ANDERSONVILLE VIOLETS. 
Copyrighted by the Rural New-Yorker , 
All rights reserved. 
chapter XVIII. (Continued .) 
Little Nellie was badly frightened. Her 
finger went up to her mouth, and the little 
eyes filled with tears as the brute lowered up¬ 
on her. Aunt Jinny did her best to reach the 
spot, but she was old and stiff. She hobbled 
on with a firm.clutch at her stick, and shouted 
' as best she could: 
“Letgodat chile—drop dat yo’ po’ white 
trash.” 
The man pointed his gun directly at the old 
woman. 
“Fall back nigger,” he growled, “or I’ll blow 
ye inter rags. ” 
Aunt Jinny never halted, but pushed on 
right up to the face of the gun. 
“Drop that gun, Bob Glenn, or I’ll blow the 
daylight right through yer head!” 
It was a man’s voice, sharp and clear as a 
bell. The dog-owner seemed to know it well, 
for he dropped his gun in an instant and turned 
his face savagely toward the speaker. 
Jack Foster stood in his wagon, one hand 
holdmg the reins and the other pointing a 
bright revolver. It was he that Nellie had 
seen down the road. 
“Pick up that gun and put it in my wagon,” 
said Jack sternly. “You know me,” he said, 
as the man hesitated. “I always do just what 
I say I will, and I’d just as soon shoot you as 
eat.” N 
The man sullenly picked up his weapon and 
carried it to the wagon. 
“Now clear out. If you want that gun 
again come up to my house, and if you come 
inside mv gate I’ll shoot you without warning.” 
Bob Glenn seemed to feel after this speech 
that he might just as well bid his gun a long 
farewell. He gave one last glance at it and 
then slunk into the woods like a whipped cur. 
His sting had been taken from him. He was 
no longer dangerous. 
Jack put his pistol back into his pocket, and 
got out of the wagon to speak a word to little 
Nellie. The poor little girl was crying bitter¬ 
ly. She had been badly frightened. Aunt 
Jir.ny sat on the ground holding the baby in 
her arms and rocking to and fro with her. 
“Nebber mine, lille honey,” she muttered, 
“he done gone away now, I reckon. Yo’ pappy 
he come mighty soon now, sho’ nuff.” 
“Don’t cry now little girl,” said Jack, as he 
knelt on the grass beside her. Jack had al¬ 
ways loved children, though of late years, in 
his silent and solitary life, he had seen but few 
of them. 
Little Nellie looked up at him and smiled 
through her tears. She sprang away from 
Aunt Jinny and put her arms about his neck 
and kissed him. 
“I know you,” she said eagerly. “You are 
the man who didn’t shoot my papa. I heard 
papa and mamma talk about you, and I love 
you.” 
She kissed him again, and at the touch of her 
lips Jack felt all the bitter feeling he had held 
toward John Rockwell pass from his heart. 
That kiss came into his lonely life like a beam 
of sunshine into a prisoner’s cell. He drew the 
dear little thing close to him and kissed her 
again and again until she dried her eyes and 
laughed merrily. Jack placed her on the seat 
by his side, and even helped Aunt Jinny into 
the wagon. 
They drove on and reached the gate just as 
Nellie and Sol came hurrying down from the 
house to seek for the wanderers. Nellie had 
missed the little girl shortly after she started 
from the house. Jack Foster told the story in 
a few words. He handed the little girl down 
to her mother and after a short conversation, 
gathered up his reins to drive on. Nellie no¬ 
ticed how her little girl clung to him, and it 
seemed as if his face had lost that hard, bitter 
look it had worn before. A sudden impulse 
led her to say as he reached for the reins: 
“Won’t you come up to the house for a mo¬ 
ment? Please do, for I have something I 
must say to you.” 
The little woman wondered at her boldness 
after she had spoken. The invitation pleased 
little Nellie greatly. 
“Please turn,” she said, and tried to climb 
again into the wagon. Jack hesitated a mo¬ 
ment, but the little face looking up at him was 
more than he could stand, and he dropped the 
reins again and jumped to the ground. He 
helped Nellie into the wagon and put the little 
girl at her side. Then he drove slowly up to 
the house. Aunt Jinny, poor old soul, had not 
been able to climb to the ground at all. 
