The Cromptons eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 405 pages of information about The Cromptons.

The Cromptons eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 405 pages of information about The Cromptons.

“Seems ef I should bust,” she said to herself more than once, and when at last the day was over, and both ole Miss and the little girl were asleep, she stole out to the newly made grave, and lying down upon it among the palmettoes she cried bitterly, “Oh, Miss Dory, Miss Dory, kin you har me?  It’s Mandy Ann, an’ I’m so sorry you’re dead, an’ sorry I was so bad sometimes.  I have tried to be better lately, sense I got growed.  Now, hain’t I, an’ I hain’t tole many lies, nor tached a thing sense I took that bill from him. Cuss him, wharever he is!  Cuss him to-night, ef he’s alive; an’ ef his bed is soff’ as wool, doan let him sleep for thinkin’ of Miss Dory.  Doan let him ever know peace of min’ till he owns the ’ittle girl; though, dear Lawd, what should we do without her—­me an’ Jake?”

Mandy Ann was on her knees now, with her hands uplifted, as she prayed for cusses on the man who had wrought such harm to her mistress.  When the prayer was finished she fell on her face again and sobbed, “Miss Dory, Miss Dory, I must go in now an’ see to ’ittle chile, but I hates to leave you hyar alone in de san’.  Does you know you’s got on my ring?  I gin it to you, an’ ole granny Thomas ‘gin in’ when she seed it, an’ said you mus’ be good.  I’se mighty glad I gin it to you.  ’Twas all I had to give, an’ it will tell ’em whar you’ve gone that you was good.”

There was a dampness in the air that night, and Mandy Ann felt it as she rose from the grave, and brushed bits of palmetto from her dress and hair.  But she did not mind it, and as she walked to the house she felt greatly comforted with the thought that she had cussed him, and that Miss Dory was wearing her ring as a sign that she was good, and that “ole granny Thomas had gin in.”

CHAPTER VII

COL.  CROMPTON

He was young to be a colonel, but the title was merely nominal and complimentary, and not given for any service to his country.  When only twenty-one he had joined a company of militia—­young bloods like himself—­who drilled for exercise and pleasure rather than from any idea that they would ever be called into service.  He was at first captain, then he rose to the rank of colonel, and when the company disbanded he kept the title, and was rather proud of it, as he was of everything pertaining to himself and the Cromptons generally.  It was an old English family, tracing its ancestry back to the days of William the Conqueror, and boasting of two or three titles and a coat-of-arms.  The American branch was not very prolific, and so far as he knew, the Colonel was the only remaining Crompton of that line in this country, except the son of a half-brother.  This brother, who was now dead, had married against his father’s wishes, and been cut off from the Crompton property, which, at the old man’s death, all came to the Colonel.  It was a fine estate, with a very grand house for the New England town by the sea in which

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The Cromptons from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.