The blue clad figure on horseback came on so slowly that Roxy had reached the road long before the horseman was near enough for her to be sure that it was really her long expected father; and when he drew rein and called, “Roxy!” and smiled down at her the little girl, looking up at the thin worn face, cried out: “Oh, Father! You’re sick,” and Captain Delfield nodded. “Pretty well used up, my dear. Run back to the house and tell your mother I’m coming,” and he turned his horse into the lane leading to the house while Roxy raced across the slope and ran into the house calling: “Mother! Mother! Mother!” until Mrs. Delfield and Grandma Miller both came hurrying to know what had happened.

“Father has come! Father is here!” said the little girl, rushing through the house to the yard where Jacob was tenderly helping Captain Delfield from the tired horse.

Roxy’s father was not only worn out by his long journey on horseback; he had not yet recovered from a wound received some weeks earlier on the slopes of Malvern where the Union forces had repulsed the Confederates and driven Lee’s army toward Richmond.

For the week after his arrival Captain Delfield was in bed, and Roxy spent a part of each day in the big front chamber where her father’s bed was drawn near the windows so that he could look off across the valley to the distant hills.

He wanted to hear all that she could tell him about her friend Polly and the little Hinham girls, and when she told of her discovery of the Yankee soldier who had escaped from Richmond prison he listened eagerly and smiled over Roxy’s description of Dulcie’s discovery that her food had been taken.

“Helping that boy will help win the war, Roxy; and you helped the Yankee Army without knowing it,” he said.

“But, Father, if it had been a Confederate boy I would have taken him food just the same,” Roxy responded, half fearing that her father, wounded by a Confederate bullet, might not agree with her in this; but Captain Delfield answered approvingly:

“Of course, dear child. The Confederate soldiers are a worthy foe. Of course you would have helped any starving man.”

Roxy searched the fields for wild flowers for her father’s room; she brought up her dolls to keep him company, and one day, to Dulcie’s horror, Roxy was discovered bringing the squawking bantams through the kitchen, and in spite of all Dulcie’s exclamations and warnings the little girl carried the surprised fowl up to her father’s chamber and set the covered basket down near his bed.

“What have you named them?” he asked, leaning over to admire their shining feathers and bright eyes; and Roxy confessed that she had not thought of naming them.

“Why not call them Napoleon and Josephine?” he suggested. “You see, Napoleon was small but he was as brave and noisy as this small bantam; and Josephine was beautiful, and so is Madame Bantam!”

Roxy laughed happily. Now that her father could sit up the greater part of each day and was always ready to tell her stories, and to hear whatever she had to say, Roxy felt that all was well; and to have him give the bantams such fine names made her once more eager for a visit from Polly that she might tell her friend all that had happened in the week since her father’s arrival; for Polly no longer came every day. She was keeping her promise to her father, and worked in the garden and in the house, and the two girls’ signals each morning was all they knew of each other.

Roxy was looking forward to the day when her father would come down to the porch; her mother said they would have a celebration on that day, and Roxy signalled for Polly to come over, and greatly to her delight Polly’s answering signal was “yes,” and Roxy hastened to the kitchen to ask a special favor of Dulcie.

“Dulcie, I expect my father will come downstairs to-morrow,” she began.

“Now, ain’ dat good news, Missy!” exclaimed Dulcie. “I reckons I’d better hab fried chicken, an’ new peas, an’ co’n fritters”—and with her hands on her hips and her eyes fixed far above Roxy’s head Dulcie named over a list of tempting dishes, to which Roxy listened a little impatiently and before she had finished interrupted by exclaiming:

“Yes! Yes, Dulcie! And plum tarts! I specially want plum tarts.”

“Does yo’ so, Missy Roxy? Den I’ll hev ter make de pastry ter-day. Pastry dat ain’ set de day ’fore it’s e’t ain’ wuth nothin’!” and Dulcie shook her head smilingly as she watched the little girl hurry off to the garden to gather the tall yellow lilies that blossomed near the stone wall.

Roxy carried these to her father’s room and found him sitting near the window.

“Polly’s coming to-morrow, and Dulcie’s going to have the best dinner, Father!” she exclaimed. “And you can try my swing!”

“That is what I mean to do,” Captain Delfield said, and in a few moments Roxy bade him good-bye and ran downstairs for she was planning that her father’s first day downstairs should be a real celebration, and she was eager to talk it over with Grandma Miller, who listened approvingly.

“Grandma, I have a plan!” she said, following Mrs. Miller to the dairy, a square building of stone near the house. The dairy was always cool, even on these hot August days. Its floor was of stone, and there was a bubbling spring of cool water in one corner.

There were shelves on two sides of the dairy holding big blue and yellow bowls and shining tins filled with milk. There were two churns, that stood near the spring, and a broad stone shelf where Grandma worked the golden butter and stamped the squares with a beautiful rose.

Roxy always liked to visit the dairy, and to help Grandma make butter; but to-day as she sat down on the small three-legged stool in one corner of the room and watched her grandmother skimming the heavy yellow cream from the pans of milk her thoughts were not of butter.

“Grandma! I want to make an arch, a triumphal arch, for my father! I read about it in a story about George Washington. When heroes come back from war people put up triumphal arches, and my father is a hero,” declared Roxy.

“Why, I think that is a very good idea,” replied Grandmother, “and where do you want the arch?”

