The Desert Valley

Barbee, as he himself would have expressed it, was soured on life. At least for the moment, and after all that is about all that life is, the instant that it is passing. When Longstreet called to him he grunted in disgust. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and spat out the cold stump of his cigarette. It was Barbee's natural way to swing along with his hat far back, so that he might see the stars. Now his hat brim was dragged low, and for Barbee the stars were only less remote and frigid than a certain fickle woman.

'I say, Barbee,' called the professor a second time.

Barbee slumped on without turning, but growled over his shoulder: 'Can't you leave a man alone?'

Longstreet doubted his ears; the boy had been so friendly. He tried hurriedly and in vain to recall some trifle in which perhaps, being misunderstood, he had offended. During his mental uncertainty the natural physical hesitancy had resulted in Barbee's gaining a lead of a dozen steps. Hence when a white figure flitted out from the shadows to the boy's side, Longstreet was not near enough to hear the whispered words; the soft trill of a laugh he caught, to be sure, and immediately recognized as Mrs. Murray's. Then she had drawn away from Barbee, called good night and passed on to the hotel, so close to Longstreet that her skirts brushed him. Barbee stood still watching her until she disappeared under the porch vines. Longstreet came on to his side then. They fell into step and again Barbee was swaggering with his old buoyancy; again his hat was far back, and his eyes were on the stars.

'Hello, old sport,' he said affably. 'Some night, ain't it?'

To know why a man of the type of James Edward Longstreet should be flattered at being called 'old sport' by one of the type of Yellow Barbee is to understand human nature; Longstreet was utterly human. The bonds of environment are bands of steel; the little boy that close to threescore years ago was Johnny Longstreet had been restricted by them, his growth had been that of a gourd with a strap about its middle; he had perforce grown in conformity with the commands of the outside pressure. Had he been born in Poco Poco and reared on a ranch, it is at least likely that he would not have been a professor in an Eastern university. Now that the steel girdles of environment were stricken off it appeared that the youthful heart of him stimulated new growth. As for heredity, environment's collaborator, both he and Barbee were lineal descendants of father Adam and mother Eve. But, be the explanation where it may, 'the everlasting miracle' was the same, and the 'old sport' beamed as he would not have done had the University of Edinburgh bestowed upon him a new degree.