Free The Boarded-Up House by C. Clyde Squires Page A

in, and that night Mrs. Collingwood told her what had happened.
    â€œBut first, I must tell you that Mrs. Collingwood had a son—”
    â€œWhat?” gasped Cynthia, staring up at the girlish picture.
    â€œYes, a son! And not a baby, either, but a fine, handsome young fellow of seventeen, Great-aunt Lucia says that Mrs. Collingwood was married when she was only seventeen, and that she was thirty-five when all this happened. But she looked much younger. So that accounts for our mistake! The son was away at Harvard College,—or at least they thought he was, at the time of the luncheon. But Great-aunt Lucia says that the same afternoon, as they were driving to the station, they met a splendid young fellow with yellow hair and bright brown eyes, hurrying along the road in the opposite direction. He took off his cap to them gaily, and Mrs. Durand whispered that it was young Fairfax Collingwood, evidently coming home unexpectedly. Great-aunt Lucia says she will never forget his excited, happy look!
    â€œNow, I’ll go back to Mrs. Durand and Mrs. Collingwood. (And all that follows, Mrs. Durand told Great-aunt Lucia long, long long afterward.) Mrs. Collingwood came into the house, and her face looked set like a stone, and she seemed twenty years older than when she was having the luncheon. And Mrs. Durand cried:
    â€œâ€˜Oh, my dear, you have lost some one? You are dressed in mourning!’
    â€œâ€˜Yes,’ said Mrs. Collingwood. ‘I have lost my son! I am going away.’ And Mrs. Durand said:
    â€œâ€˜Oh, how—how sudden! He can’t be dead! We saw him!’ And Mrs. Collingwood answered:
    â€œâ€˜He is dead to me!’ And for the longest time, Mrs. Durand couldn’t get another word from her, except that she had shut up the house and was going home South, to live for good. Well, Mrs. Durand put her right to bed,—she was fairly sick with nervousness and exhaustion. And late that night, she broke down and cried and cried, and told Mrs. Durand everything.
    â€œAnd, oh, Cynthia! What do you think it was? You’d never guess!—You know, the Civil War had just broken out,—Fort Sumter had surrendered and Mrs. Collingwood was a South Carolina woman, and was heart and soul with the Confederacy. She had married a Northern man, and had lived ever since up here, but that didn’t make any difference. And all the time war had been threatening, she had been planning to raise a company in South Carolina for her son Fairfax, and put him in command of it. They did those things at that time. Her son didn’t know about it, however. She was keeping the news to surprise him.
    â€œAnd then, that day at luncheon, she received a telegram from him saying he had left college and enlisted— in the Union army —and was coming home at once to bid her goodbye before going to the front! The shock of it almost killed her! But later she thought that surely, when he came, she could persuade him out of it.
    â€œAnd he came that very afternoon. The ladies had met him walking up from the train, She would not tell Mrs. Durand just what happened, but intimated that they had had a dreadful scene. You see, the young fellow had been born and brought up in the North, and his sympathies were all with that side, and he was just as enthusiastic about it as his mother was about the other. And besides, she’d never talked to him much about the Southern cause, so he didn’t realize how she felt. At last, when he wouldn’t give in, she admitted to Mrs. Durand that she disowned him, and told him never to see her face again.
    â€œWhen he had gone to his room to pack his things, she went and dismissed her servants, and told them to go at once. Then she locked herself in her room till her boy went away. She never saw him again! After he had gone, that night, she collected all her silver and hid it, and partially packed her own things, and then decided she wouldn’t take