The quartermaster was very angry as he turned away, and Newman stood and watched him while he went on inspecting the wagons. Then he took a chew of “nigger-twist,” shook his head threateningly, and turned his steps toward home.
“You have heard enough, have you?” he muttered, as he followed the blind path that led through the woods toward the little shanty under which his family found shelter. “Well, I’ll bet you will hear more of it before to-morrow night. If father don’t give you into the hands of the rebels I will.”
When Newman arrived within sight of his home he found his father sitting on the door-step smoking his pipe, while his brother Dan was stretched in a sunny spot where he could enjoy the full benefit of the warmth without going near the fire. His mother was engaged in a lazy sort of way over a blaze which had been started in the fireplace; that is to say, she was sitting down and watching a pot that had been set over the coals, while a dingy cob pipe, like her husband’s, was tightly clasped between her teeth. The house was a tumble-down affair, and looked as though it was about to come to pieces, with a dirt floor, and the door beside which Mr. Newman was sitting was minus a hinge near the top. The family were all of them what might have been expected by this description of their place of abode. And the work, which might have been accomplished by one man in three or four days to make his house worth living in, was not above Mr. Newman’s ability, for he showed on his face that he had seen better times. He had been wealthy once, but now he had lost it, and was much too lazy to go to work and earn more. That accounted for Cale’s way of talking. He didn’t say “pap” and “mam” unless he spoke before he thought, for he considered himself better than those with whom he associated. The raftsmen used to say that if Mr. Newman’s work was equal to his talk he would have a much better house to live in.
“Well, Cale, what’s the matter with you?” inquired his father, as the new-comer approached the place where they were sitting. “You act as though you had lost your last friend.”
“I want to tell you what has happened down there in town, and see if you wouldn’t look so, too,” said Cale, seating himself on the ground. “I asked old Sprague and the quartermaster—”
“Quartermaster nothing,” exclaimed Mr. Newman. “Who gave him such an office as that? He had the handling of the mules and horses and would not give you one.”
“That’s just the way of it,” said Cale. “Now, I want to know if such a thing is right? He gave Tom Howe one and never said nothing about it; but he wouldn’t give me one for fear that I wouldn’t be on hand when he was going out to capture the next wagon-train.”
“No more would you,” said his mother, at that moment appearing at the door to hear what Cale had to say. “You ain’t on that side. The South is going to whip, and you don’t want to be beholden to those fellows for anything.”
“I told ’em if they would give me a muel I would be just the loyalest fellow he ever saw,” said Cale.
“The more shame to you,” said his mother, angrily.