Mason."
Dick concluded that it was useless to ask any more questions just yet,
and he, Warner and the sergeant, dismounting and leading their horses,
walked toward the house with Jarvis and Ike. Jarvis, who seemed
singularly cheerful, lifted up his voice and sang:
Thou wilt come no more, gentle Annie,
Like a flower, thy spirit did depart,
Thou art gone, alas! like the many
That have bloomed in the summer of my heart.
Shall we never more behold thee?
Never hear thy winning voice again?
When the spring time comes, gentle Annie?
When the wild flowers are scattered o'er the plain?
It seemed to Dick that the man sang spontaneously, and the deep, mellow
voice always came back in faint and dying echoes that moved him in a
singular manner. All at once the war with its passions and carnage
floated away. Here was a little valley fenced in from the battle-world
in which he had been living. He breathed deeply and as the eyes of
Jarvis caught his a sympathetic glance passed between them.
"Yes," said Jarvis, as if he understood completely, "the war goes around
us. There is nothing to fight about here. But come into the house.
This is my sister, the mother of that lunkhead, Ike, and here is my
grandmother."
He paused before the bent figure of an old, old woman, sitting in a
rocking chair beside the chimney, beside which a fire glowed and blazed.
Her chin rested on one hand, and she was staring into the coals.
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