Page:War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy, John Luther Long, 1913.djvu/44

WAR, mostly, like she didn't understand a joke. But when she did smile and open her red lips on her white teeth—well, that was about the sweetest soprize I've ever seen—like the clouds had parted and the sun was shining through.

Her sadness, of course, was mostly about her mother and her father—as she always called Henry. She had an idea that the Unions at Sumter had deliberately murdered him, and when she thought of that, all the loveliness seemed to go out of her, and she became hard and could do unkind things. I always knew when she was thinking of this, by the way her eyes glittered, and then there was no red in her cheeks. When she began to think of her father's murder, as she called it, I always got out of the way. I don't like trouble. I'm always for peace. Anyhow, if she was left alone, she always repented and was extra nice to us.

But, mostly, she was kind and gentle, and—like her mother, she said. Tall and easy of motion. She had a picture of her mother and 28