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"I am very much obliged to you, marm; and I shall be glad to do as much for you, any time," said Tom, as he went towards the front door. As he was about to open it, his ears were startled by an imperative knock on the outside. He stepped back to one of the two windows on the front of the house, where he discovered an officer and two "grayback" soldiers.
As soon as Tom perceived this trap, he regretted his imprudence in betraying himself to the soldier from whom he had just escaped. His sorrow was not diminished, when, a few minutes later, he heard the shouts of the third soldier, who, by hard running across the fields, had reached the ford before him. "Shoot him! Shoot him! He's a Yankee!" bellowed the grayback on the shore.
He thinks he's a Sheol of a farmer; thinks he's old Grayback from Wayback; but between you and me privately he don't know as much about farming as he does about running a kingdom still, whatever he talks about, you want to drop your underjaw and listen, the same as if you had never heard such incredible wisdom in all your life before, and were afraid you might die before you got enough of it.
"Well, I suppose I do look rather the worse for the wear," added the grayback, glancing down at the tattered uniform he wore. "I joined the rebel army, after I had tried every way in the world to get out of this infernal country; but I never fired a gun at a Union man. Seems to me, sergeant, I've seen you before somewhere. What's your name? Where did you come from?"
The silence that followed the words of the boy was broken by Quantrell's old grayback. Dave Roush was a bad man a killer. He had three notches on his gun. Perhaps he had killed others before coming West. At any rate, he was no fair match for this undersized boy. "He's a kid, Dave. You don't want to gun a kid. You, Clanton whatever you call yourself light a shuck pronto git out!"
The soldier dropped the gun, and picked up the other, which he instantly discharged, and with better aim than before, for the ball struck the bateau, though not within four feet of where Tom stood. "Don't waste your powder, if you can't shoot better than that," shouted one of the soldiers in the water. "You'll hit us next." "Stop him, then! Stop him!" replied the grayback on the shore.
"Men are the blamedest fools," she began abruptly; "'pears like they ain't got the sense of a grayback louse, leastways some of 'em. Now, there's dad, filled up on stuff they call whisky out yer, and consequence is he can't eat any grub for two days or more. Doggone it, it makes me huffy, it plum does.
It is such a pity that we ever cracked his nuts. His lower teeth had grown to perfect little tusks that had bored a hole in the roof of his mouth. As soon as that was discovered, we had them cut off, but it was too late the little grayback would not eat. We are almost settled now, and Sam, our Chinese cook, is doing splendidly.
As he withdrew it he looked down and exclaimed: "Jehosephat, it's fleas, too. Just look there. I'm alive with fleas." "Same here," ejaculated Si, who had made a similar discovery. "Just look at 'em, hoppin' out every where. The rebels have not only set their grayback infantry on to us, but are jumping us with their flea cavalry."
"What d'ye let go fur?" said the grayback, indignantly, as his musket, which he had held by the tip end of the stock, dropped into the water, when Tom let go of the bayonet. The soldier indulged in a volley of peculiarly southern oaths, with which we cannot disfigure our page, even in deference to the necessity of painting a correct picture of the scene we have described.
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