But first I wished to find Reverdy and give him Mrs. Spurgeon's message.
He had gone out to his little farm. He was raising a crop, having
returned from the war just in time to get it planted. It was only a
little out of our way, and we could stop there on our return.
Almost at once we came to the cemetery, a crude enclosure, fenced with
rough pickets, evidently split with the ax. Mr. Brooks led me to the
spot.
Weeds abounded everywhere. The grasshoppers were flying before our
steps. A long snake glided away from my feet as I stepped near the
yellow clay which tented the body of my father ... and Zoe's
father ... the husband of my lovely mother, so long dead. Here was the
soldier of Waterloo, the adventurer into this Far West, the man who had
died with some secret sorrow, or some sorrow for which he found no words
or no confidant. Above me was the blinding sun, before me the prairie, at
my feet this hillock of clay, where weeds had already begun to sprout.
Mr. Brooks watched me; and seeing me move he started on; and I followed
him through the broken gate to the buggy.
It was two miles to the log house which my father had built on his land.
We drove up and went in. A tenant named Engle was living here with his
wife and numerous children. Some of them crowded around us; others ran
and hid, afterwards peered around the corner, timid and wild.
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