(epilogue — twenty-five years later)
i
twenty-five years had passed since mrs. blake took her mother’s slave girl across the potomac. the civil war, which came on so soon after nancy ran away, was long gone by when back creek folks saw the yellow girl again.
in all that time the country between romney and winchester had changed very little. the same families were living on their old places. there were new people at the colbert mill, of course, and several new brick houses with ambitious porticos now stood on the turnpike between winchester and timber ridge. but the wooden foot-bridge over back creek hung just as it did in the colberts’ time, a curious “suspension” bridge, without piles, swung from the far-reaching white limb of a great sycamore that grew on the bank and leaned over the stream. mrs. bywaters, though now an old woman, was still the postmistress. she had not been removed in the “carpetbag” period, when so many questionable government appointments were made. during the war years, when federal troops were marching up and down the valley, her well-known northern sympathies stood the confederate soldiers in good stead. when they were home on leave, they could always hide from search parties in her rambling garrets. her house was exempt from search.
the war made few enmities in the country neighbourhoods. when willie gordon, a rebel boy from hayfield, was wounded in the battle of bull run, it was mr. cartmell, mrs. bywaters’s father, who went after him in his hay-wagon, got through the federal lines, and brought him home. while the boy lay dying from gangrene in a shattered leg (doctor brush never attempted an amputation, and doctor clavenger was far away on lee’s staff), the hayfield people, regardless of political differences, came in relays, night and day, and did the only thing that relieved his pain a little: they carried cold water from the springhouse and with a tin cup poured it steadily over his leg for hours at a time.
mr. whitford’s son enlisted in the northern army, as his father’s son might be expected to do. his nearest neighbour, mr. jeffers, had a son in ashby’s cavalry. the fathers remained friends, worked their bordering fields, and talked to each other across the rail fence as they had always done. both men admired young turner ashby of fauquier county, who held the confederate line from berkeley springs to harpers ferry, — so near home that word of his brilliant cavalry exploits came out to back creek with the stage-driver. the war news from distant places came slowly, sometimes long after the event, but stonewall jackson and ashby, both operating in frederick county, gave people plenty to talk about.
ashby fell in the second year of the war, shot through the heart after his horse had been killed under him, leading a victorious charge near harrisonburg, on the sixth day of june. even today, if you should be motoring through winchester on the sixth of june, and should stop to see the confederate cemetery, you would probably find fresh flowers on ashby’s grave. he was all that the old-time virginians admired: like paris handsome and like hector brave. and he died young. “shortlived and glorious,” the old virginians used to say.
after lee’s surrender, the country boys from back creek and timber ridge came home to their farms and set to work to reclaim their neglected fields. the land was still there, but few horses were left to work it with. in the movement of troops to and fro between romney and winchester, all the livestock had been carried away. even the cocks and hens had been snapped up by the foragers.
the rebel soldiers who came back were tired, discouraged, but not humiliated or embittered by failure. the country people accepted the defeat of the confederacy with dignity, as they accepted death when it came to their families. defeat was not new to those men. almost every season brought defeat of some kind to the farming people. their cornfields, planted by hand and cultivated with the hoe, were beaten down by hail, or the wheat was burned up by drouth, or cholera broke out among the pigs. the soil was none too fertile, and the methods of farming were not very good.
the back creek boys were glad to be at home again; to see the sun come up over one familiar hill and go down over another. now they could mend the barn roof where it leaked, help the old woman with her garden, and keep the wood-pile high. they had gone out to fight for their home state, had done their best, and now it was over. they still wore their army overcoats in winter, because they had no others, and they worked the fields in whatever rags were left of their uniforms. the day of confederate reunions and veterans’ dinners was then far distant.
when nancy came back after so many years, though the outward scene was little changed, she came back to a different world. the young men of 1856 were beginning to grow grey, and the children who went to david fairhead’s basement school were now married and had children of their own.
this new generation was gayer and more carefree than their forbears, perhaps because they had fewer traditions to live up to. the war had done away with many of the old distinctions. the young couples were poor and extravagant and jolly. they were much given to picnics and camp-meetings in summer, sleighing parties and dancing parties in the winter. every ambitious young farmer kept a smart buggy and a double carriage, but these were used for sunday church-going and trips to winchester and capon springs. the saddle-horse was still the usual means of getting about the neighbourhood. the women made social calls, went to the post office and the dressmaker, on horseback. a handsome woman (or a pretty girl) on a fine horse was a charming figure to meet on the road; the close-fitting riding-habit with long skirt, the little hat with the long plume. cavalry veterans rose in the stirrup to salute her as she flashed by.