Jack tied his horse to the post and then walk¬ 
ed slowly up to the piazza where he took his 
seat. Little Nellie ran at his side, and when 
he had seated himself, climbed on his knee. 
What a flood of memories swept through the 
heart of this lonely man as he looked down in 
to this sweet little face. How true he had been 
to that one woman he loved better than his 
life. How the beautiful eyes of this child 
seemed to touch his very soul, and clear away 
a great weight that had rested on his heart for 
years. * His eyes were dim with the mist of 
tenderness when the little thing put her arms 
about his neck and whispered again: “I do love 
you.” 
Nellie left Jack on the piazza and went 
straight to her own room. The thought of 
what she had done and what she was going to 
do, frightened her. She wondered what John 
would say, and yet she could not stop now. 
She unlocked her trunk, and drew from the 
very bottom a little wooden box that her 
mother had given her years before. 11 was the 
most valuable thing that Nellie owned, yet 
there was nothing in it but the long yellow curl 
that John had cut from Archie’s head, and the 
letter that had found its answer so well 
Nellie held this little box tightly in her hand 
as she walked slowly back to the piazza. How 
could she show these sacred tokens? No one 
but John had ever seen them, and yet—but for 
this man—she could not finish the thought 
She drew her chair to Jack’s side and told 
her story simply, while Jack sat with the little 
girl’s arms about his neck, and her great eyes 
looking into his very soul. She told her story 
as only such a woman can talk. She did not 
cry, but her heart was in her words. Her 
voice trembled and her lip quivered., but 
Jack, looking down through a strange blind¬ 
ness into the great eyes before him, did not 
think that she was only a poor, weak, simple 
woman. 
Nellie told her story bravely, but when it 
was finished her woman’s heart gave way, 
and she could not keep the tears from her 
eyes. Little Nellie left Jack and climbed into 
her mother’s lap. She brushed away the 
tears with her little hand, and kissed all traces 
of them from sight. Jack waited till Nellie 
had composed herself and then he handed 
back the little box. His face was strangely 
bright and his voice was gentle with tender¬ 
ness. 
“Mistress Rockwell” he said “I must thank 
you for speaking as you have to me. I have 
carried a load in my heart for years. It is 
lighter now. I have never told my people 
here why I refused to shoot your husband. I 
have lived a lonely and awful life for years. 
I knew that no one could understand why I 
did not do my duty: but I reckon you can un¬ 
derstand it, and I will tell you. 
“When I went to the war, I left a little 
woman at home—almost as sweet and tender 
as you are. I loved her then and I love her 
now a great deal better than I love my life 
I reckon I’d die for her in a minute. I’d 
been reading her letters when your brother 
died and when your husband came after the 
flowers. I couldn’t drive that little woman 
out of my mind. I couldn’t kill him for do¬ 
ing just what I would have done myself. 
“People called me a traitor—and they had a 
right to I reckon. It killed my mother, and 
my little girl has never looked at me since I 
told her I let your husband live. I couldn’t 
tell her just how it was, and I reckon she hates 
me now. I’ve lived all these years here alone. 
God knows what I’ve suffered, and yet I can’t 
bring myself to regret having spared that 
life. I am glad I did it.” 
And so Jack told his story. His head sank 
on his breast as he told of Lucy’s anger and 
his lonely life, and his eyes wandered wist¬ 
fully down the road towards the town. It 
was the first time he had spoken of his 
trouble and he hardly knew how to frame 
words for his story. Little Nellie came at 
last and climbed on to his knee again. It was 
thus that John found them as he rode home. 
Jack rose and walked down to the gate to 
meet John. He held out his hand in silence 
and John shook it heartily. Not a word was 
said about the matter, but the two men under¬ 
stood each other. Men with weaker minds 
would have stood and talked for an hour 
about it, but these two strong-hearted men 
could not find words to express what they 
felt. They knew that Nellie could explain far 
better than they ever could. 
Jack could not take supper with his new 
friends. They all understood why. They all 
needed to think and talk over the new order 
of things before they could meet as they de 
sired to. So Jack bade them good-bye. He 
kissed the little girl and gave John and Nel 
lie a great hand-clasp, and then rode away 
down the road through the twilight. His 
heart was lighter than it had been for years 
before. It was filled with a strange tender 
ness too. Somehow, there seemed to be a 
hope for him at last. Of course, Nellie told 
John the whole story. John seemed very 
thoughtful that night as they stood watching 
the sleeping baby. 
