Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/364

346 contemptuously of Colonel Chamberlin and his daughter, and of the effect on Marse Chan s face of the letter of reconciliation and love he received from Miss Anne,—brings the vivid narrative to Marse Chan's splendid charge on the field at the head of the regiment, carrying its fallen flag up the hill, and inspiring it by his dauntless leadership. "I seen 'im when he went, de sorrel four good lengths ahead o' ev'ry urr hoss, jes' like he use' to be in a fox-hunt, an' de whole rigimint right arfter him." But suddenly the sorrel came galloping back, the rein hanging down on one side to his knee,—and poor Sam knew that Marse Chan was killed. He found his master among the dead, still holding in his hand the flag. "I tu'n 'im over an' call 'im, 'Marse Chan!' but 't wan' no use, he wuz done gone home, sho' 'nuff. I pick 'im up in my arms wid de fleg still in he han's, an' toted 'im back jes' like I did dat day when he wuz a baby, an' ole marster gin 'im to me in my arms, an' sez he could trus' me, an' tell me to tek keer on 'im long ez he lived."

And when Sam reached home with the body in the ambulance and had gone over to let Miss Anne know the awful news that "Marse Chan he done got he furlough," and she had ridden back and prostrated herself before Marse Chan's old mother, there is the close of the tragic story as told by the old negro in these words:

"Ole missis stood for bout a minit lookin' down at her, an' den she drapt down on de flo' by her, an' took her in bofe her arms.

"I could n' see, I wuz cryin' so myse'f, an' ev'ybody wuz cryin'. But dey went in arfter a while in de parlor, an' shet de do'; an' I heahd 'em say, Miss Anne she tuk de coffin in her arms an' kissed it, an' kissed Marse Chan, an' call 'im by his name, an' her darlin', an' ole missis lef' her cryin' in dyar tell some one on 'em went in, an' found her done faint on de flo'." And it was not long before Miss Anne, broken by nursing in the hospitals and by fever and sorrow, was laid beside the body of Marse Chan.