"Yes, Daddy—our lastest calf. We named him that 'cause one day when I was feedin' him with milk he nearly swallowed my silver spoon."
"Ha-ha," laughed the amused soldier, and swept her up in his arms. "If we could only get rid of all their generals as easy as that we'd promise not to eat again for a week. Everything else all right?"
"No, sir," said Virgie, dolefully. "All the niggers has runned away—all 'cept Uncle Billy and Sally Ann. Jeems Henry runned away this morning."
"The deuce he did! The young scamp!"
"He's gone to join the Yankees," Virgie continued.
"What's that?" and Cary sprang up to pace to and fro. "I wonder which way he went?"
"I don' know," whimpered Virgie forlornly. "I only wish I was a soldier with a big, sharp sword like yours—'cause when the blue boys came I'd stick 'em in the stomach."
Mrs. Cary was coming down the steps now with a small package of food and in the roadway Uncle Billy stood feeding and watering his master's horse. In this bitterest of moments, when his own family had to be the ones to hurry him along his way, there had come another and greater danger—peril to those he loved.
"Tell me, dear," he said with his hand warm on his wife's soft shoulder. "Is it true that Jeems Henry ran away this morning?"
"Yes," she nodded. "I knew the poor boy meant to leave us sooner or later, so I made no effort to detain him."