The Burial of the Guns | Page 8

scarlet with frost, in a corner of an old
worm-fence, keeping us waiting while she fooled around a brier patch
with old Blinky, who would just as lief have been in one place as
another, so it was out of doors; and even when she reached the house
she would still carry on about it, worrying us by telling over again just
how the boughs and leaves looked massed against the old gray fence,
which she could do till you could see them precisely as they were. She
was very aggravating in this way. Sometimes she would even take a
pencil or pen and a sheet of paper for old Blinky, and reproduce it. She
could not draw, of course, for she was not a painter; all she could do
was to make anything look almost just like it was.

There was one thing about her which excited much talk; I suppose it
was only a piece of old-maidism. Of course she was religious. She was
really very good. She was considered very high church. I do not think,
from my recollection of her, that she really was, or, indeed, that she
could have been; but she used to talk that way, and it was said that she
was. In fact, it used to be whispered that she was in danger of becoming
a Catholic. I believe she had an aunt that was one, and she had visited
several times in Norfolk and Baltimore, where it was said there were a
good many. I remember she used to defend them, and say she knew a
great many very devout ones. And she admitted that she sometimes
went to the Catholic church, and found it devotional; the choral service,
she said, satisfied something in her soul. It happened to be in the
evening that she was talking about this. She sat down at the piano, and
played some of the Gregorian chants she had heard, and it had a
soothing influence on everyone. Even Joe, the fidgetiest of all, sat quite
still through it. She said that some one had said it was the music that
the angels sing in heaven around the great white throne, and there was
no other sacred music like it. But she played another thing that evening
which she said was worthy to be played with it. It had some chords in it
that I remembered long afterward. Years afterward I heard it played the
same way in the twilight by one who is a blessed saint in heaven, and
may be playing it there now. It was from Chopin. She even said that
evening, under the impulse of her enthusiasm, that she did not see,
except that it might be abused, why the crucifix should not be retained
by all Christian churches, as it enabled some persons not gifted with
strong imaginations to have a more vivid realization of the crucified
Saviour. This, of course, was going too far, and it created considerable
excitement in the family, and led to some very serious talk being given
her, in which the second commandment figured largely. It was
considered as carrying old-maidism to an extreme length. For some
time afterward she was rather discountenanced. In reality, I think what
some said was true: it was simply that she was emotional, as old maids
are apt to be. She once said that many women have the nun's instinct
largely developed, and sigh for the peace of the cloister.
She seemed to be very fond of artists. She had the queerest tastes, and
had, or had had when she was young, one or two friends who, I believe,
claimed to be something of that kind; she used to talk about them to old

Blinky. But it seemed to us from what she said that artists never did
any work; just spent their time lounging around, doing nothing, and
daubing paint on their canvas with brushes like a painter, or chiselling
and chopping rocks like a mason. One of these friends of hers was a
young man from Norfolk who had made a good many things. He was
killed or died in the war; so he had not been quite ruined; was worth
something anyhow as a soldier. One of his things was a Psyche, and
Cousin Fanny used to talk a good deal about it; she said it was fine, was
a work of genius. She had even written some verses about it. She
repeated them to me once, and I wrote them down. Here they are: To
Galt's Psyche. Well art thou called the soul; For as I gaze on thee, My
spirit, past control, Springs up in ecstasy. Thou canst not be dead stone;
For o'er thy lovely face, Softer than music's tone, I see the spirit's grace.
The