"'Tisn't so, sister, 'tisn't so! Don't you believe him!" said my little brother, catching my dress and shaking it. Then running to the window in his excitement, he called out:
"Hush, sir; hush! hush this minute, hallooing your big stories out loud and scaring everybody to death. I'd like to stick those five forks through your old black gizzard, for you haven't got any heart, I know. Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you good-for-nothing old scalawag, you! There ain't a word of truth in brother George being killed, and you know it, you old thing! I'll go down and smash his mouth for him and kick him to death for scaring you so, my poor sister, 'deed I would; but it isn't so, my sister. You trust in the Lord. I know brother George is not killed, for he said he wouldn't get killed."
"No, it is not so. You are right, my darling. Your brother George is not killed," I said. "Yes, he will come back! he will come back! He said he would, and he will."
Thus I spoke and believed, for my Soldier had never broken a promise. The days came and the days went and the sun rose each morning with an auroral glow of hope in its golden heart. When twilight drifted out from the forest shadows, the sun went down in a sea of crimson fire that burned out my dream of happiness. Then night fell and the world and my heart were wrapped in darkness.
One morning I had mechanically dressed baby George and had taken him to the window to hear the spring sounds and breathe the spring balm and catch the sunshine's dripping gold wreathing the top of the quivering blossoms of the magnolia and tulip-trees.
It was the time when the orchestra of the year is in perfect accord, when all the world is vocal, when the birds sing of love, the buds and blossoms of joy, the grains and grasses of hope and faith, and when each rustle of wind makes a chime of vital resonance.
Through the quiver and curl of leaves and perfume of flowers and soft undertone of dawn-winds came the words, "Whoa, Lucy; whoa, little girl!"
Oh, those tones, those words, that voice thrilled my heart so that I wonder it did not burst from very gladness! Such joy, such gratitude as flooded my soul only the Giver of all good can know! All the privation and starvation and blood-stains of the past four years, all the woes and trials, griefs and fears, of those last dreadful days were swept away by those blessed, precious-words, "Whoa, Lucy!" spoken in my husband's tender tones to his horse.