”But tell me, Carlotta, what caused this blessed change in mother?” I said, after we had finished our salutations, drawing my little boy to me, and taking him on my knee.
”She was relieved, and commenced to grow better the very day you left. A short time after you and Mr. Ben were gone a company of Federal soldiers came up to the house, bearing with them a dead man and two wounded ones. Mrs. Bemby and I went out to them and found, I shudder to tell it, that the dead man was Frank Paning. They wanted some spades to bury him with, and some cloths to bind up the wounds of the others. They said that two spies, one of them disguised as an old woman, had killed Paning, and, meeting these, had fired on them. We knew it must have been you two. Oh, John! did you forget your promise to mother?”
I said nothing, for I did not wish to involve Ben, but he spoke up directly:
”No, Mrs. Smith, John didn’t kill him; I done it myself. We found him a rakin’ over the ashes he’d helped to make, and when he saw his friends a comin’ he tried to make us surrender, and I let him have a ball in his forred. ‘Taint worth while to be mealy-mouthed about it.”
”Well,” continued Carlotta, with a shudder at Ben’s words, ”Horace got the spades for them, and Mrs. Bemby told them to bring the men into the house, for they were both suffering very much. We did what we could to alleviate their sufferings, and when the surgeon who was with them had bandaged up their wounds, and sent them off to camp, he asked if he could reward us in any way for our kindness. I thought of mother; and though my pride revolted at the idea of asking a favor of an enemy, I begged that he would see her and give her some relief, if possible. He went in and examined her head, and saying that it was an easy matter, took out some instruments and went to work. He raised up the fractured skull, and, as mother expressed it, lifted a great weight from her brain; then mixing some medicine for her, and telling me how to bathe her head, took his leave.”
”Did you not offer to remunerate him in some way?” I asked.
”Yes, I offered him my watch, as we had no money, but he refused it with polished courtesy, and said he would only take a kiss from my little boy, as there was something about his eyes, as well as mine, that reminded him of a lady he had loved years ago.”
”Did you not learn his name?”
”Oh yes! He gave me his card, and I think I put it in this basket;” and she commenced to search in her work busily. ”Ah! here it is!” and she gave me the card:
”C. B. Sedley, M. D., New York!”