter know _dat!_ She been tryin ter witch me, _dat_ she is; but Lawd God
A'mighty, she hain't got no sense, ter try ter witch _dis_ house wid
Mos' Grif an' dat rabbit foot _bofe_ in hit! Dat dar gal's a plum bawn
fool ter try dat kine er tricks. She is dat. She's wus dan 'flicted.
She's a plum bawn ejiot ter try dat kine er tricks aroun' dese heah
diggins. She is dat! Lawsy, Lawsy, she ain' got no sense worf talkin'
'bout I Mos' Grif an' dat rabbit foot bofe t' match up wid! Lawsy,
Lawsy, dat dar pore 'flicted gal's a plum bawn fool!" And poor old aunt
Judy, still talking to herself, hobbled into the house, satisfied with
her estimate of all parties concerned and content with the world as she
found it, so long as that world contained for her both a Mos' Grif and
her precious rabbit foot.
White or black, bond or free, war or peace, were all one to old aunt
Judy; nothing mattered in all this infinite puzzle called life, if
but there remained to her these two strongholds of her faith and her
dependence! And who shall say that aunt Judy was not wise in her day and
generation? So wise was she that sorrow, anxiety, and care had passed
her lightly by to the end that her eighty years sat upon her shoulders
like a pleasant mantle, adjusted, comfortable to a summer breeze.