Lauretta turned her head to meet her sister’s eyes and said meekly, “You are good to me. And what a lot of sorrow and suffering I have seen since we parted! Just yesterday when I arrived in Savannah there was a funeral for which the entire city had apparently turned out into the streets. I asked whose it was and was told that it was the funeral of ‘Colonel Bartow, hero of Manassas.’ Have you heard of him?” Sarah nodded. “Well,” Lauretta continued, “it was a very grand affair. The way was thronged with black as well as white faces. And then I arrived here today and was standing on the platform at the depot, having ordered my trunk—I have only one now; will you send someone for it?—to be taken inside; and I was wondering what to do next, for I hadn’t money to hire a trap to bring me out here, when another funeral procession passed before my very eyes. It seemed such a solemn, somehow, although not large, important event, I asked who might be dead and was told— Now I declare!” She frowned and shrugged with vexation, having forgot the name.

Sarah supplied it. “Roscoe Elk.”

“Yes! But wasn’t he a Negro?”

“A very substantial ‘free person of color,’” Sarah said slowly.

“And isn’t he the man who—?”

Sarah’s nod filled the new pause. “He is the man.”

“I thought so!” Lauretta exclaimed as though she had been clever. “Two funerals in two places in two days—well, you understand how it depressed my spirit. I felt like a goose had stepped over my grave.”

“And then? Surely you did not walk all the way from town; it’s nearly three miles.”

“Well, no.” Lauretta admitted. “Only from the main road. I begged a ride in a wagon headed for Oaks, driven by one of their people. How are they at Oaks?”

“Well enough. Rachel married James.”

“But he died—”

“That was Adam. James was his brother.”

“Good gracious! I wish you had written to me.”

“You never sent a mailing address.”

“Well, I was moving around, you know. But I did write to you.”

“You did; three times in eight years. Rachel has two children, a boy and a girl.”

“I’m a grandmother!” Lauretta discovered. “I! And my daughter is mistress of a great plantation!”

“Not yet,” Sarah said. “Bruce Davis is still master of Oaks.”

“Do you mean to say he’s married again?”

“No, but he has a daughter—”

“Daughters don’t count.”

“And his mother is still very much alive.”

“Is she!” Lauretta said as though affronted by the news. “That old woman seems determined to live forever!”

“I wish she could.” Sarah said.

“How is dear Bruce? Perhaps you did not know it, but I had every reason to believe he was about to offer himself to me when I left Beulah Land—”