And the boy Jimmie, beside her, saluted their dust-hidden troop with her.
Then immediately:
“Take his feet, Jim dear. He ain’t dead. I hear his heart,” said Mrs. Sessions.
And stooping, straining, she lifted Dad’s shoulders.
They bore him into the house. She ordered Joseph peremptorily to move to the corner, where she laid out a “comfortable” for him to lie on, and she straightened out the still form of Dad on the cot.
“Bring water, Jim!” she commanded almost harshly.
The boy sped back down the lane with a can of cool water, and she sat bathing Dad’s head, sobbing softly, but always with a pitiful, artificial, unreal, golden little smile ready to spring out if he should come to consciousness.
The Confederate captain had called Dad her husband. She caught herself trembling with a soft, happy little emotion, which died swiftly as she realized that Dad might—might never speak to her again.
In a corner of the room Jimmie stood anxiously watching beside the recumbent Joseph. He looked down. His father was looking up as anxiously.
Suddenly all their former lack of sympathy for one another was forgotten.