been to some one. When they had reached the house, in compliance with the familiar custom, he sat down on one of the lower steps of the veranda, while she, shaking out her skirt, took a seat a step or two above him. This enabled him, after the languid local fashion, to lean on his elbow and gaze up into the eyes of the young lady, while she with equal languor looked down upon him. But in the present instance Miss Reed leaned forward suddenly, and darting a sharp quick glance into his very consciousness said:—
“And yo’ mean to say, co’nnle, there’s nothing between yo’ and Sally Dows?”
Courtland neither flushed, trembled, grew confused, nor prevaricated.
“We are good friends, I think,” he replied quietly, without evasion or hesitation.
Miss Reed looked at him thoughtfully, “I reckon that is so—and no more. And that’s why yo’ ‘ve been so lucky in everything,” she said slowly.
“I don’t think I quite understand,” returned Courtland, smiling. “Is this a paradox—or a consolation?”
“It’s the TRUTH,” said Miss Reed gravely. “Those who try to be anything more to Sally Dows lose their luck.”
“That is—are rejected by her. Is she really so relentless?” continued Courtland gayly.
“I mean that they lose their luck in everything. Something is sure to happen. And SHE can’t help it either.”
“Is this a Sibylline warning, Miss Reed?”
“No. It’s nigger superstition. It came from Mammy Judy, Sally’s old nurse. It’s part of their regular Hoo-doo. She bewitched Miss Sally when she was a baby, so that everybody is bound to HER as long as they care for her, and she isn’t bound to THEM in any way. All their luck goes to her as soon as the spell is on them,” she added darkly.
“I think I know the rest,” returned Courtland with still greater solemnity. “You gather the buds of the witch-hazel in April when the moon is full. You then pluck three hairs from the young lady’s right eyebrow when she isn’t looking”—
“Yo’ can laugh, co’nnle, for yo’ ‘re lucky—because yo’ ‘re free.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” he said gallantly, “for I ought to be riding at this moment over to the Infirmary to visit my Sunday sick. If being made to pleasantly forget one’s time and duty is a sign of witchcraft I am afraid Mammy Judy’s enchantments were not confined to only one Southern young lady.”
The sound of quick footsteps on the gravel path caused them both to look up. A surly looking young fellow, ostentatiously booted and spurred, and carrying a heavy rawhide riding-whip in his swinging hand, was approaching them. Deliberately, yet with uneasy self-consciousness, ignoring the presence of Courtland, he nodded abruptly to Miss Reed, ascended the steps, brushed past them both without pausing, and entered the house.
“Is that yo’r manners, Mr. Tom?” called the young lady after him, a slight flush rising to her sallow cheek. The young man muttered something from the hall which Courtland did not catch. “It’s Cousin Tom Higbee,” she explained half disdainfully. “He’s had some ugliness with his horse, I reckon; but paw ought to teach him how to behave. And—I don’t think he likes No’th’n men,” she added gravely.
Courtland, who had kept his temper with his full understanding of the intruder’s meaning, smiled as he took Miss Reed’s hand in parting. “That’s quite enough explanation, and I don’t know why it shouldn’t be even an apology.”
Yet the incident left little impression on him as he strolled back to Redlands. It was not the first time he had tasted the dregs of former sectional hatred in incivility and discourtesy, but as it seldom came from his old personal antagonists—the soldiers—and was confined to the callow youth, previous non-combatants and politicians, he could afford to overlook it. He did not see Miss Sally during the following week.
CHAPTER IV
On the next Sunday he was early at church. But he had perhaps accented the occasion by driving there in a light buggy behind a fast thoroughbred, possibly selected more to the taste of a smart cavalry officer than an agricultural superintendent. He was already in a side pew, his eyes dreamily fixed on the prayer-book ledge before him, when there was a rustle at the church door, and a thrill of curiosity and admiration passed over the expectant congregation. It was the entrance of the Dows party, Miss Sally well to the fore. She was in her new clothes, the latest fashion in Louisville, the latest but two in Paris and New York.
It was over twenty years ago. I shall not imperil the effect of that lovely vision by recalling to the eye of to-day a fashion of yesterday. Enough, that it enabled her to set her sweet face and vapory golden hair in a horseshoe frame of delicate flowers, and to lift her oval chin out of a bewildering mist of tulle. Nor did a certain light polonaise conceal the outlines of her charming figure. Even those who were constrained to whisper to each other that “Miss Sally” must “be now going on twenty-five,” did so because she still carried the slender graces of seventeen. The organ swelled as if to welcome her; as she took her seat a ray of sunlight, that would have been cruel and searching to any other complexion, drifted across the faint pink of her cheeks, and nestling in her nebulous hair became itself transfigured. A few stained-glass Virtues on the windows did not come out of this effulgence as triumphantly, and it was small wonder that the devotional eyes of the worshipers wandered from them to the face of Sally Dows.
When the service was over, as the congregation filed slowly into the aisle, Courtland slipped mutely behind her. As she reached the porch he said in an undertone:
“I brought my horse and buggy. I thought you might possibly allow me to drive”—But he was stopped by a distressful knitting of her golden brows. “No,” she said quickly, but firmly, “you must not—it won’t do.” As Courtland hesitated in momentary perplexity, she smiled sweetly: “We’ll walk round by the cemetery, if you like; it will take about as long as a drive.” Courtland vanished, gave hurried instructions and a dollar to a lounging negro, and rejoined Miss Sally as the delighted and proud freedman drove out of the gate. Miss Sally heaved a slight sigh as the gallant equipage passed. “It was a mighty pooty turnout, co’nnle, and I’d have just admired to go, but it would have been rather hard on the other folks. There’s the Reeds and Maxwells and Robertsons that are too pooah to keep blood horses, and too proud to ride behind anything else. It wouldn’t be the right thing for us to go whirling by, scattering our dust over them.” There was something so subtly pleasant in this implied partnership of responsibility, that Courtland forgot the abrupt refusal and thought only of the tact that prompted it. Nevertheless, here a spell seemed to fall upon his usually ready speech. Now that they were together for the first time in a distinctly social fashion, he found himself vacantly, meaninglessly silent, content to walk beside this charming, summery presence, brushed by its delicate draperies, and inhaling its freshness. Presently it spoke.
“It would take more than a thousand feet of lumber to patch up the cowsheds beyond the Moseley pasture, and an entirely new building with an improved dairy would require only about two thousand more. All the old material would come in good for fencing, and could be used with the new post and rails. Don’t yo’ think it would be better to have an out-and-out new building?”
“Yes, certainly,” returned Courtland a little confusedly. He had not calculated upon this practical conversation, and was the more disconcerted as they were passing some of the other couples, who had purposely lingered to overhear them.
“And,” continued the young girl brightly, “the freight question is getting to be a pretty serious one. Aunt Miranda holds some shares in the Briggsville branch line, and thinks
