"How long have I slept?" asked Mary, hurriedly obeying.
"You couldn"t "a" more"n got to sleep. Sam oughtn"t to have shot back at "em. They"re after "im, hot; four of "em jess now pa.s.sed through on the road, right here past my front gate."
"What kept them back so long?" asked Mary, tremblingly attempting to b.u.t.ton her dress in the back.
"Let me do that," said the woman. "They couldn"t come very fast; had to kind o" beat the bushes every hundred yards or so. If they"d of been more of "em they"d a-come faster, "cause they"d a-left one or two behind at each turn-out, and come along with the rest. There; now that there hat, there, on the table." As Mary took the hat the speaker stepped to a window and peeped into the early day. A suppressed exclamation escaped her. "O you poor boy!" she murmured. Mary sprang toward her, but the stronger woman hurried her away from the spot.
"Come; take up the little one "thout wakin" her. Three more of "em"s a-pa.s.sin". The little young feller in the middle reelin" and swayin" in his saddle, and t"others givin" him water from his canteen."
"Wounded?" asked Mary, with a terrified look, bringing the sleeping child.
"Yes, the last wound he"ll ever git, I reckon. Jess take the baby, so.
Sam"s already took her cloze. He"s waitin" out in the woods here behind the house. He"s got the critters down in the hollow. Now, here! This here bundle"s a ridin"-skirt. It"s not mournin", but you mustn"t mind.
It"s mighty green and cottony-lookin", but--anyhow, you jess put it on when you git into the woods. Now it"s good sun-up outside. The way you must do--you jess keep on the lef" side o" me, close, so as when I jess santer out e-easy todes the back gate you"ll be hid from all the other houses. Then when we git to the back gate I"ll kind o" stand like I was lookin" into the pig-pen, and you jess slide away on a line with me into the woods, and there"ll be Sam. No, no; take your hat off and sort o"
hide it. Now; you ready?"
Mary threw her arms around the woman"s neck and kissed her pa.s.sionately.
"Oh, don"t stop for that!" said the woman, smiling with an awkward diffidence. "Come!"
"What is the day of the month?" asked Mary of the spy.
They had been riding briskly along a mere cattle-path in the woods for half an hour, and had just struck into an old, unused road that promised to lead them presently into and through some fields of cotton. Alice, slumbering heavily, had been, little by little, dressed, and was now in the man"s arms. As Mary spoke they slackened pace to a quiet trot, and crossed a broad highway nearly at right angles.
"That would "a" been our road with the buggy," said the man, "if we could of took things easy." They were riding almost straight away from the sun. His dress had been changed again, and in a suit of new, dark brown homespun wool, over a pink calico shirt and white cuffs and collar, he presented the best possible picture of spruce gentility that the times would justify. ""What day of the month," did you ask? _I_"ll never tell you, but I know it"s Friday."
"Then it"s the eighteenth," said Mary.
They met an old negro driving three yoke of oxen attached to a single empty cart.
"Uncle," said the spy, "I don"t reckon the boss will mind our sort o"
ridin" straight thoo his grove, will he?"
"Not "tall, boss; on"y dess be so kyine an" shet de gates behine you, sah."
They pa.s.sed those gates and many another, shutting them faithfully, and journeying on through miles of fragrant lane and fields of young cotton and corn, and stretches of wood where the squirrel scampered before them and reaches of fallow grounds still wet with dew, and patches of sedge, and old fields grown up with thickets of young trees; now pushing their horses to a rapid gallop, where they were confident of escaping notice, and now ambling leisurely, where the eyes of men afield, or of women at home, followed them with rustic scrutiny; or some straggling Confederate soldier on foot or in the saddle met them in the way.
"How far must we go before we can stop?" asked Mary.
"Jess as far"s the critters"ll take us without showin" distress."
"South is out that way, isn"t it?" she asked again, pointing off to the left.
"Look here," said the spy, with a look that was humorous, but not only humorous.
"What?"
"Two or three times last night, and now ag"in, you gimme a sort o"
sneakin" notion you don"t trust me," said he.
"Oh!" exclaimed she, "I do! Only I"m so anxious to be going south."
