Turning away from Temple, he went to the telegraphic instrument, opened the circuit and called Barbara. He explained his new difficulty to her, and the vital importance of providing better and more abundant food, better cooked.
"The men have been living on mess pork and 'salt-horse' for weeks, and both the meat and the half-baked dough served to them for bread are enough to break the spirit even of veteran soldiers. Now, I want your help in earnest. If we can keep the men at work for six days more, we shall have a chance, at least, of success. If we can't, failure is inevitable. I want you to buy a lot of the best fresh provisions you can get in Cairo, and send them here early to-morrow morning, in charge of somebody who knows how to hustle. Send one of my bank clerks if you can't do better. Send some molasses, too, in kegs, not barrels—barrels take too long to handle. Send eggs, butter, rice, macaroni, onions, turnips, cheese, and above all, some really good coffee. The calcined peas we've been using for coffee would discourage even Captain Hallam if he dared drink the decoction.
"Then, if possible, I want you to send me one or two cooks who really know what cooking means. Don't hesitate about wages. We'll pay any price if you can only find two cooks who know the difference between broiling beef and burning it. Till your cooks come, I'm going to take charge of the cooking myself. I have at least such culinary skill as we old rebel soldiers could acquire when we had next to nothing to cook."
And he did. Guilford Duncan, distinguished man of affairs, associate of financial nabobs, bank president, and president of this railroad company, sat hour after hour on a log, or squatted before an out-door fire, doing his best to make palatable such food-stuffs as were to be found in the camp.
"It's a sorry task," he said to Temple. "The stuff isn't fit to eat at best. I wonder who bought it. God help the commissary who should have issued it as rations, even in the starvation days of the Army of Northern Virginia. The men would have made meat of him. But I can at least make it look a little more palatable, and perhaps improve its flavor a little in the cooking, till Barbara sends fresh supplies and some capable cooks."
"What answer did she make to you when you telegraphed?"
"Hardly any at all," he answered. She clicked out—'I'll do my best,' and then shut off the circuit, without even a word of encouragement or sympathy. "I'm seriously afraid she is ill. You know she shares our anxiety, and she hasn't been sleeping much, I imagine, since our troubles here reached a crisis."
"That's your fault," said Temple. "You've told her too much of detail. My Mary would be sleepless, too, if I had kept her minutely informed of matters here. So I've only telegraphed her now and then, saying: 'Doing our best, and hopeful. Love to the baby,' and she has responded: 'Your best is always good. Go on doing it. Baby well,' or something like that. If you ever get married, Duncan, you'll learn to practice certain reserves with your wife—for her sake."
"No I won't."
"But why so sure?"