“We leave inside of an hour.” He raised his cap, saluted his men, gave an order, and they whirled and tramped away. She went back into the cabin and sat down by the side of Ericson’s pallet. There was something in his dumb glance and subdued air that quenched the warmth of her recent success. As he looked at her steadily his eyes became moist and his powder-stained lips began to quiver. “I didn’t ’low you’d play sech a dog-mean trick on me, Sally,” he muttered. “I’d ruther a thousand times ‘a’ been shot like a soldier than to hide in Yankee clothes.” Under her warm rush of love and pity for him she completely lost the touch of hauteur that had clung to her since his return. She took his hand in hers and bent her body down till his fingers lay against her cheek. He could feel that she was deeply moved. “I couldn’t stand to see ’em take you off,” she sobbed. “Because you are all I got on earth to keer fer. It would ‘a’ killed you, an’ me, too.” Her voice took on the gentle cadences of a mother consoling a sick child. “Grandpa will take off the mean old blue suit an’ put you up in the big bed, and I ’ll make you some good chicken soup with boiled rice in it.” He pressed her hand. “Do you raily want me heer, Sally?” Her reply was a moment’s hesitation, a convulsive motion of the vocal cords, a failure of speech, and a final pressure of her lips on his fingers. “Beca’se ef I ‘lowed you did, Sally, I wouldn’t keer much which side beat. I wouldn’t be able to think about any livin’ thing but you.” “Well, you can, then,” she said; and she rose quickly. “Grandpa, I’m goin’ in t’other room to fix ’im some chicken soup. Undress ’im an’ put ‘im to bed, an’ then go fetch Doctor Stone.” An hour later the old physician arrived and examined the patient. “A flesh wound only,” he said. “But he has lost mighty nigh every bit o’ blood in ‘im. Nuss ’im good, Sally, an’ he ’ll be able to make plenty o’ corn and taters fer you the rest o’ yore life--that is, if the war ever ends.’’ Ericson was convalescing when the news of Lee’s surrender came floating over the devastated land. “I’m awfully glad it’s all over,” he said. “I’m satisfied. I was shot by a Yankee ball an’ nussed back to life by a Union gal, so I reckon my account is even.” THE HERESY OF ABNER CALIHAN |Neil Filmore’s store was at the crossing of the Big Cabin and Rock Valley roads. Before the advent of Sherman into the South it had been a grist-mill, to which the hardy mountaineers had regularly brought their grain to be ground, in wagons, on horseback, or on their shoulders, according to their conditions. But the Northern soldiers had appropriated the miller’s little stock of toll, had torn down the long wooden sluice which had conveyed the water from the race to the mill, had burnt the great wheel and crude wooden machinery, and rolled the massive grinding-stones into the deepest part of the creek.