“Oh, go ’long!” said Ben. “You’ve got jail cobwebs in your eyes.”
“I’m depending on you.”
“I’ll pull you through if you don’t lie down on me and die to get out of trouble. You know you can die if you try hard enough.”
“I promise you, my boy,” he said with a laugh.
“Then I’ll let you read this letter from home,” Ben said, suddenly thrusting it before him.
The doctor’s hand trembled a little as he put on his glasses and read:
My Dear Boy: I cannot tell you how much good your bright letters have done us. It’s like opening the window and letting in the sunlight while fresh breezes blow through one’s soul.
Margaret and I have had stirring times. I send you enclosed an order for the last dollar of money we have left. You must hoard it. Make it last until your father is safe at home. I dare not leave it here. Nothing is safe. Every piece of silver and everything that could be carried has been stolen since we returned.
Uncle Aleck betrayed the place Jake had hidden our twenty precious bales of cotton. The war is long since over, but the “Treasury Agent” declared them confiscated, and then offered to relieve us of his order if we gave him five bales, each worth three hundred dollars in gold. I agreed, and within a week another thief came and declared the other fifteen bales confiscated. They steal it, and the Government never gets a cent. We dared not try to sell it in open market, as every bale exposed for sale is “confiscated” at once.
No crop was planted this summer. The negroes are all drawing rations at the Freedman’s Bureau.