“Not by no means,” cried a third. “Kase why, don’t you know that they keep a pack of nigger hound dogs there that aint got nothin’ in the wide world to do but jest chase deserters?”
The tone in which the taunting words were uttered was highly exasperating to Tom, whose face grew red with anger.
“I wouldn’t mind them,” said his father soothingly. “That’s only soldiers’ fun. They don’t mean anything by it.”
“I’ll try not to mind them now, but I’ll get even with every one of them when I come back,” said Tom savagely.
Stepping out of the carriage, and showing himself to that little mob of laughing, jeering soldiers, was one of the most trying ordeals that Tom Randolph ever passed through, but there was no way to escape it. As he hurried through their ranks toward the guards, who stood aside to let him pass, they sent a few more words of advice and encouragement after him.
“Where’s all your purty clothes, Tommy?” inquired one. “Go home to onct an’ get ’em. If you don’t, them fule Yanks will think you are nothin’ but a dog-gone private.”
“Don’t listen to him, Tommy,” said another. “The Yanks always pick for officers in battle, an’ they’re dead shots, I tell you.”
“You’re mighty right,” chorused a dozen voices. “I never did see anybody who could shoot like them Yanks. I’m glad I aint got to face ’em agin, tell your folks. I wouldn’t do it for all the money the Confedrit gov’ment is worth.”
“It’s a disgrace the way those fellows are allowed to go on,” said Tom to the first soldier he met when he entered the office, and who turned out to be the captain whose acquaintance he had made that morning. “Why don’t you put a stop to it?”
“Aw! They want some sport, don’t they?” was the answer. “Let them go ahead with it until they get tired, and then they will stop. Besides, you might as well get used to such talk one time as another, for you will hear plenty of it in the army.”