“That’s a new word Nettie got up No’th,” said her Aunt Rachel. “Tell me, dears: Have they treated you right, here at the hotel?”
The girls assured her that the management had been very kind to them. Then the question was asked: What had they done to kill time?
Helen rattled off a dozen things she and Ruth had dabbled in that afternoon—or, “evening” as the Virginians say; but it was Ruth who mentioned their ride in the rain with old Unc’ Simmy.
“To the gatehouse? Where is that?” asked Aunt Rachel, lazily.
Between bursts of laughter Helen tried to tell her about the queer old negro and his dilapidated turnout; but it was Ruth who softly explained to Mrs. Parsons about Miss Catalpa and the faithful old darkey’s relations to her.
“Grogan?” repeated the lady. “Yes, yes, I remember the name. Who doesn’t? Major Grogan, her father, was a famous leader in the Lost Cause. Oh, dear me, Ruthie! We are still so poor in the South that the family of many a hero has come down to want. Catalpa Grogan? And you say she is blind?”
“She said we might come again and see her before we left the Point,” suggested Ruth, gently.
Mrs. Rachel Parsons looked at her understandingly. “Quite right, my dear. We _will_ go. I will find out about this lawyer, Colonel Wilder, and he can probably tell me all we need to know. She and the old negro shall be helped—that is the least we can do.”
So, the next morning, all in the glorious sunshine that is usually the weather condition at Old Point Comfort, the party climbed into Unc’ Simmy’s old barouche and set out on the drive. Mrs. Parsons accepted the dilapidated turnout as quite a matter of course.
“Don’t fret about _me_, girls,” she said, when Helen said that they should have taken a different equipage.
Ruth had already begun to get the “slant” of the Southern mind. The Southerners respected themselves, and were inordinately proud of their name and blood; but they could cheerfully go without many of the conveniences of life which Northerners would consider a distinct privation. Poverty among them was no disgrace; rather, it was to be expected. They cheerfully made the best of it, and enjoyed what good things they had without allowing caviling care to corrode their pleasure.