"PAP," said Si, as they were riding back, comfortably seated on a loadof corn-fodder, "now that it's all over, I'm awfully scared about you. Ican't forgive myself for runnin' you up agin such a scrape. I hadn'tno idee that there wuz a rebel in the whole County. If anything hadhappened you it'd just killed mother and the girls, and then I'd neverrested till I got shot myself, for I wouldn't wanted to live a minute."
"Pshaw, my son," responded his father rather testily; "you ain't myguardeen, and I hope it'll be a good many years yit before you are. I'mmighty glad that I went. There was something Providential in it. I'ma good deal of a Quaker. I believe in the movin's of the spirit. Thespirit moved me very strongly to go with you, and I now see the purposein it. If I hadn't, them fellers might've got the bulge on you. I seenthem before any o' you did, and I fetched down their head devil, and Ifeel that I helped you a good deal."
"Indeed you did," said Shorty earnestly. "You ought to have a brevet foryour 'conspicuous gallantry in action.' I think the Colonel will giveyou one. You put an ounce o' lead to particularly good{245} use in thatfeller's karkiss. I only wish it'd bin a little higher up, where it'd ameasured him for a wooden overcoat."
"I'm awful glad I hit him jest where I did," responded the Deacon. "Idid have his heart covered with my sights, and then I pulled down alittle. He was pizen, I know; but I wanted to give him a chance torepent."
"He'll repent a heap," said Shorty incredulously. "He'll lay around thehouse for the next six months, studyin' up new deviltry, and what hecan't think of that secesh mother o' his'll put him up to. Co. Q,and particularly the Hoosier's Rest, is the only place you'll find acontrite heart and a Christian spirit cultivated."
"That reminds me," said Si; "we hain't licked the Wagonmaster yit forthrowin' cartridges down our chimbley."
"Blamed if that ain't so," said Shorty. "I knowed I'd forgotten somelittle thing. It's bin hauntin' my mind for days. I'll jest tie a knotin my handker chief to remember that I must tend to that as soon's wegit back."
"I'm quite sure that I don't want another sich a tussle," meditatedthe Deacon. "I never heerd any thing sound so murderin' wicked as thembullets. A painter's screech on a dark night or a rattler's rattlewuzzent to be compared to 'em. It makes my blood run cold to think o''em. Then, if that feller that shot at me had wobbled his gun a littleto the left, Josiah Klegg's name would 've bin sculped on a slab o'white marble, and Maria would 've bin the Widder Klegg. I wish the warwuz over, and Si and Shorty{246} safe at home. But their giddy youngpates are so full o' dumbed nonsense that there hain't no room forscare. But, now that I'm safe through it, I wouldn't 've missed it forthe best cow on my place. After all, Providence sends men where they areneeded, and He certainly sent me out there.
"Then, I'll have a good story to tell the brethren and sisters somenight after prayer meetin's over. It'll completely offset that story'bout my comin' so near gittin' my head shaved. How the ungodly{247}rapscallions would've gloated over Deacon Klegg's havin' his head shavedan' bein' drummed out o' camp. That thing makes me shiver worse'n thewhistlin' o' them awful bullets. But they can't say nothin' now. DeaconKlegg's bin a credit to the church."
They were nearing camp. The Captain of Co. Q ordered:
"Corporal Klegg, take your wagon up that right-hand road to theQuartermaster's corral of mules, and bring me a receipt for it."
Si turned the wagon off, and had gone but a few hundred yards, when heand Shorty saw a house at a little distance, which seemed to promise tofurnish something eatable. He and Shorty jumped off and cut across thefields toward it, telling the Deacon they would rejoin him before hereached the picket-line, a mile or so ahead.
The Deacon jogged on, musing intently of the stirring events of the day,until he was recalled to the things immediately around him by hearing aloud voice shout:
"Stop, there, you black scoundrel! I've ketched ye. I'm gwine to blowyour onery head off."
He looked up and saw a man about his own age, dressed in butternuthomespun, and riding a fine horse. He wore a broad-brimmed slouchhat, his clean-shaven face was cold and cruel, and he had leveled adouble-barreled shotgun on a fine-looking negro, who had leaped overfrom the field into the middle of the road, and was standing thereregard ing him with a look of intense disappointment and{248} fear.
I'M GWINE TER KILL YE, RIGHT HERE 246]
"You devil's ape," continued the white man, with a torrent of profanity,"I've ketched ye jest in the nick o' time. Ye wuz makin' for the Yankeecamp, and 'd almost got thar. Ye thought yer 40 acres and a mule wuzjest in sight, did ye? Mebbe ye reckoned y'd git a white wife, and bean officer in the Yankee army. I'm gwine to kill ye, right here, to stopyer deviltry, and skeer off others that air o' the same mind."
