Alabama -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; War stories
merely looked up an instant, glanced mournfully around the dreary room,
and, shivering slightly, drooped her head again on her hand. Week after
week went slowly by, and she was removed to Mrs. Wood's house, but no
improvement was discernible, and the belief became general that the
child's mind had sunk into hopeless imbecility. The kind-hearted miller
and his wife endeavored to coax her out of her chair by the
chimney-corner, but she crouched there, a wan, mute figure of woe,
pitiable to contemplate; asking no questions, causing no trouble,
receiving no consolation. One bright March morning she sat, as usual,
with her face bowed on her thin hand, and her vacant gaze fixed on the
blazing fire, when, through the open window, came the impatient lowing
of a cow. Mrs. Wood saw a change pass swiftly over the girl's face, and
a quiver cross the lips so long frozen. She lifted her head, rose, and
followed the sound, and soon stood at the side of Brindle, who now
furnished milk for the miller's family. As the gentle cow recognized
and looked at her, with an expression almost human in the mild, liquid
eyes, all the events of that last serene evening swept back to Edna's
deadened memory, and, leaning her head on Brindle's horns, she shed the
first tears that had flowed for her great loss, while sobs, thick and
suffocating, shook her feeble, emaciated frame.
"Bless the poor little outcast, she will get well now. That is just
exactly what she needs. I tell you, Peter, one good cry like that is
worth a wagon-load of physic. Don't go near her; let her have her cry
out. Poor thing! It ain't often you see a child love her granddaddy as
she loved Aaron Hunt. Poor lamb!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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