raised in Appleboro, South Carolina, and yet
sacrificed herself by dragging out thirty years of exile in the court
circles of Vienna! Any trueborn Appleboron would be equally sorry for
Cousin Eliza for the same reason that Miss Sally Ruth was. Get
yourself born in South Carolina and you will comprehend.
"What did you see in your travels that you liked most?" I was curious
to discover from an estimable citizen who had spent a summer abroad.
"Why, General Lee's standin' statue in the Capitol an' his recumbent
figure in Washington an' Lee chapel, of co'se!" said the colonel
promptly. "An' listen hyuh, Father De Rance, I certainly needed him to
take the bad taste out of my mouth an' the red out of my eye after
viewin' Bill Sherman on a brass hawse in New York, with an angel
that'd lost the grace of God prancin' on ahead of him!" He added
reflectively: "I had my own ideah as to where any angel leadin' _him_
was most likely headed for!"
"Oh, I meant in Europe!" hastily.
"Well, father, I saw pretty near everything in Europe, I reckon;
likewise New York. But comin' home I ran up to Washington an' Lee to
visit the general lyin' there asleep, an' it just needed one glance to
assure me that the greatest an' grandest work of art in this round
world was right there before me! What do folks want to rush off to
foreign parts for, where they can't talk plain English an' a man can't
get a satisfyin' meal of home cookin', when we've got the greatest
work of art an' the best hams ever cured, right in Virginia? See
America first, I say. Why, suh, I was so glad to get back to good old
Appleboro that I let everybody else wait until I'd gone around to the
monument an' looked up at our man standin' there on top of it, an' I
found myself sayin' over the names he's guardin' as if I was sayin' my
prayers: _our names_.
"Uh huh, Europe's good enough for Europeans an' the Nawth's a God's
plenty good enough for Yankees, but Appleboro for me. Why, father,
they haven't got anything like our monument to their names!"
They haven't. And I should hate to think that any Confederate living
or dead ever even remotely resembled the gray granite one on our
monument. He is a brigandish and bearded person in a foraging cap,
leaning forward to rest himself on his gun. His long skirted coat is
buckled tightly about his waist to form a neat bustle effect in the
back, and the solidity of his granite shoes and the fell rigidity of
his granite breeches are
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