her elbows waggled to the mare's jog, and her voice was as flat as a
duck's. Her nag had trouble to keep up, and her tiny faded bonnet had
even more to keep on. Yet the day was near when the touch of those
freckled hands was to seem to me kinder than the breath of flowers, as
they bathed my foul-smelling wounds, and she would say, in the words of
the old song, "Let me kiss him for his mother," and I should be helpless
to prevent her. By and by the man raised his voice:--

"Why, yo' name _is_ Smith, to be sho'! I thought you was jest a-tryin'
to chaw me. Why, Major Harper alludened to you not mo'n a half-ow ago.
Why, Miz Wall! oh, Miz Wall!"

But the wife was absorbed. "Yayse, seh," she was saying to the
lieutenant, "and he told us about they comin' in on the freight-kyahs
f'om Hazlehurst black with dust and sut and a-smuttyin' him all oveh
with they kisses and goin's-on. He tol' me he ain't neveh so enjoyed
havin' his face dirty sence he was a boy. He would a-been plumb happy,
ef on'y he could a-got his haynds on that clerk o' his'n. And when he
tol' us what a gay two-hoss turn-out he'd sekyo'ed for the ladies to
travel in, s' I, Majo', that's all right! You jest go on whicheveh way
you got to go! Husband and me, we'll ride into Brookhaven and bring 'em
out to ow place and jest take ca'e of 'em untel yo' clerk is _found_."

"Miz Wall!" cried the husband--"She's busy talkin'.--Miz Wall!--she
don't hyuh me. I hate to interrupt heh.--Oh, Miz Wall! hyuh's Majo'
Harper's clerk, right now!"

"Law, you hain't!" cried Mrs. Wall, smiling back as she jounced. "If you
air, the Majo's sisteh's got written awdehs fo' you."