obbing
sound that seemed part of a dream of the cannonading in the Argonne.

"Dah! Look-a dah!" It was, he realized, Sergeant Williamson's voice.
"Gittin' soft in de haid, is Ah, yo' ol' wuthless no-'count?"

He turned his face, to see the battered jeep from "Greyrock," driven by
Arthur, the stableman and gardener, with Sergeant Williamson beside him.
The older Negro jumped to the ground and ran toward him. At the same
time, he felt Dearest with him again.

"We made it, Popsy! We made it!" she was exulting. "I was afraid I'd
never make him understand, but I did. And you should have seen him bully
that other man into driving the jeep. Are you all right, Popsy?"

"Is yo' all right, Cunnel?" Sergeant Williamson was asking.

"My leg's broken, I think, but outside of that I'm all right," he
answered both of them. "How did you happen to find me, Sergeant?"

The old Negro soldier rolled his eyes upward. "Cunnel, hit war a mi'acle
of de blessed Lawd!" he replied, solemnly. "An angel of de Lawd done
appeahed unto me." He shook his head slowly. "Ah's a sinful man, Cunnel;
Ah couldn't see de angel face to face, but de glory of de angel was
befoh me, an' guided me."

They used his cane and a broken-off bough to splint the leg; they
wrapped him in a horse-blanket and hauled him back to "Greyrock" and put
him to bed, with Dearest clinging solicitously to him. The fractured leg
knit slowly, though the physician was amazed at the speed with which,
considering his age, he made recovery, and with his unfailing
cheerfulness. He did not know, of course, that he was being assisted by
an invisible nurse. For all that, however, the leaves on the oaks around
"Greyrock" were green again before Colonel Hampton could leave his bed
and hobble about the house on a cane.

Arthur, the young Negro who had driven the jeep, had become one of the
most solid pillars of the little A.M.E. church beyond the village, as a
result. Sergeant Williamson had also become an attendant at church for a
while, and then stopped. Without being able to define, or spell, or even
pronounce the term, Sergeant Williamson was a strict pragmatist. Most
Africans are, even five generations removed from the slave-ship that
brought their forefathers from the Dark Continent. And Sergeant
Williamson could not find the blessedness at the church. Instead, it
seemed to center about the room where his employer and former regiment
commander lay. That, to his mind, was quite reason