I began searching for her along the creek in the secluded
nooks which abounded, and at last I heard her voice.
I was startled. To whom could she be speaking? I would have nobody
about, now. I would show him, whoever he was! This grove was mine as
long as I wanted to stay there with my girl. The blood rose to my head
as I went quietly forward until I could see Virginia.
She was alone! She had taken a blanket from the wagon and spread it on
the ground upon the grass under a spreading elm, and scattered about on
it were articles of clothing which she had taken from her satchel--that
satchel to which the poor child had clung so tightly while she had come
to my camp across the prairie on the Ridge Road that night--which now
seemed so long ago. There was a dress on which she had been sewing; for
the needle was stuck in the blanket with the thread still in the
garment; but she was not working. She had in her lap as she sat
cross-legged on the blanket, a little wax doll to which she was babbling
and talking as little girls do. She had taken off its dress, and was
carefully wiping its face, telling it to shut its eyes, saying that
mama wouldn't hurt it, asking it if she wasn't a bad mama to keep it
shut up all the time in that dark satchel, asking it if it wasn't afraid
in the dark, assuring it that mama wouldn't let anybody hurt it--and all
this in the sweetest sort of baby-talk. And then she put its dress on,
gently smoothed its hair, held it for a while against her bosom as she
swayed from side to side telling it to go to sleep, hummed gently a
cradle song, and put it back in the satchel as a mother might put her
sleeping baby in its cradle.
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