LITMIR.BIZ

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burnt the bridge, so we had to cross on a ferry. There was a long train of vehicles ahead of us, and it was nearly an hour before our turn came, so we had ample time to look about us. On our left was a field where 30,000 Yankees had camped hardly three weeks before. It was strewn with the débris they had left behind, and the poor people of the neighborhood were wandering over it, seeking for anything they could find to eat, even picking up grains of corn that were scattered around where the Yankees had fed their horses. We were told that a great many valuables were found there at first, — plunder that the invaders had left behind, but the place had been picked over so often by this time that little now remained except tufts of loose cotton, piles of half-rotted grain, and the carcasses of slaughtered animals, which raised a horrible stench. Some men were plowing in one part of the field, making ready for next year's crop.

      At the Milledgeville Hotel, we came to a dead halt. Crowds of uniformed men were pacing restlessly up and down the galleries like caged animals in a menagerie. As soon as our wagon drew up there was a general rush for it, but our gentlemen kept possession and told Mett and me to sit still and hold it while they went in to see what were the chances for accommodation.

      After a hurried consultation with the other gentlemen of our party, they all collected round our wagon and informed us that they had "pressed" it into service to take us to Gordon, and we were to go on to Scotsborough that night. When all the baggage was in, the vehicle was so heavily loaded that not only the servants had to walk, but the gentlemen of the party could only ride by turns, one or two at a time. Our sick soldier was left at the hospital, and the bride's big trunks, that I wouldn't have believed all the women in the Confederacy had clothes enough to fill, were piled up in front to protect us against the wind. Uncle Grief looked the embodiment of his name while these preparations were going on, but a tip of ten dollars from each of us, and the promise of a letter to his master relieving him from all blame, quickly overcame his scruples.

      Night closed in soon after we left Milledgeville, and it began to rain in earnest. Then we lost the road, and as if that were not enough, the bride dropped her parasol and we had to stop there in the rain to look for it. A new silk parasol that cost four or five hundred dollars was too precious to lose. The colonel and the captain went back half a mile to get a torch, and after all, found the parasol lying right under her feet in the body of the wagon. About nine o'clock we reached Scotsborough, the little American "Cranford," where the Butlers used to have their summer home. Like Mrs. Gaskell's delightful little borough, it is inhabited chiefly by aristocratic widows and old maids, who rarely had their quiet lives disturbed by any event more exciting than a church fair, till Sherman's army Marched through and gave them such a shaking up that it will give them something to talk about the rest of their days. Dr. Shine and the Texas captain had gone ahead of the wagon and made arrangements for our accommodation. The night was very dismal, and when we drew up in front of the little inn, and saw a big lightwood fire blazing in the parlor chimney, I thought I had never seen anything so bright and comfortable before. When Mrs. Palmer, the landlady, learned who Metta and I were, she fairly hugged us off our feet, and declared that Mrs. Troup Butler's sisters were welcome to her house and everything in it, and then she bustled off with her daughter Jenny to make ready their own chamber for our use. She could not give us any supper because the Yankees had taken all her provisions, but she brought out a jar of pickles that had been hidden up the chimney, and gave us the use of her dining table and dishes — such of them as the Yankees had left — to spread our lunch on. While Charles and Crockett, the servants of Dr. Shine and the colonel, were unpacking our baskets in the dining-room, all our party assembled in the little parlor, the colonel was made master of ceremonies, and a general introduction took place. The Texas captain gave his name as Jarman; the shabby lieutenant in the war-worn uniform — all honor to it — was Mr. Foster, of Florence, Ala.; the Baltimorean was Capt. Mackall, cousin of the commandant at Macon, and the colonel himself had been a member of the Confederate Congress, but resigned to go into the army, the only place for a brave man in these times. So we all knew each other at last and had a good laugh together over the secret curiosity that had been devouring each of us about our traveling companions, for the last twenty-four hours. Presently Crockett announced supper, and we went into the dining-room. We had some real coffee, a luxury we owed the bride, but there was only one spoon to all the company, so she arranged that she should pour out the coffee, I should stir each cup, and Mett pass them to the guests, with the assurance that the cup was made sweeter "by the magic of three pair of fair hands." Then Mrs. Palmer's jar of pickles was brought out and presented with a little tableau scene she had made up beforehand, even coaching me as to the pretty speeches I was to make. I felt very silly, but I hoped the others were too hungry to notice.

