Westerfelt eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 270 pages of information about Westerfelt.

Westerfelt eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 270 pages of information about Westerfelt.

From his window he had a clear view of Mrs. Dawson’s house.  There was a group of people in their best clothes on the porch, and considerable activity about the front yard, to the fence of which a goodly number of horses and mules were hitched.  The little church, with its gray, weather-beaten spire, could also be seen farther away, on a slight elevation.  It had a fence around it, and blended with the whiteness of the fence were a few gravestones.

About eleven o’clock Westerfelt saw a negro boy climb a ladder leaning against the side of the church and creep along the edge of the roof to the open cupola and grasp the clapper of the cast-iron bell.  Then it began to toll.  The boy was an unpractised hand, and the strokes were irregular, sometimes too slow and sometimes too rapid.

It was a signal for the procession to leave the house.  Westerfelt’s eyes were glued to the one-horse wagon at the gate, for it contained the coffin, and was moving like a thing alive.  Behind it walked six men, swinging their hats in their hands.  Next followed Slogan’s rickety buggy with its threatening wheels, driven by Peter.  The bent figure of the widow in black sat beside him.  Other vehicles fell in behind, and men, women, and children on foot, carrying wild flowers, dogwood blossoms, pink and white honeysuckle, and bunches of violets, brought up the rear.

Westerfelt was just turning from the window, unable to stand the sight longer, when he saw Abner Lithicum’s new road-wagon, with its red wheels and high green bed, in which sat the five women of his family, pause at his gate.  Going out on the veranda, Westerfelt saw Abner coming up the walk, cracking his wagon-whip at the stunted rose-bushes.

“Hello!” he cried out; “I ’lowed mebby you hadn’t left yet.  It ’ll be a good half-hour ‘fore they all get thar an’ settled.  The preacher promised me this mornin’ he’d wait on me an’ my folks.  It takes my gals sech a’ eternity to fix up when they go anywhar.”

“Won’t you come in?” asked Westerfelt, coldly, seeing that Lithicum did not seem to be in any hurry to announce the object of his visit.

“Oh no, thanky’,” said Lithicum, with a broad grin; “the truth is, I clean forgot my tobacco.  I knowed you wasn’t a chawin’ man, but yore uncle is, an’ he mought have left a piece of a plug lyin’ round.  My old woman tried to git me to use her snuff as a make-shift, but lawsy me! the blamed powdery truck jest washes down my throat like leaves in a mill-race.  I never could see how women kin set an’ rub an’ rub the’r gums with it like they do.  I reckon it’s jest a sort o’ habit.”

“I’m sorry,” said Westerfelt, “but I don’t know where my uncle keeps his tobacco.”

“Well, I reckon I’ll strike some chawin’ man down at the meetin’-house.”  Lithicum stood, awkwardly cutting the air with his whip.  “Railly, thar is one thing more,” he said, haltingly.  “Lizzie ‘lowed, as thar was a’ extra seat in our wagon, you might like to come on with us.  She said she had some’n’ particular to tell you.”

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Project Gutenberg
Westerfelt from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.