A day or two later, Anne wandered alone into the old-fashioned garden.
She had just recalled--bit by bit things from the past came back to
her--a damask rose at the end of the south walk that was her mother's
special favorite. It was bare now of its rosy-pink blossoms and Anne
gathered some red and yellow zinnias to play lady with. The red-gowned
ladies had their home under the Cherokee rose-bush and yellow-frocked
dames were given a place under the clematis-vine; then they exchanged
visits and gave beautiful parties.
Presently a slim, black-robed lady sauntered down the box-edged turf
walk and stopped near Anne.
"What are you doing, little girl?" she asked.
Anne looked up at the lady. "How do you do, cousin?" she said,
scrambling to her feet and putting up her mouth to be kissed. It was one
of the cousins, she knew, and it was the most natural thing in the world
to see her come down the box-edged walk to the rose-arbor; but whether
it was Cousin Lucy or Cousin Dorcas or Cousin Polly, Anne was not sure.
It was Cousin Dorcas and she stared at the child for a moment, too
amazed to speak.
"It cannot be little Nancy!" she exclaimed at last. "Child, who are
you?"
"Why, of course, I'm little Nancy," Anne laughed.
"What are you doing here? Where did you come from?"
"I am playing flower dolls." Anne answered the questions gravely in
order. "I got off the train because I wanted to come home. I thought
Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard were here."
Miss Dorcas Read sat down on a rustic seat and questioned her small
cousin until she drew forth the story of the child's wanderings.
"I am glad I have found you," the lady said when Anne's story was
finished. "You ought to be with your own people, of course, and I am
your near kinswoman. Your great-grandmother and my grandmother were
sisters. It is little that I have, but that little I shall gladly share
with you. I must take you with me when I go home next week."
"Where is your home?" asked Anne.
"In Washington City. I am one of the little army of government clerks,"
Miss Dorcas explained. "I come back every summer to spend my vacation
here. I walk in the dear old garden and read the dear old books and live
again in the dear old days. You do not understand now, child; but some
day, if you live long enough, you will understand."
Lizzie wailed aloud when she learned that Anne was to leave 'Lewis
Hall,' and in her heart Anne preferred her old home to her old cousin.
"You shouldn't never have gone to a 'sylum," said Mrs. Collins, wiping
her eyes with her apron. "But when one of your blood-kin lays claim to
you, that's diff'rent and I ain't got no call to interfere. I got sense
enough to know my folks ain't like yo' folks. Yours is the real old-time
quality folks and you ought to be brung up with your own kind. Now, we
is a bottom rail that's done come to the top. My chillen's got to be
schooled and give book-learnin'. Some day they'll forget they was ever
anything but top rails, and look down on their old daddy and mammy."
"I ain't, mammy; I ain't never gwi' look down on you," declared Lizzie.
"That's all right, honey," answered Mrs. Collins. "I want you to be
hotty and look down on folks. I never could l'arn to do it. I was always
too sociable-disposed."
"No one can ever look on you except with respect, dear Mrs. Collins,"
Miss Dorcas insisted. "Certainly, Anne and I shall always regard you as
one of her best friends. She will want to come to see you next vacation,
if you will let her."
"Let her! and thank you, ma'am," exclaimed Mrs. Collins. "Now I'm going
to unload them pantry shelves. You shall have sweetmeats and jam and
preserves and pickle for yo' snacks, Anne, and I want you to think of
Lizbeth Collins when you eat 'em."
Before Anne and Cousin Dorcas went to Washington, it was resolved that
they should visit Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard, who lived on a
plantation eight miles from 'Lewis Hall.' Mrs. Collins doubted the
wisdom of the plan, fearing lest some of the 'sylum folks on the lookout
for Anne would be met on the public road. Miss Dorcas, too, was a little
uneasy. It was finally decided that Anne should wear one of Lizzie's
frocks and her sunbonnet and that if they met any one on the road, Miss
Dorcas was to say in a loud voice, "Lizzie!" and Anne was to answer,
"Yes, ma'am."
Mr. Collins brought out an old buggy with an old horse called Firefly
and helped Miss Dorcas in, explaining carefully, "This ain't no kicker
and it ain't no jumper. It's jest plain horse with good horse-sense. If
you don't cross yo' lines, you can drive him anywhere."
"I don't know much about driving," confessed Miss Dorcas. "That is, I've
been driving a great deal but I've never held the lines.--Whoa! get up,
sir!" She gave a gurgly cluck, and flapped the lines up and down on
Firefly's back, with her elbows high in air. Firefly started meekly off
on a jog trot. Mr. Collins looked after them.
"Dumb brutes is got heap more sense than humans," he exclaimed. "They
understands women. Now, Miss Dorcas she's whoain' and geein' and hawin'
that horse at the same time, but somehow he knows what she wants him to
do and he's gwine to do it."
Firefly followed the winding of the river-road mile after mile, along
meadows, fields, and wooded hills, fair in the hazy sunlight. How many
times Anne had travelled this road on visits to the numerous cousins!
Firefly turned at last from the highway to a plantation road and stopped
at a log cabin. It was a neat, whitewashed little house, with rows of
zinnias and marigolds on each side of a walk leading from the road. Over
the door, hung a madeira vine covered with little spikes of fragrant
white blossoms. Charity, in a blue-and-white checked cotton gown, with a
bandanna around her head, was working in her garden beside the house.
"Don't speak to her, Cousin Dorcas," whispered Anne. "Let me s'prise
her." She jumped lightly out of the buggy and ran to Aunt Charity.
"Boo!" she said.
Charity dropped her hoe with a scream. "Lawd 'a' mercy!" she exclaimed,
backing toward the cabin. "My child's ghost in de broad daylight!"
Anne laughed till tears ran down her cheeks. "There!" she said, pinching
Charity's fat arm. "Does that feel like a ghost, Aunt Charity?"
Charity seized Anne in her arms and jumped up and down, exclaiming, "My
child in de flesh and blood! my child in de flesh and blood!" At last
she recovered herself enough to "mind her manners" and help Miss Dorcas
out of the buggy.
"You all ain' gwine away a step till you eat a snack," she insisted. "I
got a chicken in dyar I done kilt to take to church to-morrow. Ain't I
glad it's ready for my baby child! And I'll mix some hoecakes and bake
some sweet taters and gi' you a pitcher o' cool sweet milk. My precious
baby, you set right dyar in de do'. I can't take my eyes off you any
more'n if dee was glued to you."
A table was set under the great oak and Charity, beaming with joy,
waited on her guests. "Richard ain't gwi' forgive hisself for goin' to
mill to-day," she said. "Dunno huccome he went, anyway. He could 'a' put
it off till Monday. But if you gwi' be at de old place till Chewsday, me
an' him will sho hobble up to see you."
As the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, Miss Dorcas and Anne started
on their homeward journey. Miss Dorcas clucked and jerked the lines, and
Firefly ambled homeward, now jog-trotting along the road, now pausing to
nibble grass on the wayside.