“But just wait until we get together and decide upon a constitution,” said Leon, as he rode along with his hands in his pockets and his eyes fastened upon the horn of his saddle. “Jeff Davis has long ago ordered all Union men out of the Confederacy, and what is there to hinder us from ordering all these rebels out? That’s an idea, and I will speak to father about it.”
Leon did not care to spend all night with such people as these, and so he kept on until he found a family whose sentiments agreed with his own, and there he laid by until morning. The head of this household had but recently come into the county, and Leon did not know him. When the latter rode up to the bars the man was chopping wood in front of a dilapidated shanty, but when he saw Leon approaching he dropped his axe, took long strides toward his door and turned around and faced him. The boy certainly thought he was acting in a very strange way, and for a moment didn’t know whether he was a Union man or a rebel.
“Good evening, sir,” said Leon, who thought he might as well settle the matter once for all. “Can I stay all night with you?”
“Who are you and where did you come from?” asked the man in reply.
“My name is Leon Sprague and I live in the other part of the county,” replied Leon. “I am a Union boy all over, and I came out to tell everybody—”
“Course we can keep you all night if that is the kind of a boy you are,” replied the man coming up to the bars. “Get off and turn your horse loose. I haven’t seen a Union boy before in a long while. I came from Tennessee.”
“What are you doing down here?” asked Leon, as he led his horse over the bars.
“I came down here to get out of reach of the rebels, dog-gone ’em,” said the man in a passionate tone of voice. “You had just ought to see them up there. They have got their jails full, they are hanging men for burning bridges, and when I left home there was two or three thousand men going over the mountains into Kentucky. But I couldn’t go with them. The rebels cut me off, and as I was bound to go somewhere, I came on down here.”
Leon had by this time taken the saddle and bridle from his horse and turned him loose to get his own supper. Then he backed up against the fence and watched the man chopping his wood.