Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1910-12-24


slider his ideals. with a leaning toward
brass bound palaces on wheels and
dictatorial authority over uniformed
lackeys and other of his fellow cres-
lures, that fate dealt the Major its
final stab and prepared to pour wine
and oil into the wound-though OF the
balm pouring, none could guess at tho
moment of wounding. 1t was not in
Caspar Dabney to be patient under
blow, and for a time his ragings
threatened to shake even Nanny Ju-
lets loyalty-than which nothing more
convincing can be said.
"Mistuh Scipio," she would say, Use
JUS erbout wo'ed out! l done been
KNOWN Mawstuh CASPIAN ebber sencc
was or Mistis tiah'ooman, and
amt new seen him so fractions ez he
been sence dat letter come tellin him
come get dat po' iii gal-child O. Nav
stub Louis's. Seems lax he JUS gwine
r'ar round twel he hut somebody"
etoainshrdlu etoian shrdlu etoain ct
Scipio, the Majors body servant.
had grown gray in the Dabney service,
and he was we'll used to the masters
storm periods.
"Doan' you trouble yosef mono err
bout dat. Mis- Juliet. Mawstuh MaJuh
teklxin' hit mighty hawd cause Nav
stub Louis done daid. But bimeby you
gwine see him climm on mis- hawss an
ride up yondeh to whah de big steam
boats comes in an'fotch dat III gall
child home an den: uck-uh-hl look
out niggahs; dar amt gwine be nuttin'
on de top side dishyer yearth good err
nough for III Missy. You watch what
l done toll yer erbout dat, now!"
Scipio's prophecy, or as much OF 1t
as related to the bringing of the or
phaned Ardea to Deer Trace Manor,
wrought itself out speedily. as mat
ter of course. At the close of the war,
Captain Louis. the Majors only son,
had become, like many another hot
hearted young Confederate. a self
patrioted exile. On the eve of his de-
parture for France he had married the
Virginia maiden who had nursed him
alive after Charlottesville. Major
Caspar had given the bride away-the
war had spared no kinsman OF hers to
stand in this breach-and when the
God speeds were said. had himself
turned back to the edgrown fields
of Deer Trace Manor, embittered and
hostile, swearing never to set foot out
side of his homo acres again while the
Union should stand.
For more than twenty years he kept
this VOW almost literally. A few of the
older negroes, mere handful of the
six score slaves OF the old patriarchal
days, cast in their lot with their for
mer master, and with these the Major
made shift thriftily, farming little
stock raising little, and, unlike most
of the war broken plantation owners
clinging tenaciously to every rood OF
land covered by the original Dabney
title deeds.
In this cenobitic interval, IL you
wanted a Dabney colt or Dabney
COW, you went, or sent, to Deer Trace
Manor on your own initiative, and you
or your deputy, never met the Major:
your business was transacted with
lean, lantern jawed Japheth Pettigrass
the Majors stock-and farm foreman
And although the Dabney stock was
pedigreed. you kept your wits about
lyou; else Pettigrass got much the bet
ter of you in the trade, like the shrewd
calculating Alabama Yankee that he
was.
Ardea was born in Paris in the
twelfth year of the exile; and the Vir-
ginia mother, pining always for the
home land. died in the fifteenth year
| A
long-drawn, losing battle, figuring
bravely in his infrequent letters to hi.
father as a rising miniature painter
He had his little girl back and forth
between his lodgings and the studi,
where he painted pictures that nobody
would buy, and eking out a miserabl,
existence by giving lessons In English
when he was happy enough to find
pupil
The brave letters imposed on the Ma
jor, as they were meant to do; ant
Ardea, the loyal. happening on one o
! them in her first Deer Trace summer
read It through with childish sobs an.
never thereafter opened her lips on tn
story OF those distressful Paris days
Later she understood her fathers mo
tive better: how he would not be ,
charge on an old man rich in nothin,
but ruin; and the memory of tn
pinched childhood became a thing sa
cred.
How the Major. a second Rip Val
, Wrinkle, found his way to New York
and to the pier of the incoming Frencl
, Line steamer, must always remain
? mystery. But he was there, with tn
fierce old eyes quenched and swim
, ming and the passionate Dabney lip
lrembllnB strangely uuueT the Srea
moustaches, when the black frocl5e
little waif from the Old World rai
down the landing stage and into hi
arms. Small wonder that they clun
! to each other these two at the furthe
extremes of three generations; or tina
( the child opened a door in the hear
! OF the fierce old partisan which wa
: locked and doubly barred against a
' others.
? II was all new and very strange I
! a child whose only outlook on life ha
= been urban and banal. She had neve
- seen a mountain, and nothing NOR
nearly approaching a forest than tn
g parked groves OF the Bois de Boulogn,
Would It be permitted that she shoui
sometimes walk in the woods OF III
first Dabney. she asked. with the QUAR-
e French twisting OF the phrases ths
I she was never able fully TO overcom
2 Ii would certainly be permitted; NOR
= the Major would make her a deed I
Of -