"We at the North think work is respectable. We do not look down on a man or a woman for earning their daily bread. We all work."
"Yas, and that's the why ye'r all sech cowards," said the old woman.
"Cowards!" I said; "who tells you that?"
"My old man; he says one on our boys can lick five of your Yankee men."
"Perhaps so. Is your husband away from home?"
"Yas, him and our Cal. ar down to Charles'n."
"Cal. is your son, is he?"
"Yas, he's my oldest, and a likely lad he ar tu—he's twenty-one, and his name are John Cal'oun Mills. He's gone a troopin' it with his fader."
"What, both gone and left you ladies here alone?"
"Yas, the Cunnel sed every man orter go, and they warn't to be ahind the rest. The Cunnel—Cunnel J.—looks arter us while they is away."