Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) [Illustration: "SARA HAD PREFERRED TO WALK."--[Page 71.]] FOR THE MAJOR A Novelette BY CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON AUTHOR OF "ANNE" ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1883 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. _All rights reserved._ ILLUSTRATIONS. "SARA HAD PREFERRED TO WALK." _Frontispiece._ "'HAPPY GIRL,' INTERPOLATED SARA." _To face p._ 8 "HE CAME OFTEN TO THEIR FLOWER GARDEN." " 94 "THE GIRL DREW HER MOTHER MORE CLOSELY TO HER SIDE." " 126 "THE LAST LOOK ON EARTH." " 144 "I AM AFRAID, MAJOR, THAT YOU ARE GROWING INDOLENT." " 176 FOR THE MAJOR. CHAPTER I. Edgerley the first lay on the eastern flank of Chillawassee Mountain; Edgerley the second six hundred feet above. The first Edgerley, being nearer the high civilization of the state capital, claimed the name, and held it; while the second Edgerley was obliged to content itself with an added "far." Far Edgerley did not object to its adjective so long as it was not considered as applying especially to the distance between it and the lower town. It was "far," if you pleased--far from cities, far from traffic, from Babylon, from Zanzibar, from the Pole--but it was not "far" from Edgerley. Rather was Edgerley far from it, and--long may she keep so! Meanwhile Edgerley the first prospered, though rather plebeianly. She had two thousand inhabitants, cheese factories, saw-mills, and a stage line across Black Mountain to Tuloa, where connection was made with a second line, which went eastward to the railway. An Edgerley merchant, therefore, could reach the capital of his state in fifty-five hours: what could man want more? The merchants were of the opinion that they wanted nothing; they fully appreciated their advantages, and Edgerley. But their neighbors on top of the mountain, who looked down upon them in more senses than one, did not agree with them in their opinion; they infinitely preferred their own village, though it had no factories, no saw-mills, no stage line to Tuloa, and no necessity for one, and no two thousand inhabitants--hardly, indeed, and with stretching, a bare thousand. There would seem to have been little in these lacks upon which to found a pride, if the matter had been viewed with the eyes of that spirit of progress which generally takes charge of American towns; but, so far at least, the Spirit of Progress had not climbed Chillawassee Mountain, and thus Far Edgerley was left to its prejudiced creed.