But one evening in May, about sunset, as the boys were playing in the yard, a man came riding through the place on the way to Richmond. His horse showed that he had been riding hard. He asked the nearest way to "Ground-Squirrel Bridge." The Yankees, he said, were coming. It was a raid. He had ridden ahead of them, and had left them about Greenbay depot, which they had set on fire. He was in too great a hurry to stop and get something to eat, and he rode off, leaving much excitement behind him; for Greenbay was only eight miles away, and Oakland lay right between two roads to Richmond, down one or the other of which the party of raiders must certainly pass. It was the first time the boys ever saw their mother exhibit so much emotion as she then did. She came to the door and called: "Balla, come here." Her voice sounded to the boys a little strained and troubled, and they ran up the steps and stood by her. Balla came to the portico, and looked up with an air of inquiry. He, too, showed excitement. "Balla, I want you to know that if you wish to go, you can do so." "Hi, Mistis----" began Balla, with an air of reproach; but she cut him short and kept on. "I want you all to know it." She was speaking now so as to be heard by the cook and the maids who were standing about the yard listening to her. "I want you all to know it--every one on the place! You can go if you wish; but, if you go, you can never come back!" "Hi, Mistis," broke in Uncle Balla, "whar is I got to go? I wuz born on dis place an' I 'spec' to die here, an' be buried right _yonder_;" and he turned and pointed up to the dark clumps of trees that marked the graveyard on the hill, a half mile away, where the colored people were buried. "Dat I does," he affirmed positively. "Y' all sticks by us, and we'll stick by you." "I know I ain't gwine nowhar wid no Yankees or nothin'," said Lucy Ann, in an undertone. "Dee tell me dee got hoofs and horns," laughed one of the women in the yard. The boys' mother started to say something further to Balla, but though she opened her lips, she did not speak; she turned suddenly and walked into the house and into her chamber, where she shut the door behind her. The boys thought she was angry, but when they softly followed her a few minutes afterward, she got up hastily from where she had been kneeling beside the bed, and they saw that she had been crying. A murmur under the window called them back to the portico. It had begun to grow dark; but a bright spot was glowing on the horizon, and on this every one's gaze was fixed. "Where is it, Balla? What is it?" asked the boys' mother, her voice no longer strained and harsh, but even softer than usual. "It's the depot, madam. They's burnin' it. That man told me they was burnin' ev'ywhar they went." "Will they be here to-night?" asked his mistress.