They used to sing that song when the
old men were boy soldiers marching off to the tune of "The Bonnie
Blue Flag," and the old ladies were ringleted girls in hoop-skirts
bidding them good-by.
"My dear boy," Mrs. Scarboro told him, with great feeling, "you have
been forgetting that you're a cousin of mine. Your mother and I were
girls together. I want you to meet some other old friends of hers
and your grandfather's," and she carried him off to a group of those
wonderful old ladies who grow to purest perfection in South
Carolina--low-voiced lovely old ladies, dressed in black silk, with
cameo brooches at their throats, and lace caps on their white hair.
A little group of old gentlemen immediately foregathered with them.
They knew who was and wasn't kin to Sally Hynds's son, unto the
seventh generation.
"They've begun on the begats," chuckled The Author, "First Book of
Chronicles, Chapters One to Four."
"Jelnik's really kin to them, and he ought to pay for the
privilege," said Mr. Johnson.
The Author looked at the old ladies, on whose delicate withered
hands the wedding-rings hung loosely, and at the erect old gentlemen
with white goatees, and something whimsically tender came into his
clever face.
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