"'I've lost my niggah and my instruments, Sam,' says the doctah,
'but that's no reason why the damyankees should have the
satisfaction of killin' a puffeckly good rebel, when there's not
enough to go around now. Hold your leg still,' says he, rollin' up
his sleeves, 'an' with the help of God and my scissahs and my
shirt-tail, I'll save it for you.' An' he did. I walked home from
Appomattox on that same leg, suh," said the veteran, and brought his
stick down on the toes of it with a force that made him utter a
muffled bellow.
The other, still nursing an outraged elbow, smiled sweetly.
"Thanks, Sam," he drawled.
The Author chuckled appreciatively. "And to think we Americans rush
abroad, when the republic of South Carolina is right next-door to
us!" he murmured.
A gentle change was creeping over Hynds House, perhaps because of
the delightful old ladies who had begun to come there. Old
gentlemen, too, formed the pleasant habit of dropping in, beguiled
by the artful Author, waited upon son-like by his secretary,
foregathered with as kith and kin by the Englishman, mint-juleped by
the three of them, enchanted by Alicia, and teaed and caked and
beloved by me.
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