"Jess so," said the man. "Well, we"re goin" sort o" due west right now.
You see we da.s.sent take this railroad anywheres about here,"--they were even then crossing the track of the Mobile and Ohio Railway--"because that"s jess where they _sho_ to be on the lookout fur us. And I can"t take you straight south on the dirt roads, because I don"t know the country down that way. But this way I know it like your hand knows the way to your mouth, as the felleh says. Learned it most all sence the war broke out, too. And so the whole thing is we got to jess keep straight across the country here till we strike the Mississippi Central."
"What time will that be?"
"Time! You don"t mean time o" day, do you?" he asked.
"Yes," said Mary, smiling.
"Why, we"ll be lucky to make it in two whole days. Won"t we, Alice!" The child had waked, and was staring into her mother"s face. Mary caressed her. The spy looked at them silently. The mother looked up, as if to speak, but was silent.
"h.e.l.lo!" said the man, softly; for a tear shone through her smile.
Whereat she laughed.
"I ought to be ashamed to be so unreasonable," she said.
"Well, now, I"d like to contradict you for once," responds the spy; "but the fact is, how kin I, when Noo Orleens is jest about south-west frum here, anyhow?"
"Yes," said Mary, pleasantly, "it"s between south and south-west."
The spy made a gesture of mock amazement.
"Well, you air partickly what you say. I never hear o" but one party that was more partickly than you. I reckon you never hear" tell o" him, did you?"
"Who was he?" asked Mary.
"Well, I never got his name, nor his habitation, as the felleh says; but he was so conscientious that when a highwayman attackted him onct, he wouldn"t holla murder nor he wouldn"t holla thief, "cause he wasn"t certain whether the highwayman wanted to kill him or rob him. He was something like George Washington, who couldn"t tell a lie. Did you ever hear that story about George Washington?"
"About his chopping the cherry-tree with his hatchet?" asked Mary.
"Oh, I see you done heard the story!" said the spy, and left it untold; but whether he was making game of his auditor or not she did not know, and never found out. But on they went, by many a home; through miles of growing crops, and now through miles of lofty pine forests, and by log-cabins and unpainted cottages, from within whose open doors came often the loud feline growl of the spinning-wheel. So on and on, Mary spending the first night in a lone forest cabin of pine poles, whose master, a Confederate deserter, fed his ague-shaken wife and cotton-headed children oftener with the spoils of his rifle than with the products of the field. The spy and the deserter lay down together, and together rose again with the dawn, in a deep thicket, a few hundred yards away.
The travellers had almost reached the end of this toilsome horseback journey, when rains set in, and, for forty-eight hours more, swollen floods and broken bridges held them back, though within hearing of the locomotive"s whistle.
But at length, one morning, Mary stepped aboard the train that had not long before started south from the town of Holly Springs, Mississippi, a.s.sisted with decorous alacrity by the conductor, and followed by the station-agent with Alice in his arms, and by the telegraph-operator with a home-made satchel or two of luggage and luncheon. It was disgusting,--to two thin, tough-necked women, who climbed aboard, una.s.sisted, at the other end of the same coach.
"You kin just bet she"s a widder, and them fellers knows it," said one to the other, taking a seat and spitting expertly through the window.
"If she aint," responded the other, putting a peeled snuff-stick into her cheek, "then her husband"s got the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and they knows that. Look at "er a-smi-i-ilin"!"
"What you reckon makes her look so wore out?" asked the first. And the other replied promptly, with unbounded loathing, "Dayncin"," and sent her emphasis out of the window in liquid form without disturbing her intervening companion.
During the delay caused by the rain Mary had found time to refit her borrowed costume. Her dress was a stout, close-fitting homespun of mixed cotton and wool, woven in a neat plaid of walnut-brown, oak-red, and the pale olive dye of the hickory. Her hat was a simple round thing of woven pine straw, with a slightly drooping brim, its native brown gloss undisturbed, and the low crown wrapped about with a wreath of wild gra.s.ses plaited together with a bit of yellow cord. Alice wore a much-washed pink calico frock and a hood of the same stuff.