He went on, still grunting, while Dan rose to his feet and slung his blanket from his shoulder. “Look here, does anybody know where we're going anyway?” he asked of the blue sky.
“I seed General Jackson about two miles up,” replied a passing countryman, who had led his horse into the corn field. “Whoopee! he was going at a God-a'mighty pace, I tell you. If he keeps that up he'll be over the Potomac before sunset.”
“Then we are going into Maryland!” cried Jack Powell, jumping to his feet. “Hurrah for Maryland! We're going to Maryland, God bless her!”
The shouts passed down the road and the Maryland regiment in front sent back three rousing cheers.
“By Jove, I hope I'll find some shoes there,” said Dan, shaking the sand from his ragged boots, and twisting the shreds of his stockings about his feet. “I've had to punch holes in my soles and lace them with shoe strings to the upper leather, or they'd have dropped off long ago.”
“Well, I'll begin by making love to a seamstress when I'm over the Potomac,” remarked Welch, getting upon his feet. “I'm decidedly in need of a couple of patches.”
“You make love! You!” roared Jack Powell. “Why, you're the kind of thing they set up in Maryland to keep the crows away. Now if it were Beau, there, I see some sense in it—for, I'll be bound, he's slain more hearts than Yankees in this campaign. The women always drain out their last drop of buttermilk when he goes on a forage.”
“Oh, I don't set up to be a popinjay,” retorted Welch witheringly.
“Popinjay, the devil!” scowled Dan, “who's a popinjay?”
“Wall, I'd like a pair of good stout breeches,” peacefully interposed Pinetop. “I've been backin' up agin the fence when I seed a lady comin' for the last three weeks, an' whenever I set down, I'm plum feared to git up agin. What with all the other things,—the Yankees, and the chills, and the measles,—it's downright hard on a man to have to be a-feared of his own breeches.”