The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-03-24

II
II lar, dark of hair and eye, strong
II7I Of features-a woman now ap-
| = preaching middle age-sat look
! ing out over the long tree clad slopes
| that ran down from the gallery front
of the mansion house to the gate at the
distant roadway. She had sat thus for
some moments-many moments-her
gaze intently fixed, as If she We're wait
ing for something something or some
one that she did not now see, but ex-
pected soon to see.
| It was late afternoon Of day so
| beautiful that not even old Albemarle,
beauty spot of Virginia, ever produced
one more beautiful, not in the hundred
years preceding that day nor in the
century since then, for this was more
than a hundred years ago, and what Is
now an ancient land was then half
opened region, settled only here and
there by the great plantations of the
well to do. The house that lay at the
summit of the long and gentle slope,
| fanked by it's wide galleries, its flung
doors opening it from front to rear to
the gaze as one approached, had all
| the rude comfort and assuredness usual
| with the gentry Of that time and
place.
It was the privilege and the habit of
the Widow Lewis to sit idly when she
liked, but her attitude now was not
! that of idleness. Intentness-repOseful
acceptance of life, rather-showed in
| her motionless, long sustained position.
| She was patient. as women are, but her
strong pose. it's freedom from material
support, her restrained power to do or
| to endure, gave her the look of owning
| something more than resignation, some
| thing more than patience. A strong
| figure Of a woman one would have said
had one seen her sitting on the gallery
of her old home la years ago.
The Widow Lewis stared straight
down at the gate. a quarter Of mile
away. with yearning i'll her gaze. But,
as so often anpens, what she awaited
did not appear at the time and place
| she herself had set. There fell at the
| western end Of the gallery a shadow,
a tall shadow, hut she did not see it.
| She did not hear the football, not
stealthy. but quite silent, with which
the tall owner of the shadow came to-
| ward her from the gallery end.
1t was young man, or, rather, boy,
| no more than eighteen years of age,
| who stood now and gazed at her after
| his silent approach, so like that of an
Indian savage Half savage himself
he seemed now as he stood. clad In the
buckskin garments of the chase, then
not unusual in the Virginian border
lands among settlers and hunters and
not held outre among people so often
called to the chase or to war.
His tunic was Of dressed deer hide
his well fitting leggings also of that
material. His feet were covered with
moccasins, although his hat and the
neat scarf at his neck were those Of
gentleman. He was practical youth,
one would have said, for no ornament
of any sort was to be seen upon his
garb. In his hand he carried q long
rife Of the sort then used thereabout
At his belt swung the hide of rae
coon, the bodies of few squirrels.
Had you been close observer you,
would have found each squirrel shot
fair through the head. Indeed. look
into the gray eye Of the silent paced
youth woulj have assured you in al
vance of his skill with his weapons
you would have known that to be nat.