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Cranceford old Billy's letter." "Won't it alarm her?" the Englishman asked. "Oh, not in the least," the Major answered, and old Gid smiled. "You couldn't scare her with a bell-mouth blunderbuss," he declared. The Major now had reached the door, but turning back he said: "You gentlemen better sleep here to-night." In a state of apparent alarm the Englishman sprang to his feet. "My bath," he cried.
Cranceford returned home early in the afternoon, she told the Major, whom she found pacing up and down the long porch, that Pennington was up and walking about the house. She told him, also, that he was resolved upon taking Louise to Alabama, and added that she herself would oppose this determination up to the very moment of departure. The Major grunted. "What right have you to do that?" he asked.
The right word again; and that's what makes me say to my wife, 'Nancy, whenever you want the right word go to John Cranceford; and, as I said a while ago, your father either, for I knowd him as well as any man, and was present at the time he bought a flat-boat nigger named Pratt Boyce." "My father was once forced to sell, but he never bought a negro," the Major replied. "That so?
He mused over the time that had passed since then, the marriage, the death, the dreary funeral; and though he did not reproach himself, yet he felt that could he but recall that day he would omit his foolish plea of gallantry. For the coming of Jim, Mrs. Cranceford had not long to wait. She was in the parlor when he tapped at the door.
Therefore, it behooves all good citizens to meet in the before mentioned town for the defense of life and property, as it is here that the blow is to fall. William N. Haines, Clerk of the County of Cranceford, in the State of Arkansas."
Cranceford dismissed them, assuring them that her house, being so public, was in no danger. So she was left, not alone, but with a score of women and children. Afar off the guns could be heard, not in volleys, but the slow and fatal firing of men taking aim. The sun was nearly down when a man climbed over the fence and cautiously walked toward the house. In his hand he held a pine torch. Mrs.
Cranceford grabbed a gun and ran out upon the porch. "What are you doing there?" she demanded. Larnage, the Frenchman, looked up at her and politely bowed. "What are you doing there?" she repeated. "Ah, is it possible that Madam does not suspect?" he replied, slowly turning his fire-brand, looking at the blaze as it licked the stewing turpentine.
In this neighborhood Major John Cranceford was the most prominent figure. The county was named in honor of his family. He was called a progressive man. He accepted the yoke of reconstruction and wore it with a laugh, until it pinched, and then he said nothing, except to tell his neighbors that a better time was coming. And it came.
Mrs. Cranceford had met Pennington in the road, and on his horse, in the shade of a cottonwood tree, he had leaned against the carriage window to tell her of his interview with the Major.
Tilt that cat out of the rocking-chair and sit down." "Have you heard of the death of Mrs. Wash Sanders?" Mrs. Cranceford asked, fearing that the Major might get ahead of her with this piece of news, but all along determined that he should not. "No, I haven't," he said; but his want of surprise was not satisfying, and Mrs. Cranceford said: "I mean Mrs. Wash Sanders."
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