The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Run To Seed", by Thomas Nelson Page

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Title: "Run To Seed"
1891

Author: Thomas Nelson Page

Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23015]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "RUN TO SEED" ***

Produced by David Widger

"RUN TO SEED."

By Thomas Nelson Page

1891

I.

Jim's father died at Gettysburg; up against the Stone Fence; went to
heaven in a chariot of fire on that fateful day when the issue between
the two parts of the country was decided: when the slaughter on the
Confe'd-erate side was such that after the battle a lieutenant was in
charge of a regiment, and a major commanded a brigade.

This fact was much to Jim, though no one knew it: it tempered his mind:
ruled his life. He never remembered the time when he did not know the
story his mother, in her worn black dress and with her pale face, used
to tell him of the bullet-dented sword and faded red sash which hung on
the chamber wall.

They were the poorest people in the neighborhood. Everybody was poor;
for the county lay in the track of the armies, and the war had swept
the country as clean as a floor. But the Uptons were the poorest even
in that community. Others recuperated, pulled themselves together, and
began after a time to get up. The Uptons got flatter than they were
before. The fences (the few that were left) rotted; the fields grew up
in sassafras and pines; the barns blew down; the houses decayed; the
ditches filled; the chills came.

"They're the shiftlesses' people in the worl'," said Mrs. Wagoner with a
shade of asperity in her voice (or was it satisfaction?). Mrs. Wagoner's
husband had been in a bombproof during the war, when Jim Upton (Jim's
father) was with his company. He had managed to keep his teams from the
quartermasters, and had turned up after the war the richest man in the
neighborhood. He lived on old Colonel Duval's place, which he had bought
for Confederate money.

"They're the shiftlesses' people in the worl'," said Mrs. Wagoner. "Mrs.
Upton ain't got any spirit: she jus' sets still and cries her eyes out."

This was true, every word of it.