That story was not as old when Private Chadwick told it over his soup as it is now. Indeed, it was as new as any event that happened the day before yesterday can be. Private Chadwick told the story as it happened, and he was sure he was telling all of it, but if he could have joined the ladies at their table a week later he would have been able to add some facts that would have caused his small audience to wonder at the mysterious ways of Providence, as, indeed, all of us must wonder when we pause and take the time and the trouble to think about the matter, even in regard to the most trivial and ordinary events.
II
When Cassy Tatum (she declared over and over again that she never did, and never could have the stomach to call herself Mrs. Lemmons) left her husband and went to Atlanta, she took up her abode with an old couple, who lived in a small ramshackle house that sat on a hill overlooking Peters Street. This hill was called Castleberry's Hill a few years ago, whatever it may be called now, and, before it was graded down to suit the
