“In my cabin, in course. Whar should he be?” was Phyllis’s answer, and in a moment Fan and I were on our way to the cabin, the door of which we could not open.
“Go to the windy behine de cabin, honey,” Phyllis said, puffing after us like an engine.
We went to the rear window, which was open, and through which Fan darted like a cat, while I followed almost as quickly. Against the door a most heterogenous mass of furniture was piled. A table, two wooden chairs, a wash tub, iron kettle, stewpan, skillet and billet of wood, while a large nail was driven over the latch.
“What upon earth is this for. I should think you were shutting out an army,” Fan said, and Phyllis, who had managed to squeeze through the window, replied, “An’ so I is, de Federate’s army, too. I’se not gwine to have him took, an’ he beggin’ of me not to; I’ll spill my heart’s blood first.”
She had seized a big rolling pin which she flourished energetically, looking as if she might keep a whole regiment at bay.
“Move those things and open that door,” Fan said authoritatively, and then we turned our attention to the boy, lying on Phyllis’s bed, a mere skeleton, with masses of light curly hair and great sunken blue eyes which looked up at us so pitifully as we bent over him.
“You won’t let ’em get me?” he whispered, with a faint smile, “I am so sick and my head aches so, and my hand is so bad. He said you were good, but I didn’t know there were two of you; which is Fan-an-Ann?”
Fan and I looked curiously at each other a moment; then, remembering that Charlie always spoke of us as Fan-an-Ann, and that it was so written in the letter, we understood his mistake. But it was Fan who answered, for I could only stand and cry over this wreck of a boy, with Charlie’s battered clothes upon him, too long and large every way, and covered with soil and blood stains. What remained of his left hand was bound in a dirty rag and quivered with pain as it lay on the coarse blanket.
“What shall we do?” I asked at last, and Fan answered in her imperious way, which always made one feel small.
“Do! Go to the house and get Charlie’s bed ready, and bring me his dressing gown and a shirt and drawers from his trunk. This is no time to cry.”