I cried for my mother, and for joy at being able
to think of her again, and for guilt, and with such a mingling of
feeling that finally I started to rush off into the darkness--but
Virginia clung to me and wiped away my tears and would not let me go.
She said she was afraid to be left alone, and wanted me with her--and
that I was a good boy. She didn't wonder that my mother wanted to work
for me--it must have been almost the only comfort she had.
"If she had only lived," I said, "so I could have made a home for her!"
"She knows all about that," said Virginia; "and when she sees you making
a home for some one else, how happy it will make her!"
Virginia was the older of the two, now, the utterer of words of comfort;
and I was the child. The moon rose late, but before we retired it
flooded the grove with light. The wolves howled on the prairie, and the
screech-owls cried pitifully in the grove; but I was happy. I told
Virginia that we must break camp in the morning and move on. I must get
to my land, and begin making that home. She sighed; but she did not
protest. She would always remember this sojourn in the grove, she said;
she had felt so safe! She hardly knew what she would do when we reached
the next settlement; but she must think out some way to get back to
Kentucky. When the time came for her to retire, I carried her to the
wagon and lifted her in--and then went to my own bed to sleep the first
sound sweet sleep I had enjoyed for days.
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