      Supper over, we returned to the parlor, and I never spent a more delightful evening. Riding along in the wagon, we had amused ourselves by making up impromptu couplets to "The Confederate Toast," and now that we were comfortably housed, I thanked Capt. Jarman and Dr. Shine for their efforts, in a pair of impromptu verses to the same air. This started up a rivalry in verse-making, each one trying to outdo the other in the absurdity of their composition, and some of them were very funny. When we broke up for the night, there were more theatricals planned by the bride, who disposed a white scarf round her head, placed Metta and me, one on each side of her, so as to make a sort of tableau vivant on the order of a "Three Graces," or a "Faith, Hope, and Charity" group, and backed slowly out of the room, bowing and singing, "Good Night." She really was so pretty and girlish that she could carry off anything with grace, but I hadn't that excuse, and never felt so foolish in my life.

      Mrs. Palmer's chamber, in which Metta and I were to sleep, was a shed room of not very inviting aspect, but the poor woman had done her best for us, and we were too tired to be critical. When I had put my clothes off and started to get into bed, I found there was but one sheet, and that looked as if half of Sherman's army might have slept in it. Mett was too dead sleepy to care; "Shut your eyes and go it blind," she said, and suiting the action to the word, tumbled into bed without looking, and was asleep almost by the time she had touched the pillow. I tried to follow her example, but it was no use. The weather had begun to turn very cold, and the scanty supply of bedclothes the Yankees had left Mrs. Palmer was not enough to keep me warm. Then it began to rain in torrents, and presently I felt a cold shower bath descending on me through the leaky roof. Metta's side of the bed was comparatively dry, and she waked up just enough to pull the cotton bedquilt that was our only covering, over her head, and then went stolidly to sleep again. Meanwhile the storm increased till it was terrible. The rain seemed to come down in a solid sheet, and I thought the old house would be torn from its foundations by the fierce wind that swept over it. The solitary pine knot that had been our only light went out and left us in total darkness, but I was getting so drenched where I lay that I was obliged to move, so I groped my way to an old lounge that stood in a somewhat sheltered corner by the fireplace, and covered myself with the clothing I had taken off. The lounge was so narrow that I couldn't turn over without causing my cover to fall over on the floor, so I lay stiff as a corpse all night, catching little uneasy snatches of sleep between the wildest bursts of the storm. Early in the morning Mrs. Palmer and Jenny came in with bowls and pans to put under the leaks. There were so many that we were quite shingled over, as we lay in bed, with a tin roof of pots and pans, and they made such a rattling as the water pattered into them, that neither of us could sleep any more for laughing. The colonel had given us instructions over night to be ready for an early start, so when another pine knot had been lighted on the hearth, we made haste to dress, before it burned out.

      Mrs. Palmer had contrived to spread us a scanty breakfast of hot waffles, fresh sausages, and parched wheat coffee. But the bride, as is the way of brides, was so long in getting ready that it was nearly ten o'clock before we started on our journey. It had stopped raining by this time, but the weather was so cold and cloudy that I found my two suits of clothing very comfortable. A bitter wind was blowing, and on all sides were to be seen shattered boughs and uprooted trees, effects of the past night's storm. The gentlemen had had all the baggage placed in front, and the floor of the wagon covered with fodder, where we could sit and find some protection from the wind. I should have felt tolerably comfortable if I had not seen that Metta was feeling ill, though she kept up her spirits and did not complain. She said she had a headache, and I noticed that her face was covered with ugly red splotches, which I supposed were caused by the wind chapping her skin. We put our shawls over our heads, but the wind played

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