Dearest | Page 4

veranda, smoking a cigar and trying to re-create, for his companion, a mental
picture of an Indian camp as he had seen it in Wyoming in the middle '90's, when
Sergeant Williamson came out from the house, carrying a pair of the Colonel's
field-boots and a polishing-kit. Unaware of the Colonel's presence, he set down his
burden, squatted on the floor and began polishing the boots, humming softly to himself.
Then he must have caught a whiff of the Colonel's cigar. Raising his head, he saw the
Colonel, and made as though to pick up the boots and polishing equipment.
"Oh, that's all right, Sergeant," the Colonel told him. "Carry on with what you're doing.
There's room enough for both of us here."
"Yessuh; thank yo', suh." The old ex-sergeant resumed his soft humming, keeping time
with the brush in his hand.
"You know, Popsy, I think he knows I'm here," Dearest said. "Nothing definite, of course;
he just feels there's something here that he can't see."
"I wonder. I've noticed something like that. Funny, he doesn't seem to mind, either.
Colored people are usually scary about ghosts and spirits and the like.... I'm going to ask
him." He raised his voice. "Sergeant, do you seem to notice anything peculiar around
here, lately?"

The repetitious little two-tone melody broke off short. The soldier-servant lifted his face
and looked into the Colonel's. His brow wrinkled, as though he were trying to express a
thought for which he had no words.
"Yo' notice dat, too, suh?" he asked. "Why, yessuh, Cunnel; Ah don' know 'zackly how t'
say hit, but dey is som'n, at dat. Hit seems like ... like a kinda ... a kinda blessedness." He
chuckled. "Dat's hit, Cunnel; dey's a blessedness. Wondeh iffen Ah's gittin' r'ligion,
now?"
* * * * *
"Well, all this is very interesting, I'm sure, Doctor," T. Barnwell Powell was saying,
polishing his glasses on a piece of tissue and keeping one elbow on his briefcase at the
same time. "But really, it's not getting us anywhere, so to say. You know, we must have
that commitment signed by you. Now, is it or is it not your opinion that this man is of
unsound mind?"
"Now, have patience, Mr. Powell," the psychiatrist soothed him. "You must admit that as
long as this gentleman refuses to talk, I cannot be said to have interviewed him."
"What if he won't talk?" Stephen Hampton burst out. "We've told you about his behavior;
how he sits for hours mumbling to this imaginary person he thinks is with him, and how
he always steps aside when he opens a door, to let somebody who isn't there go through
ahead of him, and how.... Oh, hell, what's the use? If he were in his right mind, he'd speak
up and try to prove it, wouldn't he? What do you say, Myra?"
Myra was silent, and Colonel Hampton found himself watching her with interest. Her
mouth had twisted into a wry grimace, and she was clutching the arms of her chair until
her knuckles whitened. She seemed to be in some intense pain. Colonel Hampton hoped
she were; preferably with something slightly fatal.
* * * * *
Sergeant Williamson's suspicion that he might be getting religion became a reality, for a
time, that winter, after The Miracle.
It had been a blustery day in mid-January, with a high wind driving swirls of snow across
the fields, and Colonel Hampton, fretting indoors for several days, decided to go out and
fill his lungs with fresh air. Bundled warmly, swinging his blackthorn cane, he had set out,
accompanied by Dearest, to tramp cross-country to the village, three miles from
"Greyrock." They had enjoyed the walk through the white wind-swept desolation, the old
man and his invisible companion, until the accident had happened.
A sheet of glassy ice had lain treacherously hidden under a skift of snow; when he
stepped upon it, his feet shot from under him, the stick flew from his hand, and he went
down. When he tried to rise, he found that he could not. Dearest had been almost frantic.
"Oh, Popsy, you must get up!" she cried. "You'll freeze if you don't. Come on, Popsy; try

again!"
He tried, in vain. His old body would not obey his will.
"It's no use, Dearest; I can't. Maybe it's just as well," he said. "Freezing's an easy death,
and you say people live on as spirits, after they die. Maybe we can always be together,
now."
"I don't know. I don't want you to die yet, Popsy. I never was able to get through to a
spirit, and I'm afraid.... Wait! Can you crawl a little? Enough to get over under those
young pines?"
"I think so." His left leg was