a corroding sorrow in his heart. When he took the cold it developed
rapidly into lung fever. He was dead in three days. His will was made
just as he took to his bed at the tavern. There were stray scamps about
Jacksonville who would swear to anything. And though Zoe was a colored
girl, and notwithstanding the character of such witnesses in her behalf,
a case so composed might be troublesome. Then there was the treasure at
stake; and the hunger of lawyers and maintainers. Well, I had settled
it. None of these wolves should have a chance. Mr. Brooks scrutinized my
face with large, pensive eyes. After a silence he said: "You are the
boss; but I want you to know that the will can stand. I will guarantee
to win the case if there is one." "Can we see the farm?" I asked. "And
my father's grave?" Mr. Brooks brought up his buggy and we were off.

But first I wished to find Reverdy and give him Mrs. Spurgeon's message.
He had gone out to his little farm. He was raising a crop, having
returned from the war just in time to get it planted. It was only a
little out of our way, and we could stop there on our return.

Almost at once we came to the cemetery, a crude enclosure, fenced with
rough pickets, evidently split with the ax. Mr. Brooks led me to the
spot.

Weeds abounded everywhere. The grasshoppers were flying before our
steps. A long snake glided away from my feet as I stepped near the
yellow clay which tented the body of my father ... and Zoe's
father ... the husband of my lovely mother, so long dead. Here was the
soldier of Waterloo, the adventurer into this Far West, the man who had
died with some secret sorrow, or some sorrow for which he found no words
or no confidant. Above me was the blinding sun, before me the prairie, at
my feet this hillock of clay, where weeds had already begun to sprout.