"Why, granma," pleaded Sairey from where she had taken refuge behind her grandmother's chair, "what's the use?"
"Chile, you hear me? You put up the flag."
From her refuge, Sairey held out her hands in a warning gesture, and then, before she entered one of the log-houses, she pointed to a cart-track that wound up the hill before the hut. She came out with a Confederate flag, made of part of an old red petticoat with white stripes sewn across it. It was fastened upon a long sapling. She put the staff into a rude socket in front of the platform. As she passed Tom in order to do this, she whispered to him: "You-uns run!"
"What wuz you sayin' to Bub, thar?" her grandmother asked in anger.
"I wuzn't sayin' nuthin' to nobuddy," Sarah replied.
But Andrews' ears, sharper than the old woman's, sharpened by fear, had caught the words.
"We-uns'll haf to go," he remarked. "You-uns haz bin right down good to us. Thanky, ma'am."
"Jes' wait a minute," the old woman answered. "I'll give you somethin' fer yer to eat as ye mosey 'long."
She walked slowly, apparently with pain, into the dark log-room. Sairey wrung her hand and whispered: "Run, run. Take the cart-track." Instantly the grandmother appeared on the threshold, her old eyes flashing, a double-barreled shot-gun in her shaking hands. She tried to cover both man and boy, as she screamed at them:
"You-uns stay in yer tracks, you Yankees! My man'll know what to do with you-uns."