When summer came, notes from a well-played piano floated from the open windows of Mrs. Swift’s house, and no matter what classic composition Mrs. Wallace might begin with, she always closed her playing with “In the Hazel Dell,” because that had been the favorite song of the young Northern soldier, and his mother loved to hear the simple, old air for his dear sake.
Winter came, and the two trunks and the picture had not been removed. The neighbors had fallen into a sort of torpor. Then, one day, one rushed to the others, declaring: “They call each other by their first names! Yes, Mrs. Swift said: ‘Marion, there must be double windows for your room this winter!’ and that Southern woman answers up: ‘Oh, no, Martha, that’s not necessary!’ What do you think of that?” Evidently there was no use in watching the house, after that, for the departure of the Southern woman.
During the long winter evenings, this elderly couple used to talk unceasingly of the war, and they would tell one another of this or that engagement, illustrating the positions of the troops with spools of thread, the scissors always coming handy for streams that had to be crossed. Then Mrs. Swift never tired of hearing what the war had meant to the women of the South. She wept over the burned houses, the looted property, the hunger, the make-shift for clothing, and would draw her rocker closer to Mrs. Wallace, as she told how the last precious ounces of real coffee had been hidden--as people hide gold or jewels--only to be brought forth in tiny portions for a sick or wounded soldier--told how she had cut up old garments of her husband’s to make herself shoes, and had worn skirts made from her sitting-room curtains!
When spring came again, and Decoration Day arrived, Mrs. Wallace felt that Mrs. Swift, for the first time, showed a lack of tact--of proper feeling--in insisting upon having her accompany her to the cemetery that day. It would be very painful to see the graves, all flower-covered, and to think of her own dear, unhonored dead, lying so far away. This insistence was so unlike Mrs. Swift’s usual manner, too! Well, she must bear it! and so she entered the carriage, with a heavy heart, to drive to the cemetery, and wondered a little why Mrs. Swift had two great wreaths, instead of one, to lay upon the grave.