"Pray God, don't kill me, massa," begged the negro. "I hain't donenuffin' to be killed foh."
"Hain't done nothin' to be killed for!" shouted the white man, with moreoaths. "Do ye call sneakin' off to jine the enemy and settin' an exampleto the other niggers nothin'? Git down on yer knees and say yer prayers,if ye know any, for ye ain't a minnit to live."
The trembling negro dropped to his knees and be gan mumbling hisprayers.
"What's the matter here?" asked the Deacon of the teamster.
"O, some man's ketched his nigger tryin' to run away to our lines, an'sgoin' to kill him," answered the teamster indifferently.
"Goin' to kill him," gasped the Deacon. "Are we goin' to 'low that?"
"'Tain't none o' my business," said the teamster coolly. "It's hisnigger; I reckon he's a right to do as he pleases."
"I don't reckon nothin' o' the kind," said the Deacon indignantly. "Iwon't stand and see it done."
"Better not mix in," admonished the teamster. "Them air Southerners ispretty savage folks, and{249} don't like any meddlin' twixt them andtheir niggers. What's a nigger, anyway?"
"Amounts to about as much as a white-livered teamster," said the Deaconhotly. "I'm goin' to mix in. I'll not see any man murdered while I'maround. Say, you," to the white man; "what are you goin' ter do withthat man?"
"Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance atthe Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouthshet if ye know when y're well off."
"O, massa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and runningtoward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and wasstanding in the road.
"All right, Sambo; don't be scared. He sha'n't kill you while I'maround," said the Deacon.
"I tell ye agin to mind yer own bizniss and keep yer mouth shet,"said the white man savagely. "Who air ye, anyway? One o' them slinkin'nigger-stealin' Abolitionists, comin' down here to rob us Southerners ofour property?"
He followed this with a torrent of profane denunciation of the "wholeAbolition crew."
"Look here, Mister," said the Deacon calmly, reaching back into thewagon and drawing out a musket, "I'm a member o' the church and apeaceable man. But I don't 'low no man to call me names, and I object toswearin' of all kinds. I want to argy this question with you, quietly,as between man and man."
He looked down to see if there was a cap on the gun.{250}
"What's the trouble 'twixt you and this man here?"
"That ain't no man," said the other hotly. "That's my nigger bought withmy money. He's my property. I've ketched him tryin' to run away tryin'to rob me of $1,200 worth o' property and give it to our enemies. I'mgwine to kill him to stop others from doin' the same thing."
"Indeed you're not," said the Deacon, putting his thumb on the hammer.
"Do you mean to say you'll stop me?" said the master, starting to raisehis shotgun, which he had let fall a little.
"Something like that, if not the exact words," an swered the Deaconcalmly, looking at the sights of the musket with an interested air.
The master resumed his volley of epithets.
The Deacon's face became very rigid, and the musket was advanced to amore threatening position. "I told you before," he said, "that I didn'tallow no man to c
all me sich names. I give you warnin' agin. I'm liableto fall from grace, as the Methodists say, any minnit. I'm dumbed sureto if you call me an other name."
The master glared at the musket. It was clearly in hands used to guns,and the face behind it was not that of a man to be fooled with beyond acertain limit. He lowered his shotgun, and spoke sharply to the negro:
"Sam, git 'round here in front of the hoss, and put for home at once."
"Stay where you are, till I finish talkin' to this man," commanded theDeacon. "Are you a loyal man?" he inquired of the master.{251}
"If ye mean loil to that rail-splittin' gorilla in Washington," repliedthe master, hotly; "to that low-down, nigger-lovin', nigger-stealin'--"
"Shet right up," said the Deacon, bringing up his gun in a flash ofanger. "You sha'n't abuse the President o' the United States any more'nyou shall me, nor half so much. He's your President, whom you must honorand respect. I won't have him blackguarded by an unhung rebel. You sayyourself you're a rebel. Then you have no right whatever to thisman, and I'm goin' to confiscate him in the name o' Abraham Lincoln,President o' the United States, an' accordin' to his proclamation ofemancipation, done at Washington, District o' Columbia, in the year ofour Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three and of our Independence the87th.
"Now, you jest turn your hoss around and vacate these parts as quick asyou can, and leave me and this colored man alone. We're tired o' havin'you 'round."
The master was a man of sense. He knew that there was nothing to do butobey.