Bob and Molly sat down on opposite sides of the fireplace, Bob
triumphant at last, and Molly watching him furtively.
"I believe you has somethin' to say to me, Miss Johnson," said Bob,
loftily.
"Well, I sut'nly is glad to welcome you home ag'in, Mistuh Crittenden,"
said Molly.
"Is you?"
Bob was quite independent now, and Molly began to weaken slightly.
"An' is dat all you got to say?"
"Ole Miss said I must tell you that I was mighty--mean--to--you--when
you went--to--de wah, an' that--I'm sorry."
"Well, is you sorry?"
Molly was silent.
"Quit yo' foolin', gal; quit yo' foolin'."
In a moment Bob was by her side, and with his arm around her; and Molly
rose to her feet with an ineffectual effort to unclasp his hands.
"Quit yo' foolin'!"
Bob's strong arms began to tighten, and the girl in a moment turned and
gave way into his arms, and with her head on his shoulder, began to cry.
But Bob knew what sort of tears they were, and he was as gentle as
though his skin had been as white as was his heart.
* * * * *
And Crittenden was coming home--Colour-Sergeant Crittenden, who had got
out of the hospital and back to the trenches just in time to receive
flag and chevrons on the very day of the surrender--only to fall ill of
the fever and go back to the hospital that same day. There was Tampa
once more--the great hotel, the streets, silent and deserted, except for
the occasional officer that rode or marched through the deep dust of the
town, and the other soldiers, regulars and volunteers, who had suffered
the disappointment, the heat, sickness, and hardship of war with little
credit from the nation at large, and no reward, such even as a like
fidelity in any path of peace would have brought them.
Half out of his head, weak and feverish, Crittenden climbed into the
dusty train and was whirled through the dusty town, out through dry
marshes and dusty woods and dusty, cheerless, dead-flowered fields, but
with an exhilaration that made his temple throb like a woman's.
Up through the blistered, sandy, piney lowlands; through Chickamauga
again, full of volunteers who, too, had suffered and risked all the ills
of the war without one thrill of compensation; and on again, until he
was once more on the edge of the Bluegrass, with birds singing the sun
down; and again the world for him was changed--from nervous exaltation
to an air of balm and peace; from grim hills to the rolling sweep of
low, brown slopes; from giant-poplar to broad oak and sugar-tree; from
log-cabin to homestead of brick and stone. And so, from mountain of Cuba
and mountain of his own land, Crittenden once more passed home. It had
been green spring for the earth when he left, but autumn in his heart.
Now autumn lay over the earth, but in his heart was spring.