He does
not boast so often now of being "ole Mars' Joe's man,"--sits and thinks
profoundly, till he goes to sleep. "Not of leavin' yer, Mist' Dode, I
know what free darkies is, up dar; but dar's somefin' in a fellah's
'longin' ter hisself, af'er all!" Dode only smiles at his deep
cogitations, as he weeds the garden-beds, or fodders the stock. She is a
half-Abolitionist herself, and then she knows her State will soon be
free.
So Dode, with deeper-lit eyes, and fresher rose in her cheek, stands in
the door this summer evening waiting for her husband. She cannot see him
often; he has yet the work to do which he calls just and holy. But he is
coming now. It is very quiet; she can hear her own heart beat slow and
full; the warm air holds moveless the delicate scent of the clover; the
bees hum her a drowsy good-night, as they pass; the locusts in the
lindens have just begun to sing themselves to sleep; but the glowless
crimson in the West holds her thought the longest. She loves,
understands color: it speaks to her of the Day waiting just behind this.
Her eyes fill with tears, she knows not why: her life seems rounded,
complete, wrapt in a great peace; the grave at Manassas, and that
planted with moss on the hill yonder, are in it; they only make her joy
in living more tender and holy.
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