Foh de day befoh de weddin' was gwine ter be, she ups an' she runs off wid a Yankee frien' of her brother, Kunnel Tom Buckner. An' I'se 'spec'
Kunnel Tom an' Marse Prent McMakin would o' settle' HIM ef dey evah had o' cotched him--dat dar David Ahmstrong!"
"Who?" says I.
"David Ahmstrong was his entitlement," says George, "an' he been gwine to de same college as Marse Tom Buckner, up no'th somewhah. Dat's how-come he been visitin' Marse Tom des befoh de weddin' trouble done settle HIT se'f dat-a-way."
Well, it give me quite a turn to run onto the mention of that there David Armstrong agin in this part of the country. Here he had been jilting Miss Hampton way up in Indiany, and running away with another girl down here in Tennessee.
Then it struck me mebby it is jest different parts of the same story I been hearing of, and Martha had got her part a little wrong.
"George," I says, "what did you say Miss Lucy Buckner's gran-dad's name was?""Kunnel Hampton--des de same as MY Miss Lucy befo' SHE done ma'hied Marse Willyum."That made me sure of it. It was the same woman.
She had run away with David Armstrong from this here same neighbourhood. Then after he got her up North he had left her--or her left him. And then she wasn't Miss Buckner no longer. And she was mad and wouldn't call herself Mrs. Armstrong.
So she moved away from where any one was lible to trace her to, and took her mother's maiden name, which was Hampton.
"Well," I says, "what ever become of 'em after they run off, George?"But George has told about all he knows. They went North, according to what everybody thinks, he says. Prent McMakin, he follered and hunted.
And Col. Tom Buckner, he done the same. Fur about a year Colonel Tom, he was always making trips away from there to the North. But whether he ever got any track of his sister and that David Armstrong nobody knowed. Nobody never asked him. Old Colonel Hampton, he grieved and he grieved, and not long after the runaway he up and died. And Tom Buckner, he finally sold all he owned in that part of the country and moved further south. George said he didn't rightly know whether it was Alabama or Florida. Or it might of been Georgia.
I thinks to myself that mebby Mrs. Davis would like to know where her niece is, and that I better tell her about Miss Hampton being in that there little Indiany town, and where it is. And then Ithinks to myself I better not butt in. Fur Miss Hampton has likely got her own reasons fur keeping away from her folks, or else she wouldn't do it.
Anyhow, it's none of MY affair to bring the subject up to 'em. It looks to me like one of them things George has been gassing about--one of them things that has settled itself, and it ain't fur me to meddle and unsettle it.
It set me to thinking about Martha, too. Not that I hadn't thought of her lots of times. I had often thought I would write her. But I kept putting it off, and purty soon I kind of forgot Martha. Ihad seen a lot of different girls of all kinds since Ihad seen Martha. Yet, whenever I happened to think of Martha, I had always liked her best. Only moving around the country so much makes it kind of hard to keep thinking steady of the same girl.
Besides, I had lost that there half of a ring, too.
But knowing what I did now about Miss Hampton being Miss Buckner--or Mrs. Armstrong--and related to these Davises made me want to get away from there. Fur that secret made me feel kind of sneaking, like I wasn't being frank and open with them. Yet if I had of told 'em I would of felt sneakinger yet fur giving Miss Hampton away.
I never got into a mix up that-a-way betwixt my conscience and my duty but what it made me feel awful uncomfortable. So I guessed I would light out from there. They wasn't never no kinder, better people than them Davises, either. They was so pleased with my bringing Bud home the night he was shot they would of jest natcherally give me half their farm if I had of ast them fur it. They wanted me to stay there--they didn't say fur how long, and I guess they didn't give a dern. But Iwas in a sweat to ketch up with Doctor Kirby agin.
