Judith a Chronicle of Old Virginia

IAL PoNT, . D. SHE LAID neR IIAND ON THE DARK FINGERS OF IIER 06 ATTEXDANT, , 103 10. THE TIIIXG CAME DOWN VERY SLOWLY, STEP BY STEP, MAICIPIG NO NOISE AS IT MOVED, . 179 11. TEE PWO GIRLS, WRAPPED IN BED-ROOBI GOJVSS, SAT OVER THE FIRE IN COSY CONVERSE, . . 221 l. HL WOULD LET NO ONE TOUCH YOU, UNTIL HE IIAD LAID YOU ON THE GRABS, , . p . 240 JUDITH A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. CHAPTER I. ALL the chimneys of the Suininerfield homestead were built on the outside of the house. In a nook formed by the meeting of the outer wall with the parlor chimney, I sat on a certain August afternoon. The turf was soft under my feet a lush trumpet-creeper ran all over the bricks and thrust tough fingers under the clapboards. I nestled among the leaves nnd orange-red flowers like an exaggerated June-bug. hfy frock was dark-blue calico, spriilkled with white dots a sleeveless, high-necked apron left my arms bare white home-knit stockings and stout shoes made by the plantation shoemaker covered my nether extremities. The New York Reader lay on my lap-a valuable test-book bound between sides of coarsu straw pasteboard. From the blue paper covering these, yellow splinters protruded at broken corners and abraded edges. I picked at one mechanically vlile reading of a boy who had, in defiance of his mothers warning never to taste strange flowers or grasses, made a light lunch upon a pretty plant with a small white flower. The catastrophe never lost its charm for me, and I recognized now for the fortieth time the coming of the creeping horror in reading how, when his mother came to him, she was surprised to see that his illout11 was 7 dirty. At this point, I became aware that my Aunt Betsey was telling a story. The back porch ran the whole length of the main building and one wing, and was the family sitting-room all suixnler long. White jessamine and multiflora roses curtained it, drooping low and thick at the end nearest vhat I had named my chimney-place. My Aunt Betsey was the widow of a Presbyterian elergyman, who had died in less than a year after their inarriage. The sad event had occurred thirty years prior to the date of my story, but she still frore mourning weeds in obedience to the custom of the day and the inclination of such simple, loving souls. Even young matrons sported caps then. That framing Aunt Bctscys face had a veritable crown, standing up stiff and high, and a border of quilled footing. Her brown hair, interlined with silver, lay in sinootll bands above her forehead. Her eyes were gray, mild and contemplative, and, when she conversed, looked at her auditor over her speetacles. She was knitting a lambswool stocking, reeling off the sentencc as evenly and naturally as she drew the yarn from the fleecy ball in her lap. She sat in a splint-bottomed, straight-backed chair, cushioned with gay ehintz. Hcr sister and my grandmother, Mrs. Juditll Read, the widowed mistress of Summerfield, sat in one exaetly like it, and knitted a lambs-wool sock for one of her sons. Neither touched the back of her chair while she worked...