Page:Chandler Harris--The chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann.djvu/103

 to a boarding-place, or to some private house. The members of the committee had a duty to perform, and they performed it with an energy and a thoroughness that was amazing if not altogether satisfactory. As I remember, this vigorous body was called the Committee on Public Comfort, and most heroically did it live up to its name and its duties.

These things I learned by observation and not by experience, for before the train on which I was a passenger had cleared the suburbs of Atlanta, I caught a glimpse of Major Tumlin Perdue, who had long been a prominent citizen of Halcyondale. He had changed but little during the ten years. His hair was whiter, and he was a trifle thinner, but his complexion was still rosy and his manners as buoyant as ever. I doubted whether he would know me again, though he had been very friendly with me in the old days, seeming to know by instinct just when and how to drop a word of encouragement and appreciation, and so I forbore to renew the acquaintance. The Major could be boisterous enough in those times when in the humor, but when at his best he had more ways like those of a woman (and a noble and tender-hearted woman at that) than any man I had ever known. He had a woman's tact, intuition, and sympathy; and these