THREE:He looked again at the house. Everything was very quiet and peaceful around it. There was no stock in the barnyard or fields, and the only signs of life were the smoke rising from one of the great stone chimneys, the chickens picking and scratching in the garden, a couple of negresses, who occasionlly passed back and forth between the main house and another cabin apparently used as a kitchen.
THREE:The rumbling came again. Surely, he told himself, this was a new punishment, and it was death.
THREE:"We've got a telegraph dispatch," finally answered Maria, bursting in a torrent of tears, into which Sophia joined sympathetically, "and we know it's about poor Si."
THREE:"Jehosephat," sighed Shorty. "I wish I had as many dollars as he has style. Must be one of old Abe's body guards, sent out here with Grant's commission as Lieutenant-General. Expect that red star passes him on the railroads and at the hotels. I'd like to play him two games out o' three, cut-throat, for it. I could use it in my business."It was as Shorty predicted. The prisoners had entirely too much solicitude about their garments to think of anything else, and the march was made without incident. Late in the afternoon they reached the County seat, and marched directly for the public square, in which the jail was situated. There were a few people on the streets, who gathered on the sidewalks to watch the queer procession. Shorty, with both hands on his revolvers, had his eyes fixed on the squad, apprehensive of an attempt to bolt and mix with the crowd. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but was conscious that they were passing a corner on which stood some ladies. Then he heard a voice which set his heart to throbbing call out:
THREE:
THREE:"O, goodness gracious!" murmured little Pete Skidmore, almost fainting with terror, in the covert of oak leaves, just above the court's head, whither he had noiselessly climbed, to overhear everything. "He's a-goner, sure! They'll shoot him, sure as guns. Saltpeter won't save him. He's broke every Article o' War in the whole book. My, what will I do?"
THREE:Little Pete's Awful Rebels. 149
THREE:Scarcely 20 of the 80 stalwart youths who had lined up at the foot of the rugged palisades of Rocky Face two evenings before grouped themselves together in response to the Orderly's call. "Ime doin' my best to be a second father to little Pete.