“What are you thinking about John,” she 
asked as she reached up to pull his face down 
so that she could look into his eyes. 
“I was thinking how much better you are 
than anybody else in the world,” said John 
honestly. 
Then it was Nellie’s turn to be thoughtful 
and John had to ask her the same question. 
“I was wishing that we might do more for 
him ” she answered. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
Life seemed pleasanter to John and Nellie 
after the talk with Jack Foster. They had 
felt before that he hated them, and now that 
they knew his story and how much he had suf¬ 
fered they longed to offer their sympathy and 
help. They could understand his position ex¬ 
actly. 
“Suppose you hqd been a traitor, John; or 
suppose I thought you had been,” said Nellie 
as they were speaking of Jack’s case one night 
“Well, would you have married me? asked 
John. 
“No indeed.” said Nellie stoutly. 
“But would you have stopped loving me?” 
and John caught his wife’s face in both his 
hands and held it where she could not look 
away from him. 
She looked up at him almost sadly as she 
answered slowly; “I don’t think I could have 
stopped loving you, John, though I never 
would have let you know it. I don’t think a 
woman ever can drive love out of her heart as 
a man can. She must stay at home and keep 
it in her heart.” 
It was some time befcre Jack Foster came to 
the plantation again. He seemed to realize 
that his friendship would help the new people 
but little, and perhaps the sight of the happi¬ 
ness of John and Nellie made him think of 
what might have been his own. 
At last John, at Nellie’s suggestion, found 
an errand that took him over to Jack’s plan¬ 
tation. Both men understood all about this 
errand. Its object was hardly mentioned after 
the conversation opened. The two men talk¬ 
ed long and earnestly, and the visit was ended 
by Jack’s coming back to look at John’s stock 
and improvements. They walked about the 
place discussing agriculture and politics. It 
seemed now as if they had known each other 
for years. They were surprised to find how 
much they had in common when they were 
once brought into anything like confidential 
relations. Nellie would not hear of Jack’s 
going home before supper, so he stayed until 
after dark. They all sat on the piazza and 
talked. It was the merriest time Jack had 
known for years. 
After this Jack came to the plantation quite 
frequently, often making errands astranspar- 
ent as John’s first one had been. He seemed 
to enjoy talking politics with John, though 
there were few points upon which they could 
agree. He was never tired of holding the little 
girl, and it seemed impossible for him to go to 
town without bringing her back a present of 
some kind. 
In all their talks John and he never discussed 
their first awful meeting. It seemed to be un¬ 
derstood between them that this topic should 
not be mentioned. They spoke of the war, of 
the various battles in which they had fought, 
of reconstruction and its results, but not a word 
was ever said of the day when John walked up 
to the dead line and the musket dropped. 
J ack Foster was about the only friend that the 
New England people could find. There were 
plenty of people in the town who treated John 
civilly and were glad to trade with him, but 
it always seemed as if there was a feeling of 
distrust behind it all. No one invited him 
home or asked him to bring his family to call. 
Their manner gave him to understand that he 
was on trial and that he must prove his hones¬ 
ty and respectability before they could take 
him into their families. There seemed to be 
something—he could not tell what it was—be¬ 
tween himself and the rest of the people. He 
was to find that this feeling would in time wear 
away, to a certain extent, yet he never could 
feel as he had felt with his neighbors at home. 
No one came to call upon Nellie for a long 
time. A number of men came to look over 
the plantation and see what John was doing 
with it. They seemed like sensible, practical 
men. There was a very noticeable lack of en¬ 
ergy about most of them, and a tendency to 
make great schemes rather than to suggest 
any practical way of working such plans out. 
Some of these visitors were ready to admit 
that farmers were raising too much cotton and 
too little corn and meat, yet they were, every 
one of them, doing this very thing. They 
seemed to understand that a change must be 
made, yet they had neither the patience nor 
the energy to go through the slow process of 
development. They looked over John’s plan¬ 
tation carefully, examined the stock, looked 
at the new barn and all the genuine Yankee 
contrivances that John was building, and 
noted the great preparations that John had 
made for pasturage and the grass crop. Some 
laughed outright at what they called John’s 
foolishness. 
