The Strength of Gideon | Page 9

"He is among those out on the hill behind the orchard," said Mima,
sadly. Mammy Peggy wiped her eyes, and went about trying to add
some touches of comfort to the already perfect room.
"You have no reason to sorrow, Miss Harrison," said Northcope gently,
"for a brother who died bravely in battle for his principles. Had fate
allowed me to be here I should have been upon the other side, but
believe me, I both understand and appreciate your brother's heroism."
The young girl's eyes glistened with tears, through which glowed her
sisterly pride.
"Won't you come out and look at his grave?"
"It is the desire that was in my mind."
Together they walked out, with mammy following, to the old burying
plot. All her talk was of her brother's virtues, and he proved an
appreciative listener. She pointed out favorite spots of her brother's
childhood as they passed along, and indicated others which his boyish
pranks had made memorable, though the eyes of the man were oftener
on her face than on the landscape. But it was with real sympathy and
reverence that he stood with bared head beside the grave of his friend,
and the tears that she left fall unchecked in his presence were not all
tears of grief.
They did not go away from him that afternoon until Mammy Peggy,
seconded by Mima, had won his consent to let the old servant come
over and "do for him" until he found suitable servants.

"To think of his having known Philip," said Mima with shining eyes as
they entered the new cottage, and somehow it looked pleasanter,
brighter and less mean to her than it had ever before.
"Now s'posin' you'd 'a' run off widout seein' him, whaih would you
been den? You wouldn' nevah knowed whut you knows."
"You're right, Mammy Peggy, and I'm glad I stayed and faced him, for
it doesn't seem now as if a stranger had the house, and it has given me a
great pleasure. It seemed like having Phil back again to have him talked
about so by one who lived so near to him."
"I tell you, chile," mammy supplemented in an oracular tone, "de right
kin' o' pride allus pays." Mima laughed heartily. The old woman looked
at her bright face. Then she put her big hand on the girl's small one. It
was trembling. She shook her head. Mima blushed.
Bartley went out and sat on the veranda a long time after they were
gone. He took in the great expanse of lawn about the house, and the
dark background of the pines in the woods beyond. He thought of the
conditions through which the place had become his, and the thought
saddened him, even in the first glow of the joy of possession. Then his
mind went on to the old friend who was sleeping his last sleep back
there on the sun-bathed hill. His recollection went fondly over the days
of their comradeship in Venice, and colored them anew with glory.
"These Southerners," he mused aloud, "cannot understand that we
sympathize with their misfortunes. But we do. They forget how our
sympathies have been trained. We were first taught to sympathize with
the slave, and now that he is free, and needs less, perhaps, of our
sympathy, this, by a transition, as easy as it is natural, is transferred to
his master. Poor, poor Phil!"
There was a strange emotion, half-sad, half-pleasant tugging at his
heart. A mist came before his eyes and hid the landscape for a moment.
And he, he referred it all to the memories of the brother. Yes, he
thought he was thinking of the brother, and he did not notice or did not

pretend to notice that a pair of appealing eyes looking out beneath
waves of brown hair, that a soft, fair hand, pressed in his own, floated
nebulously at the back of his consciousness.
It was not until he had set out to furnish his house with a complement
of servants against the coming of his father that Bartley came to realize
the full worth of Mammy Peggy's offer to "do for him." The old woman
not only got his meals and kept him comfortable, trudging over and
back every day from the little cottage, but she proved invaluable in the
choice of domestic help. She knew her people thereabouts, just who
was spry, and who was trifling, and with the latter she would have
nothing whatever to do. She acted rather as if he were a guest in his
own house, and what was more would take no pay for it. Of course
there had to be some return for so much kindness, and it took the form
of various gifts of flowers and fruit from the