For was not Dad—was he not Dad?
“Tell me,” General McClellan was saying, “where and how did you get this paper?”
“We found it up on the top of a hill. It was lying there. The wind blew it in front of my horse and—”
“What hill?” interposed Hooker. “Where?”
“Out yonder. Miles the other side of Frederick. Out toward Sharpesburg.”
“Sharpesburg?” echoed McClellan. “Right in the track of the Confederate rear-guard. D. H. Hill’s division. You must have been well beyond our lines.”
“We were,” said Jimmie.
“The paper was lying on the ground, you say?”
“Yes. Partly folded up, like it had dropped out of somebody’s pocket,” said Jimmie, seeking to finish the story and get away. “But the wind had opened it a little and it blew into the air, and my horse shied and I got thrown—he was running away, anyhow—and then Emp grabbed the paper, and I took it away from him and read some of it aloud. Just for fun. And Dad grabbed it and—”
“Hold on! Hold on!” demanded McClellan. “Go more slowly. It doesn’t make sense. Who are Emp and Dad and—”