AN ARKANSAS PLANTER

BY OPIE READ


Slowly and heavily the Major walked out upon the veranda. He stood upon
the steps leading down into the yard, and he saw Louise afar off
standing upon the river's yellow edge. She had thrown her hat upon the
sand, and she stood with her hands clasped upon her brown head. A wind
blew down the stream, and the water lapped at her feet. The Major looked
back into the library, at the door wherein Pennington had stood, and
sighed with relief upon finding that he was gone. He looked back toward
the river. The girl was walking along the shore, meditatively swinging
her hat. He stepped to the corner of the house, and, gazing down the
road, saw Pennington on a horse, now sitting straight, now bending low
over the horn of the saddle. The old gentleman had a habit of making a
sideward motion with his hand as if he would put all unpleasant thoughts
behind him, and now he made the motion not only once, but many times.
And it seemed that his thoughts would not obey him, for he became more
imperative in his pantomimic demand.

At one corner of the large yard, where the smooth ground broke off into
a steep slope to the river, there stood a small office built of brick.
It was the Major's executive chamber, and thither he directed his steps.
Inside this place his laugh was never heard; at the door his smile
always faded. In this commercial sanctuary were enforced the exactions
that made the plantation thrive. Outside, in the yard, in the "big
house," elsewhere under the sky, a plea of distress might moisten his
eyes and soften his heart to his own financial disadvantage, but under
the moss-grown shingles of the office all was business, hard,