"What's all this rumpus?"
Noel looked up as he heard the words shrilly spoken and saw a woman standing in the doorway of a room which adjoined the kitchen.
"Who's this yo' have brought home, Jim?" she asked of Noel's host. Her words plainly were disturbing. She was a short, stout woman. Her hair was hanging down her back, and around her shoulders was a shawl which reached almost to her knees.
Startled as Noel had been by the sound of her voice, he hastily concluded, as soon as he was aware of the response which the tall man made to her words, that if he was supposedly the head of the house, evidently she controlled the head.
"That's just like yo'," she said tartly. "I've got all the mouths I want to feed now, and yo' keep bringing people in here—"
"Sh-h-h, Sairy Ann. This yere man is a Union soldier—"
"How do yo' know he is?"
"He told me so."
"Yo' can't believe everybody," said the woman. "Ever since all this trouble with the secesh began, nobody can trust his best friend. If I had my way about it, I would put somebody in command of the Union soldiers that would do something. They wouldn't be runnin' at Bull Run the way they did, and I reckon Pope led the way, too, and probably made better time than any of them. Before McClellan gets his eyes open, I reckon the whole o' Maryland and Harper's Ferry, too, will run to join Lee's army. Pretty kind of men we have fighting for the Union! How do yo' know he is a Union soldier?" she repeated.
"If you'll hold the candle you can see for yourself, if there's any of the cloth of my uniform that will show through the mud," said Noel good-naturedly.