The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1908-08-21


In the mellow sunshine of late
september afternoon, two men sat
under the wide, spreading boughs of
an ancient apple-tree on the Gray
farm. One felt them anachronisms
in these homely surroundings-they
did not belong" as did the bees
humming lazily over the hollyhocks
that grew in pink and white ranks
beside the low stone wall, and the
white hen with belated brood of
nuffy chicks scratching in the soft
loan of the garden. Long shadows
were dropping down the hills, and
the corn, brown and dry, in a near
by held, rustled in the breeze that
crept among the stalks. Behind the
Wocd-shed sat the hired man, ill at
ease in his Sunday suit, aimlessly
whiting piece of pine and furtiye-
~ watching the pair under the tree
who seldom spoke, vet their eyes
met often, questioning, sad Each
was experiencing a souls agony of
regret, and words seemed scared
upon their hearts-"To late" A
hush, stiffness unusual brooded
over the place. Three children,
round-eyed, afraid, peered between
the pickets Of the yard fence. They
had come mile out of their way
from school just to go by the house
where old man Gray lay dead.
NThat'S nv ;eID
one, pointing a finger. A window
was partly raised in a front room,
the curtain swaying, swaying, in the
draft. The trio passed on, glancing
fearfully behind as they crept under
a fence to "cut cross lots
Inside, the farmhouse was spick
and span; the work was all laid by.
Two neighbors - women - kindly
souls, sat in the decorously darkened
sitting-room; expressions appropriate
to assume in house of sorrow were
in each face. They spoke at inter-
walls, in hushed tones, as if fearful
of disturbing the quiet peace of the
sleeper in the parlor.
In her bedroom, Martha Gray sat
beside the four-poster, absently
stroking with knotted, toil-worn
hand the blue-and-whit checked
counterpart. Many thoughts and those
odd weavings of past and present hap
penings that we term fancies, most of
them irrelevant, flashed, quicksilver
wise, through her brain A woman
of few words, yet Abram had always
nderstood-and now there was no
one. Some folks live to be over
ninety-I'm just beginning my sew
enties-I wonder, now, what the text
had better be. He liked the Apocry-
pha, but it's not printed these days
in Bibles-maybe not so orthodox as
the rest" She walked to a
small square stand where, on Gro
Cheted mat, lay a sheep-skin-bound
volume-handed down in the Gray
family through many generations.
She opened it at the first page. Aw-
full pictures of Moses on the Mount,
and the Delbge met her eye; turning
the yellow leaves she paused at the
book of Esdras and began to read
aloud.
"And therefore be thou not curious
how the ungodly shall be punished,
and when, but inquire how the right
eous shall be saved This present
life is not the end where much glory
doth abide. Remember thy children
that sleep, which are departed from
the shadow of the world, and that
there is promised us an everlasting
hope, and the faces of them shall
shine above the stars. For unto you
is paradise opened and rest is. al
lowed
Yea, Abram ever loved the grand
phrasings of the Apocrypha. Her
eyes wandered to the window.
Through it she could see her two
sons beneath the apple-tree; study
ing them with puzzled frown, she
said: THE children have all come
home" How oddly she had greeted
them, as, one by one, the stage left
them at the gate where they had
swung in childhood and later had
passed through into a world beyoad
her ken. II do not know them very
we'll" She even felt i'll at ease
with the beautiful creature-her baby
futtering back to the old threshold
from life in a gay Southern city.
Could it be possible she had once
been rocked to sleep in the hooded
n,nd