He paused to look out over the waters with shining eyes.  After a bit he said slowly, “Ah neveh thought Genevieve would go—­but she did.”

“Then what?”

“Well, seh, Ah stayed on th’ place twell we moved oveh to Miss Cahline’s secon’ cousin, Mahstah Cunnel Peavey, but they wa’n’t nothin’ theah, so Ah sais t’ Miss Cahline that Ah’s goin’ Nawth wheah all th’ money is, an’ Ah send fo’ huh.  So she sais, ‘Ve’y good, Clem—­yo’ all Ah got lef t’ mah name,’ an’ so Ah come off.  Then afteh while Little Miss she git resty an’ tehible fractious an’ she go off t’ Baltimoah t’ teach in th’ young ladies’ educationals, an’ Miss Cahline she still theah waitin’ fo’ me.  Yes, seh, sh’ ain’t doin’ nothin’ but livin’ on huh secon’ cousin an’ he ain’ got nothin’—­an’ Ah lay Ah ain’t go’n’ a’ have that kind a’ doin’s.  No, seh—­a-livin’ on Cunnel Looshe Peavey.  Ah’m go’n’ a’ git huh yeh whah she kin be independent—­”

Again he stopped to see visions.

“An’ then, afteh a tehible shawt while, Ah git Little Miss fum the educationals an’ they both be independent.  Yes, seh, Ah’m gittin’ th’ money—­reglah gole money—­none a’ this yeh Vaginyah papah-rags money.  Ah ain’t stahted good when Ah come, but Ah wagah ten hund’ed thousan’ dollehs Ah finish up good!”

The last was a pointed reference to the Colonel.

“Have you seen Colonel Potts lately?” I asked.  Clem sniffed.

“Yes, seh, on that tavehn cohnah, a-settin’ on a cheer an’ a-chestin’ out his chest lahk a ole ma’ash frawg.  ’Peahs like the man ain’t got hawg sense, ack’in’ that a-way.”

A concluding sniff left it plain that Potts had been put beyond the pale of gentility by Clem.

He left me then to do his work in the kitchen—­left me back on a battle-field, lying hurt beside an officer from his land who tried weakly to stanch a wound in his side as he addressed me.

“A hot charge, sir—­but we rallied—­hear that yell from our men behind the woods.  You can’t beat us.  We needn’t be told that.  Whatever God is, he’s at least a gentleman, above practical jokes of that sort.”  He groaned as the blood oozed anew from his side, then pleaded with me to help him find the picture—­to look under him and all about on the ground.  Long I mused upon this, but at last my pipe was out, and I awoke from that troubled spot where God’s little creatures had clashed in their puny rage—­awoke to know that this was my day to wander in another world—­the dream world of children, where everything is true that ought to be true.

CHAPTER VII

“A WORLD OF FINE FABLING”