The Earth Trembled | Page 6

to check its advance. If the heroic
colonel and his little band could only have been supported at this
instant the position might have been regained. As it was, they were
simply overwhelmed as a slight obstacle is swept away by a torrent.
But few escaped; some were captured, while the colonel and the

majority were struck down, trampled upon and fairly obliterated as the
Northern horde of infantry and artillery swept forward all the more
impetuously. The check was of very great advantage, however, for it
gave our vastly outnumbered troops more time to rally in a stronger
position."
This brief paragraph contained the substance of all that was ever
learned of the young husband, and his mangled remains filled an
unknown grave. His wife had received the blow direct, and she never
rallied. Week after week she moaned and wept upon her bed when the
physician permitted consciousness. Even in the deep sleep produced by
opiates, she would shudder at the sound of Gilmore's guns as they
thundered against Forts Sumter and Wagner. A faithful colored woman
who had been a slave in the family from infancy watched unweariedly
beside her, giving place only to the stern-visaged aunt, whose touch
and words were gentle, but who had lost the power to disguise the
bitterness of her heart. She tried to awaken maternal instincts in the
wife, but in vain, for there are wounds of the spirit, like those of the
body, which are fatal. All efforts to induce the widow to leave the city,
already within reach of the Federal guns, were unavailing, and she was
the more readily permitted to have her own way, because, in the
physician's opinion, the attempt would prove fatal.
Meanwhile her time was drawing near. One August night she was
dozing, and moaning in her sleep, when suddenly there was a strange,
demoniac shriek through the air followed by an explosion which in the
still night was terrifically loud. The invalid started up and looked
wildly at her sable nurse, who was trembling like a leaf.
"O Lawd hab mercy, Missus," she exclaimed. "Dem Yankees shellin'
de town."
Mrs. Hunter was instantly at the bedside. The faithful doctor came
hurriedly of his own accord, and employed all his skill.
A few hours later Mrs. Hunter tried to say cheerily, "Come, Mary, here
is a fine little girl for you to love and live for."

"Aunty," said the mother calmly, "I am dying. Let me see my child and
kiss her. Then put her next my heart till it is cold."
Mrs. Hunter lifted her startled eyes to the physician, who sadly nodded
his head in acquiescence. In a few moments more the broken heart
found healing far beyond all human passion and strife.
With hot, yet tearless eyes, and a face that appeared to be chiselled
from marble in its whiteness and rigidity, the aunt took up the child.
Her tone revealed the indescribable intensity of her feelings as she said,
"Thy name is Mara--bitterness."

CHAPTER III
UNCLE SHEBA'S EXPERIENCE
Many years have elapsed since the events narrated in the last chapter
occurred, and the thread of story is taken up again in the winter of 1886.
In a small dwelling, scarcely more than a cabin, and facing on an
obscure alley in Charleston, a rotund colored woman of uncertain age is
sitting by the fire with her husband. She is a well-known character in
the city, for she earns her bread by selling cakes, fruits, and other light
articles which may be vended in the street with chances of profit.
Although "Aun' Sheba," as she was familiarly called, had received no
training for mercantile pursuits, yet her native shrewdness had enabled
her to hit upon the principles of success, as may be discovered by the
reader as the story progresses. She had always been so emphatically the
master of the house and the head of the family, that her husband went
by the name of "Uncle Sheba." It must be admitted that the wife shared
in the popular opinion of her husband.
When in an amiable mood, which, happily, was her usual condition of
mind, she addressed him as "Unc.;" when some of his many
short-comings exhausted her good-nature--for Aun' Sheba had more
good-nature than patience--he was severely characterized as "Mr.
Buggone." Since they had been brought up in Major Burgoyne's family,

they felt entitled to his surname, and by evolution it had become
"Buggone." Uncle Sheba's heart failed him when his wife addressed
him by this title, for he knew he was beyond the dead line of safety.
They dwelt alone in the cabin, their several children, with one
exception, having been scattered they knew not where. Adjacent was
another cabin, owned by a son-in-law, named Kern Watson, who had
married their