"He hasn't killed himself?" she inquired anxiously.
"Killed himself?" roared the general. "He'll live forever. I don't believe he'd die if he were strung up with a halter round his neck. He's moved off."
"Moved off!" echoed Miss Chris faintly. "Why, I believe Uncle Ish was living in that cabin on Hickory Hill before I was born. I remember going up there to help him gather hickory nuts when I wasn't six years old. I couldn't have been six because mammy Betsey was with me, and she died before I was seven. I declare there were always more nuts on those trees than any I ever saw—"
But the general broke in upon her reminiscences, and she took up a fresh tomato and peeled it carefully with a sharp-edged knife.
"Some idiots got after him," said the general, "and told him if he went on living on my land he'd go back to slavery, and, bless your life, he has gone—gone to that little one-room shanty where his daughter used to live, between my place and Burr's—as if I'd have him," he concluded wrathfully. "I wouldn't own that fool again if he dropped into my lap straight from heaven!"
Miss Chris laughed merrily.
"It is the last place he would be likely to drop from," she returned; "but I'll call him up and talk with him. It is a pity for him to be moving off at his age."
So Uncle Ishmael was summoned up to the porch, and Miss Chris explained the error of his ways, but to no purpose.
"I ain' got no fault ter fine," he repeated over and over again, scratching his grizzled head. "I ain' got no fault ter fine wid you. You've been used me moughty well, en I'se pow'ful 'bleeged ter you—en Marse Tom, he's a gent'mun ef ever I seed one. I ain' go no fault ter fine."
The general lost his temper and started up.
"Then what do you mean by turning fool at your age?" he demanded angrily. "Haven't I given you a roof over your head all these years?"
"Dat's so, suh."
"And food to eat?"
"Dat's so."
"And never asked you to do a lick of work since you got the rheumatism?"
"Dat's es true es de Gospel."
"Then what do you mean by going off like mad to that little, broken-down shanty with half the roof gone?"
Uncle Ishmael shuffled his heavy feet and scratched his head again.
"Hit's de trufe, Marse Tom," he said at last. "Hit's de Gospel trufe. I ain' had so much ter eat sence I'se gone off, en I ain' had much uv er roof ter kiver me, en I ain' had nuttin' ter w'ar ter speak on—but, fo' de Lawd, Marse Tom, freedom it are er moughty good thing."
Then the general flew into the house in a rage and Uncle Ishmael left, followed by two small negroes, bearing on their heads the donations made by Miss Chris to his welfare.
On the day that Eugenia encountered Nicholas at school the general was sitting, as usual, in his rocking chair upon the front porch, when he saw the flutter of a blue skirt, and Eugenia emerged from the avenue and came up the walk between the stiff rows of box. It was two o'clock, and the general was peacefully awaiting the sound of the dinner bell, but at the sight of Eugenia his peacefulness departed, and he called angrily:
"Eugie, where's Bernard?"
"Comin'."
"Coming!" returned the general indignantly. "Haven't I told you a dozen times not to walk along that road by yourself? Why didn't you wait for the carriage? Are you never going to mind what I say to you?"
Eugenia came up the steps and threw her books on one of the long green benches. Then she seated herself in a rocking chair and untied her sunbonnet.
"I wa'n't by myself," she said. "A boy was with me."
"A boy? Where is he?"
"He ran away."
The general's great head went back, and he shook with laughter. "Bless my soul! What did he mean by that? What boy was it, daughter?"
Eugenia sat upright in the high rocker, fanning her heated face with her sunbonnet.
"The Burr boy," she answered.
The general gasped for breath, and turned towards the hall.
"Come out here, Chris!" he called. "Here's Eugie been walking home with the Burr boy!"
In a moment Miss Chris's large figure appeared in the doorway, and she handed a brimming mint julep to the general.
"I don't know what Eugie can be made of," she remarked. "Amos Burr was overseer for the Carringtons before he got that place of his own, and I remember just as well as if it were yesterday old Mr. Phil Carrington telling me once, when I was on a visit there, that the more his man Burr worked the less he accomplished. But, as for Eugenia, that isn't the worst about her. Just the other morning, when I was looking out of the storeroom window, I saw her with her arm round the neck of Aunt Verbeny's little Suke. I declare I was so upset I let the quart pot fall into the potato bin!"
"But there isn't anybody else, Aunt Chris," protested Eugenia, looking up from her father's julep, which she was tasting. "And I'm 'bliged to have a bosom friend."
The general shook until his face was purple and the ice jingled in the glass.
"Bosom friend, you puss!" he roared. "Why can't you choose a bosom friend of your own colour? What do you want with a bosom friend as black as the ace of spades?"
"O papa, she ain't black; she's jes' yellow-brown."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Eugie," said Miss Chris severely. "Now go upstairs and wash your face and hands before dinner. It is almost ready. I wonder where Bernard is!"
"Can't I wait twell the bell rings?" Eugenia asked; but Miss Chris shook her head decisively.
"Eugenia, will you never stop talking like a darkey?" she demanded. "How often must I tell you that there's no such word as 'twell'? Now, go right straight upstairs."
Eugenia rose obediently and went into the hall. She had learned from her father and the servants not to dispute the authority of Miss Chris, though she yielded to it with a mild surprise at her own docility.
"She don't really manage me," she had once confided to Delphy, the washerwoman, "but I jes' plays that she does."
VI
When Eugenia came downstairs she found the family seated at dinner, Miss Chris and her father beaming upon each other across a dish of fried chicken and a home-cured ham. Bernard was on Miss Chris's right hand, and on the other side of the table Eugenia's seat separated the general from Aunt Griselda, who sat severely buttering her toast before a brown earthenware teapot ornamented by a raised design of Rebecca at the well. Aunt Griselda was a lean, dried-up old lady, with a sharp, curved nose like the beak of a bird, and smoothly parted hair brushed low over her ears and held in place by a tortoise-shell comb. There were deep channels about her eyes, worn by the constant falling of acrid tears, and her cheeks were wrinkled and yellowed like old parchment.
Twenty years ago, when the general had first brought home his young wife, before her buoyancy had faltered, and before the five little head-boards to the five stillborn children had been set up amid the periwinkle in the family graveyard, Aunt Griselda had written from the home of her sister to say that she would stop over at Battle Hall on her way to Richmond.
The general had received the news joyfully, and the best chamber had been made ready by the hospitable hands of his young wife. Delicate, lavender-scented linen had been put on the old tester-bed and curtains of flowered chintz tied back from the window seats. Amelia Battle had placed a bowl of tea-roses upon the dressing table and gone graciously down to the avenue to welcome her guest. From the family carriage Aunt Griselda had emerged soured and eccentric. She had gone