Three miles out they began to overtake the main body of the fugitives who escaped at the first mad rush. Hundreds of bedraggled women and children were toiling along the dust-covered road in the blistering sun, some bareheaded, some with hats on, some with street clothes, others with their morning wrappers just as they had fled from their unfinished breakfast.
Little girls of eight and ten and twelve were wandering along through the suffocating dust alone.
Jennie called to one she knew:
"Where's your mother, child?"
The girl shook her dust-powdered head.
"I don't know, m'am."
"Where are you going?"
"To walk on till I find her."
Her mother was wandering with distracted cries among the crowds a mile in the rear looking for a nursing baby she had lost in the excitement.
Jennie's eyes kindled at the sight of faithful negroes everywhere lugging the treasures of their mistresses. She began asking them what they were carrying just to hear the answer that always came with a touch of loyal pride.