On Agate Hill Read Online Free PDF Page B

it is possible to hear someone coming from a long way off due to a trick of geography, as Uncle Junius has always said.
    Hush then, Fannie said, and for a moment all was still save for the rushing wind.
    Why I do believe I hear something, old Mister Ravenel said.
    But just then a brand new wind, a cold wind, came blowing onto the piazza from a different direction altogether with such force as to knock the candle out leaving all of them there in the rushing darkness.
    This is when they heard it, in the dark.
    Oh listen, Olivia Ravenel cried.
    What? Fannie said.
    There! Miss Ravenel cried. Dont you hear it?
    What is it Olivia? Aunt Mitty asked sharply. What do you hear?
    Oh Lord please let it be my boys, Fannie begged, for of course they were still in the War. Lewis! Spencer! She called into the wind, and now all could hear the pounding of a horses hoofs in the dark at the bottom of the yard coming up the lane and getting louder and louder as the horse drew near.
    Who is it? Ho there, Mister Ravenel called out.
    Stop! cried Fannie.
    Who is there? Mister Ravenel called again.
    But no answer came.
    The sound of the hoofs was deafening in front of the house. The wind blew Aunt Fannies shawl right off Miss Ravenels shoulders and off the piazza and into the Dutch iris bed. Mama had to hold her skirt down.
    Boys! Fannie screamed and tried to run toward the sound. The Ravenels and Miss Lott held her back. Please , Fannie wept but by then the hoofbeats were going away, getting fainter and fainter down the lane until they were heard no more. The wind died down.
    But though they all went inside and lit the lamps, Fannie could not stop crying. This was not like her at all of course. Something awful has happened, she said again and again, for she knew it. She could not be persuaded to thecontrary though everybody said it was only someones horse that had gotten loose, just a runaway horse, probably it was a traveler staying the night out here in the country some place, and the horse was lost.
    No. Fannie went over to stand right in front of Aunt Mitty and bent over so she could look into her eyes. You know that is not true Mitt. It is a sign of death, isnt it? Fannie said this just came to her.
    Then all the ladies started crying and bunching together and Mister Ravenel had to pat them. Julia and Rachel clung to each other on the horsehair sofa and wailed as one.
    Fools, Aunt Mitty said. This is all nonsense. You are over tired Fannie Hall, now see what you have done. Go to bed, all of you.
    Pray for them, Fannie tried to say, but suddenly she was too tired to speak and did as she was told, putting the girls to bed first.
    The letter came a week later, saying that Lewis Polk Hall had exhibited great valor but died crossing the open fields to the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg July 3, 1863. Aunt Fannie read the letter and fainted dead away.
    And this is my mammas story of the ghost horse that came in a storm on the very night of Lewis Polks death to tell us.
    So how can Uncle Junius not remember this as he stands on the piazza steps to tell the Gwyns good bye? He stands there a good long while shading his eyes from the sun. Then he walks back across the piazza and into the house and shuts the door behind him and calls me one more time. Molly!
    Then he calls, Selena!
    Then I can hear his slow hollow tread through the passage and out the back door and now I can see him from my cubbyhole window, see the top of his white head and then his back as he passes the brick kitchen and pauses to take off his dark jacket and put it over his arm. He stands there to breathe for a while. Then slowly he crosses the yard and passes the well and walks down past the garden and the cabins to the tenant house.
    I have never seen Uncle Junius do this before. I have never seen him walk over there.
    It takes him the longest time to get across the yard for he breathes so bad now, and walking hurts him. He drags his leg as well. Why Uncle Junius has