He had been married a year or more when, one afternoon, he was compelled to ride down to Gullettsville under whip and spur for a doctor. There was a good deal of confused activity in the town. Old men and young boys were stirring around with blue cockades in their hats, and the women wore blue rosettes on their bosoms. Three negroes in uniform—a contribution from the nearest railroad town—were parading up and down the straggling street with fife and drums, and a number of men were planting a flag-pole in front of the court-house.
No conscientious historian can afford to ignore a coincidence, and it so happened that upon the very day that league Poteet's wife presented him with the puzzle of a daughter, Fate presented his countrymen with the problem of war. That night, sitting in the door of his house and smoking his pipe, Teague witnessed other developments of the coincidence. In the next room the baby-girl squalled most persistently; down in the valley the premonitions of war made themselves heard through the narrow throat of a small cannon which, until then, had been used only to celebrate the Fourth of July.
The noise of a horse's hoofs roused Teague's hounds, and some one called out from the road—
"Hello, Poteet!"
"Ah-yi!"
"You hearn the racket?"
"My gal-baby keeps up sich a hollerin' I can't hear my own years."
"Oh!"
"You better b'lieve! Nine hours ole, an' mighty peart. What's them Restercrats in the valley cuttin' up the'r scollops fer?"
"Whoopin' up sesaysion. Sou' Ca'liny done plum gone out, an' Georgy a-gwine."