So Chunk was reinstated in his granny’s cabin and given a share in all he could raise and secure of the crops.  The negro was as shrewd as Jacob of old, but like the Hebrew patriarch could do much under the inspiration of his twofold affection for Zany and his young mistress.

And so the summer and early fall wore away.  The railroad line of communication was maintained, and upon it drifted away Mr. Baron’s former slaves and the great majority of the others in the neighborhood.  The region in which the plantation was situated was so remote and sparsely settled that it was a sort of border land, unclaimed and unvisited by any considerable bodies from either party.  Rev. Dr. Williams’ congregation had shrunken to a handful.  He officiated at one end of the church, and his plump, black-eyed daughter led the singing at the other, but it was observed that she looked discontented rather than devotional.  She was keenly alive to the fact that there was not an eligible man left in the parish.  Uncle Lusthah patiently drove the mules every clear Sunday morning and Mr. and Mrs. Baron sat in the carriage whose springs Aun’ Suke had sorely tried; but Miss Lou would not go with them.  After his readiness to marry her to her cousin she felt it would be worse than mockery to listen to Dr. Williams again.

But a deep, yet morbid spiritual change was taking place in the girl.  As of old, she thought and brooded when her hands were busy, and during her long, solitary evenings on the piazza.  Strange to say, she was drawing much of her inspiration from a grave—­the grave of a rough, profane soldier whom she knew only as “Yarry.”  There was something in his self-forgetful effort in her behalf, even when in the mortal anguish of death, which appealed to her most powerfully.  His heroism, expecting, hoping for no reward, became the finest thing in her estimation she had ever witnessed.  Her own love taught her why Scoville was attracted by her and became ready to do anything for her.  “That’s the old, old story,” she mused, “ever sweet and new, yet old as the world.  Poor Yarry was actuated by a purely unselfish, noble impulse.  Only such an impulse can sustain and carry me through my life.  No, no, Mrs. Waldo, I can never become happy in making others happy.  I can never be happy again.  The bullet which killed Allan Scoville pierced my heart also and it is dead, but that poor soldier taught me how one can still live and suffer nobly, and such a life must be pleasing to the only God I can worship.”  All wondered at the change gradually taking place in the girl.  It was too resolute, too much the offspring of her will rather than her heart to have in it much gentleness, but it was observed that she was becoming gravely and patiently considerate of others, even of their faults and follies.  As far as possible, her uncle and aunt were allowed their own way without protest, the girl sacrificing her own feelings and wishes when it was possible.  They at last began to admit that their niece was manifesting a, becoming spirit of submission and deference, when in fact her management of their affairs was saving them from an impoverishment scarcely to be endured.