When the war came to a close, Gabriel was nearly eighteen, and Nan was seventeen, though she appeared to be a year or two younger. She was still childish in her ways and tastes, and carried with her an atmosphere of simplicity and sweetness in which very few girls of her age are fortunate enough to move. Simplicity was a part of her nature, though some of her young lady friends used to whisper to one another that it was all assumed. She was even referred to as Miss Prissy, a term that was probably intended to be an abbreviation of Priscilla.
Regularly, she used to hunt Cephas up and carry him home with her for the afternoon; and on the other hand, Gabriel manifested a great fondness for the little fellow, who enjoyed his enviable popularity with a clear conscience. It was years and years afterwards before the secret of his popularity dawned on him. If he had suspected it at the time, his pride, such as he had, would have had a terrible fall.
One day, it was the year of Appomattox, and the month was June, Cephas heard his name called, and answered very promptly, for the voice was the voice of Gabriel, and it was burdened with an invitation to visit the woods and fields that surrounded the town. The weather itself was burdened with the same invitation. The birds sang it, and it rustled in the leaves of the trees. And Cephas leaped from the house, glad of any excuse to escape from the domestic task at which he had been set. They wandered forth, and became a part and parcel of the wild things. The hermit thrush, with his silver bell, was their brother, and the cat-bird, distressed for the safety of her young, was their sister. Yea, and the gray squirrel was their playmate, a shy one, it is true, but none the less a genuine one for all that. They roamed about the green-wood, and over the hills and fields, and finally found themselves in the public highway that leads to Malvern.
Cephas found a cornstalk, and with hardly an effort of his mind, changed it into a fine saddle-horse. The contagion seized Gabriel, and though he was close upon his eighteenth birthday, he secured a cornstalk, which at once became a saddle-horse at his bidding. The magical powers of youth are wonderful, and for a little while the cornstalk horses were as real as any horses could be. The steed that Cephas bestrode was comparatively gentle, but Gabriel's horse developed a desire to take fright at everything he saw. A creature more skittish and nervous was never seen, and his example was soon followed by the steed that Cephas rode. The two boys were so busily engaged in trying to control their perverse horses, that they failed to see a big covered waggon that came creeping up the hill behind them. So, while they were cutting up their queer capers, the big waggon, drawn by two large mules, was plumb upon them. As for Cephas, he didn't care, being at an age when such capers are permissible, but Gabriel blushed when he discovered that his childish pranks had witnesses; and he turned a shade redder when he saw that the occupants of the waggon were, of all the persons in the world, Mr. Billy Sanders and Francis Bethune.
Both of the boys would have passed on but for the compelling voice of Mr. Sanders. "Why, it's little Gabe, and he's little Gabe no longer. And Cephas ain't growed a mite. Hello, Gabe! Hello, Cephas! Howdy, howdy?"
Francis Bethune's salutation was somewhat constrained, or if that be too large a word, was lacking in cordiality. "What is the matter with Gabriel?" he asked.
"It's a thousand pities, Frank," remarked Mr. Sanders, "that Sarah Clopton wouldn't let you be a boy along with the other boys; but she coddled you up jest like you was a gal. Be jigged ef I don't believe you've got on pantalettes right now."
Bethune blushed hotly, while Gabriel and Cephas fairly yelled with laughter—and there was a little resentment in Gabriel's mirth. "But I don't see what could possess Tolliver," Bethune insisted.
"Shucks, Frank! you wouldn't know ef he was to write it down for you, an' Nan Dorrin'ton would know wi'out any tellin'. You ain't a bit brighter about sech matters than you was the day Nan give you a thumpin'."
At this Gabriel laughed again, for he had been an eye-witness to the episode to which Mr. Sanders referred. A boy has his prejudices, as older persons have theirs. Bethune had always had the appearance of being too fond of himself; when other boys of his age were playing and pranking, he would be primping, and in the afternoon, before he went off to the war, he would strut around town in the uniform of a cadet, and seemed to think himself better than any one else. These things count with boys as much as they do with older persons.
"Climb in the waggin, Gabe an' Cephas, an' tell us about ever'thing an' ever'body. The Yanks didn't take the town off, did they?"
The boys accepted the invitation without further pressing, for they were both fond of Mr. Sanders, and proceeded to give their old friend all the information he desired. Francis Bethune asked no questions, and Gabriel was very glad of it. At bottom, Bethune was a very clever fellow, but the boys are apt to make up their judgments from what is merely superficial. Francis had a very handsome face, and he could have made himself attractive to a youngster on the lookout for friends, but he had chosen a different line of conduct, and as a result, Gabriel had several scores against the young man. And so had Cephas; for, on one occasion, the latter had gone to the Clopton Place for some wine for his mother, who was something of an invalid, and, coming suddenly on Sarah Clopton, found her in tears. Cephas never had a greater shock than the sight gave him, for he had never connected this self-contained, gray-haired woman with any of the tenderer emotions. In the child's mind, she was simply a sort of superintendent of affairs on the Clopton Place, who, in the early mornings, stood on the back porch of the big house, and, in a voice loud enough to be heard a considerable distance, gave orders to the domestics, and allotted to the field hands their tasks for the day.
Sarah Clopton must have seen how shocked the child was, for she dried her eyes and tried to laugh, saying, "You never expected to see me crying, did you, little boy?" Cephas had no answer for this, but when she asked if he could guess why she was crying, the child remembered what he had heard Nan and Gabriel say, and he gave an answer that was both prompt and blunt. "I reckon Frank Bethune has been making a fool of himself again," said he.
"But how did you know, child?" she asked, placing her soft white fingers under his chin, and lifting his face toward the light. "You are a wise lad for your years," she said, when he made no reply, "and I am sure you are sensible enough to do me a favour. Please say nothing about what you have seen. An old woman's tears amount to very little. And don't be too hard on Frank. He has simply been playing some college prank, and they are sending him home."
The most interesting piece of news that Gabriel had in his budget related to the hanging of Mr. Absalom Goodlett by some of Sherman's men, when that commander came marching through Georgia. It seems that a negro had told the men that Mr. Goodlett knew where the Clopton silver had been concealed, and they took him in hand and tried to frighten him into giving them information which he did not possess. Threats failing, they secured a rope and strung him up to a tree. They strung him up three times, and the third time, they went off and left him hanging; and but for the promptness of the negro who was the cause of the trouble, and who had been an interested spectator of the proceedings, Mr. Goodlett would never have opened his eyes on the affairs of this world again. The negro cut him down in the nick of time, and as soon as he recovered, he sent the darkey with instructions to go after the men, and tell them where they could find the plate, indicating an isolated spot. Whereupon Mr. Goodlett took his gun, and went to the point indicated. The negro carried out his instructions to the letter. He found the men, who had not gone far, pointed out the spot from a safe distance, and then waited to see what would happen. If he saw anything unusual, he never told of it; but the men were never seen again. Some of their companions returned to search for them, but the search was a futile one. The negro went about with a frightened face for several days, and then he settled down to work for Mr. Goodlett, in whom he seemed to have a strange interest. He showed this in every way.
"You keep yo' eye on 'im," he used to say to his coloured acquaintances, in speaking of Mr. Goodlett; "keep yo' eye on 'im, an' when you see his under-jaw stickin' out, des turn you' back, an' put yo' fingers in yo' ears."
"You never know," said Mr. Sanders,