“Can’t a feller look at a gal on glass if he wants to? I wouldn’t hurt the little critter if I could as well as not. So you won’t give her to me, nor tell me who ’tis, neither?”
“Stranger,” said the Rebel, “have you any feelings of refinement?”
“Nary feelin’,” and Bill shook his head, but did not withdraw his eyes from the picture.
“Well, then, have you a wife?”
“Nary wife. Nobody would have Bill Baker.”
“Nor sister?”
“Nary sister but a dead one that I never seen.”
“Nor mother? You surely have a mother,” and the soldier’s voice shook with strong emotion.
“You’ve got me there,” and Bill’s eyes turned upon his prisoner. “I have a mother, and you ought to hear the old gal take on when she comes home from washin’ from Miss Martherses or some of the big bugs and finds Hal dead drunk on the trundle-bed, and me not a great sight better. Handsome old gal,—one of the kind that don’t wear hoops, but every time she steps takes her gownd up on her heels, you know.”
The Rebel groaned aloud. There was no tender point upon which his captor could be touched, and the tears rained over his handsome face as he begged of Bill to give him at least the ambrotype.