"I'm a-heedin', Josh. What's the matter?" inquired a scrawny, sandy-haired woman, coming to the door, with her arms akimbo. "Mussy me!" she ejaculated upon seeing us.
"Hyere's two folks as has got lost in this hyere forest, an' is plum tired out an' powerful hongry," explained her husband.
"Mussy me!" she repeated, eyeing my blue coat askance, and regarding
Father Friday with suspicious wonder. She had never seen a uniform
like that long black cassock. To which side did he belong, Federal or
Confederate?
"Mirandy's Secesh, but I'm for the Union," explained Josh, with a wink to us. "Sometimes we have as big a war as any one cyares ter see, right hyere, on 'ccount of it. But, Lors, Mirandy, yer ain't a-goin' ter quarrel with a man 'cause the color of his coat ain't ter yer likin' when he ain't had a bite of vittles terday!"
"No, I ain't," answered the woman, stolidly. Glancing again at Father Friday's kind face, she added, more graciously: "Wa-all, yer jest in the nick of time; the hoe-cake's nyearly done, and we war about havin' supper. Hey, Josh?"
"Sartain sure," said Josh, ushering us into the kitchen, which was the principal room of the cabin, though a door at the side apparently led into a smaller one adjoining. He made us sit down at the table, and Mirandy placed the best her simple larder afforded before us.
As we went out by the fire again, our host said, with some embarrassment: "Now, strangers, I know ye're fagged out, an' for sure ye're welcome to the tiptop of everythin' we've got. But I'm blessed if I can tell whar ye're a-goin' ter sleep ternight. We've company, yer see, in the leetle room yonder; an' that's the only place we've got ter offer, ordinar'ly."
Father Friday hastened to reassure him. "I propose to establish myself outside by the fire. What could be better?" said he.
Father Friday, you remember, had the Blessed Sacrament with him; and I knew that, weary as he was, he would pass the night in prayer.
"I am actually too tired to sleep now," I began. "But when I am inclined to do so, what pleasanter resting-place could a soldier desire than a bit of ground strewn with pine needles?"