Crittenden

It was growing dusk outside. Chickens were going to roost with a great

chattering in some locust-trees in one corner of the yard. An aged

darkey was swinging an axe at the woodpile and two little pickaninnies

were gathering a basket of chips. Already the air was filled with the

twilight sounds of the farm--the lowing of cattle, the bleating of

calves at the cowpens, the bleat of sheep from the woods, and the nicker

of horses in the barn. Through it all, Crittenden could hear the nervous

thud of Raincrow's hoofs announcing rain--for that was the way the horse

got his name, being as black as a crow and, as Bob claimed, always

knowing when falling weather was at hand and speaking his prophecy by

stamping in his stall. He could hear Basil noisily making his way to the

barn. As he walked through the garden toward the old family graveyard,

he could still hear the boy, and a prescient tithe of the pain, that he

felt would strike him in full some day, smote him so sharply now that he

stopped a moment to listen, with one hand quickly raised to his

forehead. Basil was whistling--whistling joyously. Foreboding touched

the boy like the brush of a bird's wing, and death and sorrow were as

remote as infinity to him. At the barn-door the lad called sharply: "Bob!"

"Suh!" answered a muffled voice, and Bob emerged, gray with oatdust.

"I want my buggy to-night." Bob grinned.

"Sidebar?"

"Yes."

"New whip--new harness--little buggy mare--reckon?"

"I want 'em all."

Bob laughed loudly. "Oh, I know. You gwine to see Miss Phyllis dis

night, sho--yes, Lawd!" Bob dodged a kick from the toe of the boy's

boot--a playful kick that was not meant to land--and went into the barn

and came out again.

"Yes, an' I know somewhur else you gwine--you gwine to de war. Oh, I

know; yes, suh. Dere's a white man in town tryin' to git niggers to

'list wid him, an' he's got a nigger sojer what say he's a officer

hisself; yes, mon, a corpril. An' dis nigger's jes a-gwine through town

drawin' niggers right an' left. He talk to me, but I jes laugh at him,

an' say I gwine wid Ole Cap'n ur Young Cap'n, I don't keer which. An'

lemme tell you, Young Capn', ef you ur Ole Cap'n doan lemme go wid you,

I'se gwine wid dat nigger corpril an' dat white man what 'long to a

nigger regiment, an' I know you don't want me to bring no sech disgrace

on de fambly dat way--no, suh. He axe what you de cap'n of," Bob went

on, aiming at two birds with one stone now, "an' I say you de cap'n of

ever'body an' ever'ting dat come 'long--dat's what I say-an' he be cap'n

of you wid all yo' unyform and sich, I say, if you jest come out to de

fahm--yes, mon, dat he will sho."