Craig did not, and Uncle Zach continued: “Wall, she can,—nateral, too,
as life. It’s a picter of that afternoon when we sot on the piazza and
you read from that man Brown. We are all there, some plainer than
others, and I’ll be dumbed if she didn’t draw me a noddin’, as Dot says
I was, but I’d know myself in the dark, though I didn’t know I was quite
so dumpy. I’ll get it and show it to you. We’ve had it framed and keep
it hung up with Dot’s ancestors and the Boston tea party; seems
appropriate seein’ ’twas a kind of party we was havin’. Here ’tis.”
He handed Craig a sketch of a group on the north piazza, each one of
which could be recognized. There was Helen gracefully reclining in the
hammock, with her arm and hand hanging down as Craig remembered
it,—Mark, with a quizzical expression on his face, standing by the
corner,—Uncle Zach unmistakably nodding in his chair, and next to him,
himself, with a collar which nearly cut his ears and so interested in
the book he was reading that his interest showed on his face, and he
could almost hear the sentence at which he stopped to find Helen asleep.
Alice was the least conspicuous of the group. She was sitting on the
steps with folded hands and looking off under the trees where there was
a faint outline of a boy balancing himself on his head. Craig looked at
her the longest, knowing she had not done herself justice, but seeing
distinctly in his mind’s eye the graceful figure, the sweet face, the
clearly cut features and blue eyes, which, apart from Helen’s more
brilliant beauty, would be called very attractive.
“Good, ain’t it? I wouldn’t take a dollar for it without the frame,”
Uncle Zacheus said.
Craig made no reply, but thought he wouldn’t take many dollars for it,
if it were his. Giving it back to Mr. Taylor he asked if he knew what
trains stopped at Rocky Point, and the name of Alice’s uncle. Uncle Zach
said only the accommodations stopped there, and he didn’t know the name
of the uncle.
“Easy to find, though,—or she is, as she’s keepin’ school. Ask for the
schoolmarm, but what are you goin’ off tomorrer for? Stay, and if the
roads ain’t too bad, we’ll have a spin on the race track with Paul and
Virginny. By the way, how is Dido?”
“I don’t know. I’ve sold her,” Craig replied.
“What under the canopy you sold Dido for? The nicest boss I ever seen
unless it was Virginny when she was young,” Uncle Zacheus exclaimed.
Craig could not explain that the principal reason for selling Dido was
that she was connected with a part of his life he would gladly forget,
and he gave another reason.
“I don’t know as you know that once when I was driving her she was
frightened at a baby cart and ran away with me. I have heard that horses
when once they have run are apt to do so again, and I found it true with
Dido. She seemed to be always looking for that cart till mother was
afraid to ride after her. So I sold her where I knew she would be kindly
treated.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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