The Voice of the People | Page 6

and recrossed the street.
The judge watched her until the flutter of her white dress vanished
down the lane of maples; then he turned to speak to the occupants of a
carriage that had drawn up to the sidewalk.
The vehicle was of an old-fashioned make, bare of varnish, with rickety,
mud-splashed wheels and rusty springs. It was drawn by an ill-matched
pair of horses and driven by a lame coloured boy, who carried a peeled
hickory branch for a whip.
"Ah, General Battle," said the judge to a stout gentleman with a red
face and an expansive shirt front from which the collar had wilted away;
"fine afternoon! Is that Eugenia?" to a little girl of seven or eight years,
with a puppy of the pointer breed in her arms, and "How are you,
Sampson?" to the coloured driver.
The three greeted him simultaneously, whereupon he leaned forward,
resting his hand upon the side of the carriage.
"The young folks are growing up," he said. "I have just seen Juliet
Burwell, and, on my life, she gets prettier every day. We shan't keep
her long."
"Keep her!" replied the general vigorously, wiping his large face with a
large pocket handkerchief. "Keep her! If I were thirty years younger,

you shouldn't keep her a day--not a day, sir."
The little girl looked up gravely from the corner of the seat, tossing her
short, dark plait from her shoulder. "What would you do with her,
papa?" she asked. "We've got no place to put her at home."
The general threw back his great head and laughed till his wide girth
shook like a bag of meal.
"Oh, you needn't worry, Eugie," he said. "I'm not the man I used to be.
She wouldn't look at me. Bless your heart, she wouldn't look at me if I
asked her--"
Eugenia clasped her puppy closer and turned her eyes upon her father's
jovial face.
"I don't see how she could help it if you stood in front of her," she
answered gravely, in a voice rich with the blending of negro
intonations.
The general shook again until the carriage creaked on its rusty springs,
and the coloured boy, Sampson, let the reins fall and joined in the
hilarity.
"She won't let me so much as look at a girl!" exclaimed the general
delightedly, stooping to recover the brown linen lap robe which had
slipped from his knees. "She's as jealous as if I were twenty and had a
score of sweethearts."
The little girl did not reply, but she flushed angrily. "Don't, precious,"
she said to the puppy, who was licking her cheek with his warm, red
tongue.
"What have you named him, Eugie?" asked the judge, changing the
subject with that gracious tact which was mindful of the least
emergency. "He is nicely marked, I see."
"I call him Jim," replied Eugenia. She spoke gravely, and the gravity

contrasted oddly with the animation of her features. "But his real name
is James Burwell Battle. Bernard and I christened him in the
spring-house--so he'll go to heaven."
"Cap'n Burwell gave him to her, you know," explained the general,
who laughed whenever his daughter spoke, as if the fact of her talking
at all was a source of amazement to him, "and she hasn't let go of him
since she got him. By the way, Judge, you have a first-rate garden spot.
I hear your asparagus is the finest in town. Ours is very poor this year. I
must have a new bed made before next season. Ah, what is it,
daughter?"
"You've forgotten to buy the sugar," said Eugenia, "and Aunt Chris
can't put up her preserves. And you told me to remind you of the
whip--"
"Bless your heart, so I did. Sampson lost that whip a month ago, and
I've never remembered it yet. Well, good-day--good-day."
The judge raised his hat with a stately inclination; the general nodded
good-naturedly, still grasping the linen robe with his plump, red hand;
and the carriage jolted along the green and disappeared behind the
glazed brick walls of the church.
The judge regarded his walking-stick meditatively for a moment, and
continued his way. The smile with which he had followed the vanishing
figure of Juliet Burwell returned to his face, and his features softened
from their usual chilly serenity.
He had gone but a short distance and was passing the iron gate of the
churchyard, when the droning of a voice came to him, and looking
beyond the bars, he saw little Nicholas Burr lying at full length upon a
marble slab, his head in his hands and his feet waving in the air.
Entering the gate, the judge followed the walk of moss-grown stones
leading to the church steps, and paused within hearing of the voice,