"You had better think about mice," said Watt, quickly, to effect a diversion. "They are minute, but monstrous. Just imagine how one could scale the wall, and taking its tail under its left arm spring across to your hammock, and run along, say, the nape of your neck! Oh-h-h! wouldn't that be just aw-w-wful!"
"Oh, hush, Watt!" said Jim. "Just compose your mind, Sister. Shut your eyes and think about nothing."
"Think how nearly you scared a gallant captain of artillery out of his seven senses to-day," suggested Watt, anew. "I thought Jim would get run over by the gun-carriages and the caissons, whether or no. He was so scatter-brained, and white, and wild-eyed, and blundering—nearly under the horses' feet."
Millie Fisher gave a pleased little laugh.
"Was he? Was he, truly?"
"He was, for a fact. Few captains of artillery have the opportunity to make their own sister a target in a regular knock-down-and-drag-out fight. I thought I was going to have to support the gentleman off the field of battle. He couldn't stand up for a while."
"How funny!" exclaimed Millie Fisher, delightedly. "Just too funny."
She shifted her position in the hammock, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again the sun was flaring into the open door and window of the large room, and all the five Fisher brothers were up and fully accoutred for the duty of the service, and she was requested to get out of the hammock that it might again be turned into a cloak.
The details of her exploit were brought back to the main body of the Federal army and bruited abroad by the men whom she had rescued from death or capture. One of these, the officer, was much disposed to vaunt his gratitude and sense of obligation, and as Miss Millie Fisher was as well known as the river itself, the incident created no small stir in many different circles. The girl was held to be a prodigy of courage. All the men of the family were known to be brave, eke to say, fractious. There had been seldom a row of any sort, in several generations, in which a Fisher's red head had not been in the thick of it, and held high. There were several who were now men of mark, but never had aught else so appealed to their pulse of pride, their close bond of union in family ties and clannish affection for which they were noted. Great were the boastings of the Fisher brothers, each feeling that he shone by reflected light, and echoes of their vain-glorious brag were borne to the storm centre by that mysterious means of communication known as the Grape-vine Telegraph.
One day Seymour detailed, with a touch of bitter sarcasm, the rumor that Jim Fisher had declared that Sister Millie could stampede the whole Yankee army if she had the chance. With his customary bluntness Seymour had broached the subject on a hospitable occasion, in a group both of officers and civilians. The latter said nothing, leaving it to the comrades of the men who had benefited by her hair-brained bravery and dashing equestrianism to controvert the hyperbole. But Ashley's tact was so rooted in good nature that it was difficult to take him amiss. He could not say, he declared, whether she could stampede the army, but he could testify that she had captured it.