The
lesson had been well learned, for throughout the course of his life
the colonel had never shirked responsibility, but had made the
performance of duty his criterion of conduct. To him the line of least
resistance had always seemed the refuge of the coward and the
weakling. With the twenty years preceding his return to Clarendon,
this story has nothing to do; but upon the quiet background of his
business career he had lived an active intellectual and emotional
life, and had developed into one of those rare natures of whom it may
be truly said that they are men, and that they count nothing of what
is human foreign to themselves.
But the serenity of Peter's retrospect was unmarred by any passing
cloud. Those who dwell in darkness find it easier to remember the
bright places in their lives.
"Yas, suh, yas, suh, dem watermillions," he repeated with unction, "I
kin tas'e 'em now! Dey wuz de be's watermillions dat evuh growed,
suh--dey doan raise none lack 'em dese days no mo'. An' den dem
chinquapin bushes down by de swamp! 'Member dem chinquapin bushes,
whar we killt dat water moccasin dat day? He wuz 'bout ten foot
long!"
"Yes, Peter, he was a whopper! Then there were the bullace vines, in
the woods beyond the tanyard!"
"Sho' 'nuff, suh! an' de minnows we use' ter ketch in de creek, an'
dem perch in de mill pon'?"
For years the colonel had belonged to a fishing club, which preserved
an ice-cold stream in a Northern forest.
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