The Heart's Kingdom

The rest of that long, hazy, dreamy, wonder day, in the morning of which

our hearts had been poured so full, we all of us spent with father, as

he was to leave us the next morning. Against the remonstrance of his

maternal parent, the worthless Jefferson had been chosen to go along in

the place of his father Dabney. The young negro's brisk packings filled

the house with a joy note that was delightful and Mammy admonished him

on subjects moral every time he came near the kitchen.

Late in the afternoon I left father down in the garden with young

Nickols, to whom he was confiding the care of some very choice hollyhock

seeds that would need gathering in the next few weeks.

"Your father got them from England," the judge said gravely, as he

showed the small paddies how to roll out the thin seed without crushing

them.

"Have I got any father but the Lady?" asked the youngster with all

seriousness, as he beamed up in my direction. Suddenly Martha turned

and went indoors and up to her room. I followed her and sat down beside

the bed on which she had flung herself.

"You'll have to make him understand it all; I can't," she said, after I

had tenderly hushed her weeping. "I give him to you. I--I won't be with

him long." As she spoke I noticed how the light shone through her pale

fingers as she held them up to clasp mine.

"We'll go away to Florida for a rest, Martha," I said, with the

reassurance I found I had constantly to use to her. There was a great

and beautiful tenderness in the soul of Martha, but she was completely

lacking in any of the worldly initiative that makes lives move on. She

seemed to be standing still.

"Yes, I'll go away," she answered softly, as she unclasped her hand from

mine, nestled her face in the pillow and shut her eyes.

I left her to sleep and a year from that hour I knew that I had not

understood the measure of her exhaustion. She faded like a flower and

drifted on into eternity like a gossamer thread in the breeze.

And it was with some of the depression that a kind of maternal brooding

over her gave me that I went out into the garden that night after all

the rest had gone to bed. A pale silver moon-crescent poised on the brow

of Old Harpeth and a tingling little breeze was coming down from the

north as if sent as a warning of the winter soon to be upon us. I went

down to the old graybeard poplars and their leaves seemed to hiss

together in the moonlight instead of rustling softly as they had been

all summer. A great many of them were drifted in dry waves on the grass

and their gold was turned to silver in the moonlight. Many of the tall

shrubs were naked ghosts of their former selves and gnashed their bones

drearily. I leaned against the tallest old poplar and looked out across

the valley with a kind of stillness in my heart that seemed to be

listening and then listening.