“Well, we are sorry if there is nothing we can do to make peace, General, but (turning to his companions) we must return without it, and each do the best he can for himself.” “Here’s Ned O’Bran,” said Springer in an undertone, “Brother Jackson, you had better go with him, for his house is outside of the picket lines; and as you’re a member of the Legislature, you must look out—they’ll be after you shor.” “I was just going down to the drill room to be safe myself,” said O’Bran. “My family went on so that I am on my way back to the armory.” “You can’t get through this way. The pickets are everywhere. You had best go home. It’s every man for himself, and the Lord for us all,” said Springer, and the men separated. CHAPTER VIII. MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE. “Oh! the blessed hope of freedom how with joy and glad surprise, For an instant throbs her bosom, for an instant beam her eyes! * * * * * Oh, my people! O my brothers! let us choose the righteous side.” —WHITTIER’S VOICES OF FREEDOM. THE sun was sinking in the west, when the sound of Aunt Phoebe’s dinner-horn was heard, followed by Uncle Jesse’s cheery response. Auntie was the model-housekeeper of the neighborhood, (not a high compliment, some readers might think, could they see many of the homes there, where the women spend most of their strength and time at field labor), she having been raised a house-servant, and, by rare chance, blessed with a mistress who gave her personal attention to the comfort of her household. Auntie’s house boasted glazed windows, two rooms and a loft; and the broad boards of her floors were so clean and white that her kitchen was quite inviting as dining-room and sitting-room also. Her iron tea-kettle shone and steamed beside a small cherry back-log upon the great hearth, which spread below the wide “Dutch-back” chimney, while the hoe-cakes were “keeping” between a blue-edged earthen plate, and a bright tin pan, upon a hot stone near by, and a kettle of boiling corn, filled the room with its sweet aroma. The snowy cloth spread upon the table in the middle of the floor, was set about with crockery almost antique,—the gift of “old Missus’” when she “broke up,” because the great plantation was sold for taxes. During the war the Confederate and Union armies had swept over the region in alternation, like swarms of locusts, taking every marketable thing; Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation had freed every “hand,” and, as the old lady had lost all her sons in the war, and all her means to hire laborers, and would not lease to niggers, she folded her hands and let her remaining possessions drift from her, and finally died a pensioner upon her friends. Many a time had Aunt Phoebe’s childish hands washed these same cups and plates, while her mother cooked for “the great house;” and as she now brought an extra large plate, she paused, and with eyes fixed upon it, a long stretch of years seemed to pass before her.