Gabriel Tolliver A Story of Reconstruction

Excerpt

Prelude

"Cephas! here is a letter for you, and it is from Shady Dale! I know you will be happy now."

For several years Sophia had listened calmly to my glowing descriptions of Shady Dale and the people there. She was patient, but I could see by the way she sometimes raised her eyebrows that she was a trifle suspicious of my judgment, and that she thought my opinions were unduly coloured by my feelings. Once she went so far as to suggest that I was all the time looking at the home people through the eyes of boyhood—eyes that do not always see accurately. She had said, moreover, that if I were to return to Shady Dale, I would find that the friends of my boyhood were in no way different from the people I meet every day. This was absurd, of course—or, rather, it would have been absurd for any one else to make the suggestion; for at that particular time, Sophia was a trifle jealous of Shady Dale and its people. Nevertheless, she was really patient. You know how exasperating a man can be when he has a hobby. Well, my hobby was Shady Dale, and I was not ashamed of it. The man or woman who cannot display as much of the homing instinct as a cat or a pigeon is a creature to be pitied or despised. Sophia herself was a tramp, as she often said. She was born in a little suburban town in New York State, but never lived there long enough to know what home was. She went to Albany, then to Canada, and finally to Georgia; so that the only real home she ever knew is the one she made herself—out of the raw material, as one might say.

Well, she came running with the letter, for she is still active, though a little past the prime of her youth. I returned the missive to her with a faint show of dignity. "The letter is for you," I said. She looked at the address more carefully, and agreed with me. "What in the world have I done," she remarked, "to receive a letter from Shady Dale?"

"Why, it is the simplest thing in the world," I replied. "You have been fortunate enough to marry me."

"Oh, I see!" she cried, dropping me a little curtsey; "and I thank you kindly!"

The letter was from an old friend of mine—a school-mate—and it was an invitation to Sophia, begging her to take a day off, as the saying is, and spend it in Shady Dale.

"Your children," the letter said, "will be glad to visit their father's old home, and I doubt not we can make it interesting for the wife." The letter closed with some prettily turned compliments which rather caught Sophia. But her suspicions were still in full play.

"I know the invitation is sent on your account, and not on mine," she said, holding the letter at arm's length.

"Well, why not? If my old friend loves me well enough to be anxious to give my wife and children pleasure, what is there wrong about that?"

"Oh, nothing," replied Sophia. "I've a great mind to go."

"If you do, my dear, you will make a number of people happy—yourself and the children, and many of my old friends."

"He declares," said Sophia, "that he writes at the request of his wife....