“Cotton is the only thing you can raise 
here,” they said. “You’ll ruin yourself in 
two years and then go back and curse this 
country.” 
Others concealed their ridicule or doubt be¬ 
hind a stolid face; they went away and told 
others of the Yankee’s foolishness and sure fail¬ 
ure. There were still others who frankly ad¬ 
mitted that John was right in his ideas of 
farming. They shook their heads sadly, how¬ 
ever, as they'said : 
“You all kin do these things but I don’t 
reckon we ever kin. We’re lazy, I reckon, 
by nature. You all will git lazy before you've 
ben here five years, an’ then you kin see how 
it is with us.” 
And John, not knowing what laziness 
meant, and not appreciating what lives these 
men had lived, would justly set his neighbors 
down as being the most shiftless and indo¬ 
lent set of men he had ever seen. In New 
England the lazy man of the community was 
so rare that he was picked out to serve as a 
terrible example for the boys and girls. Here 
| the energetic men were as solitary as were the 
lazy brothers in Breezetown. 
If there was a lack of agreeable society, 
there were many things about the new life 
that John and Nellie enjoyed. The weather 
all through the autumn was beautiful. In¬ 
stead of the early frosts and cold nights of 
New England, there was a succession of beau¬ 
tiful sunny days, and nights so pleasant that 
they could sit upon the piazza long after sup¬ 
per. The days seemed longer too, and John 
was able to push his work with all speed. 
The splendid agricultural advantages of the 
country became more and more apparent to 
John the longer he studied ithem. He could 
not understand how men could have neglected 
the land so long. 
Jack Foster’s plantation was about as badly 
run down as any of them. Jack had but lit¬ 
tle ambition to improve his place. He had 
been satisfied to “make a living.” After 
talking with John, however, he really went 
to work with some sort of system. He bought 
stock and did his best to imitate John’s meth¬ 
ods of work. 
Jack had given up all hope of speaking to 
Lucy again, and he hardly knew why he was 
anxious to improve his place. But it is cer¬ 
tain that after every visit at John’s house and 
every talk with Nellie, he went back home 
with some new plan for work. If the rest of 
his neighbors had looked upon him different¬ 
ly, no doubt he would have joined the major¬ 
ity of them in saying that John’s system 
might do for a Yankee, but that it never 
would work at the South. His neighbors did 
not trust him and he knew it. John was the 
first man with whom he had talked confiden¬ 
tially since the war. The two men were placed 
in such a peculiar position that they developed 
their frendship and grew towards each othe 
more and more. 
Whenever Nellie went to town, she did her 
best to get a glimpse of Lucy. She saw her 
whenever they went to church, for Lucy was 
sure to be there. It made Nellie’s heart ache 
to see poor Jack Foster watch Lucy as she 
sat in church. Lucy seemed pale and ill. 
There were deep lines of suffering on her face, 
and she had lost most of her beauty. She 
never looked at Jack, but sat cold and stern, 
only when at the last prayer she knelt with 
hex face in her hands. Nellie learned more of 
her story as time went by. Her mother had 
died a few years after the war. She lived 
now with an old aunt in the house where 
Jack had met his doom. Jack pointed out the 
place to Nellie one day. He had lived so near 
it for years, and yet he had never dared to 
enter since that morning when Lucy’s scorn 
had driven him away. Nellie wondered what 
she could do to soften that proud heart. She 
seemed powerless. There appeared to be no 
tenderness in that stern face and yet Nellie 
could not help feeling how she would have 
felt had she been placed in like circumstances, 
and been told the true story. She longed for a 
chance to talk to Lucy and tell her what she 
had told Jack. 
It was a great mystery to John at first how 
farmers had so much time to sit about the 
stores in the town, He found them there on 
all occasions when he knew there must be 
work to be done at home. Seated on com¬ 
fortable chairs, smoking their unfailiug pipes 
or chewing tobacco, they all seemed to take 
life as a remarkably pleasant dream. He 
could not understand how these men ever 
made a living. With him, a “living” had 
always stood as the representative of a num¬ 
ber of hard days’ work. The lazy men at 
home were generally paupers. Here, they 
seemed to be leading citizens. One of these 
stationary farmers said to him one day: “I 
reckon I kin make mo’ money right yer in 
my chair, than I kin out on ary farm in this 
country.” 
(To be Continued.) 
