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Just as Henrietta had taken a last peep at the clock on the hall table and gone to answer Sallie's call to come and help Aunt Dilsie in the bedding of the Kitten and the Pup, Polk's Hupp stopped at the gate, and he and Jane came up the front walk in the twilight together. She had on his flannel coat over her linen one and his expression was one of glorified and translucent daze.
"Sallie," I said firmly, as I handed the limp Kitten down to Aunt Dilsie, as Henrietta took the other one "Puppy" I suppose I will have to call the young animal, from her mother and started on up the walk in the lead of the return expedition, "I am going over to stay in my own home to-night. I know it seems strange, but I must. Please don't worry about me."
First came Sallie Carruthers, sailing along in the serene way that I remembered to have always thought like a swan in no hurry, and in her hands was a wet box from which rose sterns protruded. Next in the procession came Aunt Dilsie, huge and black and wheezing, fanning herself with a genteel turkey-tail fan, and carrying a large covered basket.
And were Hettie and Dilsie actually so in terror of the Yankees?" "Oh, if we'd known that we'd never have started!" exclaimed Constance, with tears, which she stoutly quenched, while from all around came sighs and moans of love and gratitude. And were the three verily back to stay? Ah! that was the question.
"Then, on my honor as a Southern soldier, if he will stay by them and us as far as Camp Moore, to Kincaid's Battery they shall go. But, ladies " "Yes," knowingly spoke Miranda. "Hettie, Scipio, Dilsie, you-all can go 'long back to your work now." She wrinkled confidentially to the officer. "Yes," he replied, "we shall certainly engage the enemy's ships to-morrow, and you ladies must "
"If you do now to-day for one minute, I'll never take you back. I'll have Hettie or Dilsie." "Missie," tears shone "d' ain't nothin' in Gawd's worl' kin eveh make me a runaway niggeh f'om you! But ef you tell me now fo' to go fetch ev'y dahky we owns up to you " "Yes! on the upper front veranda! Go, do it!" "Yass, 'm!
"Sallie, didn't you ask me to take that Pup from Aunt Dilsie, 'cause of the phthisic, and keep her quiet while the Kit got a nap, and didn't I ask you if it would be all right if I got her back whole and clean?" "Yes, Henrietta, but you " "Ain't she whole all over and clean?" "Yes, but " "Couldn't nobody do any better than that with one of them twins. I won't try.
Just as the stuff had been drawn forth and was being hurried away by the hand of Dilsie, a sergeant and private from the camp, one with a field glass, the other with a signal flag, came asking leave to use them from the belvedere on the roof. Anna led them up to it. How suddenly authentic became everything, up here. Flat as a map lay river, city, and plain.
Henrietta sat by her in a state of trance and it did me good to see Sallie out in the hammock at Widegables taking care of both the Kit and the Pup, laboriously assisted by panting Aunt Dilsie, because Jane explained to her so beautifully that she needed a lot of Henrietta's time, that Sallie acquiesced with good-natured bewilderment.
So, I let Cousin James pack me into his low, prehistoric old surrey, in the front seat, at his side, while Sallie took Aunt Dilsie and one twin with her on the back seat. Henrietta scrouged down at my feet, and I fearingly, but accommodatingly, accepted the other twin. It was a perfect kitten of a baby, and purred itself to sleep against my shoulder as soon as anchored.
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