"Shorty," said the Deacon, in a tone that made that worthy start, "necessity and the stress o' circumstances may force me to do many things which are agin my conscience, and for which I shall repent in sackcloth and ashes, if needs be, but I hain't yit bin reduced to sellin' stolen property. The Lord save me from that. That hoss and wagon's got to go back to the owner, if I risk my life in takin' 'em."The old man called out to him imperiously:"Why, this is from a woman," said Maria, "and she writes an awful bad, scratchy hand." Being a woman's letter she was bound to read it without loss of time, and she did so:
FORE:(This part of the letter had cost Shorty nearly an hour of anxious thought. He had at first written "Dere Miss Maria," and then recoiled, shuddered and blushed at the thought of the affectionate familiarity implied. Then he had scrawled, one after another, the whole gamut of beginnings, before he decided upon addressing her, as was her right, as formally as he would the wife of the President.)Consciousness came back, along with a thudding ache in the head and a growing hunger: but there were no leaves on the smooth metal of the floor, and the demands of his body had to be ignored. His mind began to drift: once he heard a voice, but when he told himself that the voice was not real, it went away. He found his hands moving as if he were pushing the buttons of his job. He stopped them and in a second they were moving again.
FORE:"Hi'll do hit," said the Englishman decidedly.The boys were to leave on the midnight train. The bigger part of Si's leave-taking seemed to be outside of his family, for he quit the house immediately after supper and did not leave Annabel's side until he had just barely time to get back home, take leave of his weeping mother and help store in the spring wagon more than he and Shorty could carry of the good things she had provided for them.
ONE:"We ain't goin' to hurt you," said Shorty. "Sit down there by the fire and git the goose-flesh offen you." Then turning to the boys he remarked sarcastically:
TWO:
"The masters are big and we are small," he said slowly. "The masters know better than we know.""Neither. Keep perfectly quiet, and 'tend strictly to your little business.""Come, boys," said Si, kindly, "eat your breakfasts. You can't make no coffee nor fry no meat, but you'd better fill up on cold grub. You'll need all you can eat."TO REST, refit after the sharp fighting and marching, and to wait for the slightly wounded and other convalescents to come up, the brigade went into camp on the banks of the Oostenaula River, near Calhoun, Ga., and about 20 miles south of Dalton, which had been the objective at the opening of the campaign.