“In front of the porch,” replied Roxy, smiling happily that Grandma had so quickly agreed to her plan. “And I want to have it all green leaves, laurel and hazel branches, with yellow lilies mixed in; and I want Polly to sing when Father comes out on the porch!”

Grandma nodded approvingly and smiled at Roxy. “Your father will think he has won the war,” she said, “and I am glad you thought of so good a plan. You can ask Jacob to help you to-morrow morning, and you had best be up early so that the arch will be ready when your father comes down.”

“Oh, yes, Grandma, I will be up at daylight,” Roxy promised, and now started off to the brook to get branches of laurel for the arch. She was busy all the afternoon bringing armfuls of the shining green laurel, and graceful branches of hazel, and when she bade her father good-night she was more tired than she had been since the day of her walk to visit the Hinhams.

But she awoke very early. No one else in the house was astir, and when Roxy entered the kitchen Dulcie was just crossing the yard from her cabin.

“Gwine ter be a drea’ful hot day,” Dulcie declared. “Yo’ sit up ter dis lille roun’ table clus ter de winder, Missy Roxy, an’ I’ll spread out somet’ing fer yo’ ter eat. ’Twill be nigh an hour ’fore break’us!” And Dulcie drew a small table to an open window, covered it with a white cloth and brought a blue pitcher filled with milk, a blue bowl, and a plate of corn bread.

“Now, jes’ he’p yo’se’f, honey,” she said. “Jacob’ll be ready time yo’ finished.”

Roxy was quite ready to obey, and as she ate the excellent corn bread and drank the cool milk she looked out of the window toward where the tall yellow lilies blossomed, and thought happily of her father’s surprise when he saw the “triumphal” arch.

“Dulcie, I am going to ask Polly to sing,” she said, when she was ready to leave the kitchen.

Dulcie chuckled and smiled, as she usually did at whatever Roxy might say.

“W’y don’ yo’ hab Jacob an’ de odder niggers sing? Dey know sum right fine songs. I reckon yo’ pa be right pleased, Missy Roxy, ter hear ’em!” she said.

The little girl clapped her hands in delight.

“That will be splendid, Dulcie! Splendid!” she exclaimed. “Oh! It’s really going to be a celebration.”

“Yo’ jes’ speak to yo’ grandma ’bout it!” said the well-pleased Dulcie.

“Grandma always says ‘yes,’” declared Roxy happily, and started off to tell Jacob just where to fix the tall willow saplings that he had cut as a frame for Roxy’s arch.

She selected a place half-way between the porch and the big butternut tree, and Jacob drove the saplings firmly into the ground, and drew their tops together in a graceful arch. He brought a step-ladder for Roxy to stand on and a ball of twine, and showed her how to fasten the branches of laurel and hazel leaves about the arched poles; and Roxy was busily at work when Polly, riding the little brown horse, trotted into the yard.

Polly was eager to help, and gathered an armful of the yellow lilies and helped Roxy put them in place at the top of the arch, where they glowed among the glossy laurel leaves, and, as Dulcie admiringly declared, “Look jes’ like stars.”

While the girls worked Roxy described her plan for her father’s pleasure, and Polly laughingly consented to sing whatever Roxy wanted her to sing, and thought Dulcie’s idea of having the negroes sing would be sure to please Captain Delfield, as indeed it did, when a few hours later he stepped out on the porch and saw the beautiful arch, and Roxy announced:

“Father! That’s your triumphal arch! And Polly’s going to sing,” and he saw a tall girl in a tan-colored linen dress with shining red hair standing near the flowery arch, who with a smiling greeting made him a low curtsy and sang:

“Hail to the Chief, who in triumph advances!
Honored and blessed be the ever-green pine!
Long may the tree, in his banner that glances,
Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line!”

And then with another curtsy, Polly came up to stand beside Roxy on the upper step, and before Captain Delfield could thank her for the song, Jacob, followed by the other negro servants, came around the corner of the house, and with smiling greetings to the Captain began singing:

“Nebber yo’ fear—
W’en de corn am growin’,
Nebber yo’ fear
W’en de flowers am’ blowin’.
Nebber yo’ fear de dreadful soun’
Risin’, risin’ out de groun’
Ob armies marchin’, marchin’ roun’.”

As the men sang they swayed back and forth in time to the tune, and finally disappeared behind the house in a solemn march as the song ended.

But Roxy ran after them and called them back and Captain Delfield thanked them heartily.

Then Roxy led her father under the arch to the swing, where he admired the wide seat around the tree, and declared that General McClellan himself could not have had a finer welcome.

It proved a day that the little group would long remember; not alone on account of Roxy’s celebration for her father, but because it was the 29th of August, 1862, the day when General Pope found himself facing Stonewall Jackson, the great Confederate general, on the battlefield of Bull Run. A battle where the Union forces were driven from the field with great loss, and were pursued by Lee’s army until, at Chantilly, Lee gave up the pursuit, and the broken battalions of the Union Army struggled back to Washington.

It was Roland Hinham who brought this news, several days later. Captain Delfield and Roxy were on the broad seat under the butternut when Roxy exclaimed: “Here comes Roland Hinham on horseback!”

“What is he riding like that for? His horse is coming at a gallop,” said Captain Delfield, rising to his feet and watching Roland as the boy urged his horse up the slope.

The tired horse came to a standstill in the yard and Roland swung himself from the saddle and ran toward Captain Delfield and hurriedly told him the news of the battle of Bull Run. “And that isn’t all, sir,” continued the excited boy. “General Lee’s troops are marching into Maryland.”