“Geemimy, Annie, I forgot my pardners--there’s two more peg-legs out at the gate by this time waiting for us to get through huggin’ and carryin’ on before they come in. Run, fetch’em in quick!” Tom struggled to his feet and met them at the door. “Come right into my palace, boys. I’ve seen some fine places in my time, but this is the handsomest one I ever set eyes on. Now, Annie, put the big pot in the little one and don’t stand back for expenses. Let’s have a dinner these fellers’ll never forget.” It was a feast they never forgot. Tom’s wife had raised a brood of early chickens, and managed to keep them from being stolen. She killed four of them and cooked them as only a Southern woman knows how. She had sweet potatoes carefully saved in the mound against the kitchen chimney. There were turnips and greens and radishes, young onions and lettuce and hot corn dodgers fit for a king; and in the centre of the table she deftly fixed a pot of wild flowers little Annie had gathered. She did not tell them that it was the last peck of potatoes and the last pound of meal. This belonged to the morrow. To-day they would live. They laughed and joked over this splendid banquet, and told stories of days and nights of hunger and exhaustion, when they had filled their empty stomachs with dreams of home. “Miss Camp, you’ve got the best husband in seven states, did you know that?” asked one of the soldiers, a mere boy. “Of course she’ll agree to that, sonny,” laughed Tom. “Well it’s so. If it hadn’t been for him, M’am, we’d a been peggin’ along somewhere way up in Virginny ‘stead o’ bein’ so close to home. You see he let us ride his hoss a mile and then he’d ride a mile. We took it turn about, and here we are.” “Tom, how in this world did you get that horse?” asked his wife. “Honey, I got him on my good looks,” said he with a wink. “You see I was a settin’ out there in the sun the day o’ the surrender. I was sorter cryin’ and wonderin’ how I’d get home with that stump of wood instead of a foot, when along come a chunky heavy set Yankee General, looking as glum as though his folks had surrendered instead of Marse Robert. He saw me, stopped, looked at me a minute right hard and says, ‘Where do you live?’” “Way down in ole No’th Caliny,” I says, “at Ham-bright, not far from King’s Mountain.” “How are you going to get home?” says he. “God knows, I don’t, General. I got a wife and baby down there I ain’t seed fer nigh four years, and I want to see ’em so bad I can taste ’em. I was lookin’ the other way when I said that, fer I was purty well played out, and feelin’ weak and watery about the eyes, an’ I didn’t want no Yankee General to see water in my eyes.” “He called a feller to him and sorter snapped out to him, ‘Go bring the best horse you can spare for this man and give it to him’.” “Then he turns to me and seed I was all choked up and couldn’t say nothin’ and says: