“Oh, it’s not wise,” cried Miss Sophia; “I feel that it’s not wise!”
“If you’d just quietly wait,” said Miss Amanda, “until the army comes back through Dalton.”
But Désirée thought that that would be too long. She smiled and broke some purple clematis from the porch to take with her, and then the two ladies went with her to the gate, and she kissed them both, and they said “God bless you!” and she mounted the wagon; and from the place where the road turned southward looked back and waved her hand. The lace handkerchief yard and the syringa bushes and the shingled roof above them sank out of her life.
“I’se gwine tek de duht road,” said the negro. “Less ob fool soldiers projeckin’ erlong dat one!”
The horse was worn and old, the wagon the same. Out of Dalton, over trampled fields, then between wooded hills, went, slowly enough, the wagon, the hair-trunk, Désirée, and the negro. “Don’ yo’ fret, mistis! I’se gwine git yo’ dar befo’ de battle. I’se gwine git yo’ dar befo’ midnight ennyhow!”
“What is your name?”
“Nebuchadnezzar, mistis.”
“And the horse?”
“Dat ar horse name Julius Cæsar. He good horse ef he had ernough ter eat.”
The day was warm, the sky a deep blue, all neighbouring vegetation covered with a tawny felt of dust. Trampling feet and trampling feet of horses and men, wagon wheels and wagon wheels and wagon wheels, had gone over that road. It was a trough of dust, and when the wind blew it up, a sandstorm would not have been more blinding. It seemed clear now of troops—all were withdrawn into the haze to the southward. As for the enemy, he must be moving on the other side of the low mountains, unless, indeed, he were already in force at Resaca—and the grey were going into battle—and the grey were going into battle.