The reception of this perturbed Shorty to his depths. He had not forgotten his promise to Sammymerely postponed its execution under the pressure of other engrossments. He reproached himself for not remembering how eagerly the boy had been looking forward to a possession which would make him the envy of the other boysreally hated by them for his towering and undeserved fortune.
ONE:"I'll tell you what you might do," he said at length, "if you care to take the risk. We're goin' back with some teams to Bridgeport to-morrow mornin'. You might git in one of the wagons and ride back 10 or 15 miles to a little valley that I remember that's there, and which I think looks like it hain't bin foraged. I was thinkin' as we come through the other day that I might git something goo'd to eat up there, and I'd try it some day. No body seems to 've noticed it yit. But it may be chock full o' rebels, for all I know, and a feller git jumped the moment he sets foot in it."They had need of anxiety. A scattering volley of shots came from the bushes and the rocks on the opposite side of the Tennessee River and one of the leaders in the team just ahead of him dropped dead in his tracks. The teams in front were whipped up still harder, and succeeded in getting away. The shots were answered from a line of our own men on this side of the river, who fired at the smoke they saw rising.
TWO:"I'm goin' to try to be half-white," he mentally resolved; "at least, as long's I'm north o' the Ohio River. When I'm back agin at the front, I kin take a rest from being respectable."
TWO:"Sh! Jim, I hear a hoss's hoofs," said Harry Joslyn.MRS. B.: Oh. Then it must bebut what can you do, after all? It's not as if we were in the government or anything.
THREE:"If Si and Shorty's able to be moved," he consoled them with, "I'm going to bring them straight back home with me, and then you kin nuss and coddle them all you want to."
