“The fact is,” he said, after a slight pause, “the Yanks are getting a little too near to suit me. We hoped to hold them at Chattanooga, but you know what happened there!”
“I am going home to pack now!” Mrs. Stewart exclaimed, rising majestically to her feet. “Come, Corinne. We should have started for Mexico long ago.”
“You’d better hear Hal’s news before you go,” Mrs. May suggested.
“Yes, Aunt Cora,” Hal went on with the ghost of a smile. “You’ll have to decide on Brazil. Sherman has the jump on you.”
“You mean we’re cut off?” cried Mrs. Stewart in anguish.
“Oh, not entirely,” Hal answered, laughing at her exaggerated despair. “You can at least get out of Washington; but, if you’re going, I shouldn’t advise delay. Sherman isn’t one to lose time, and when he tears up a railroad he does it completely. He builds a great fire with the ties and heats the rails till they’re red-hot and twists them around trees. ‘Jeff Davis’ neckties,’ he calls them.”
“A very poor joke indeed!” Mrs. Stewart remarked with dignity. “I do not know what kind of neckties our good President Davis wears, but I am sure they are not twisted around trees.”
There was a laugh at this sally, at which Mrs. Stewart looked still more dignified and important, but Hal spoke directly to his mother.
“Seriously,” he went on, “I have really come to warn you that it is best you should leave Washington.”
“That’s quite impossible, Hal,” his mother answered quietly.