The sergeant was a great strapping fellow, six feet high; but at this pleasantry he blushed like a girl.
"I ain't got a wife, nor kids either; but—"
"You've got a girl, hain't you? Come, sergeant, let's hear 'bout it. It's mighty lonesome somehow in this Government hotel."
The sergeant laughed, and came closer to the window. Just then a streak of sunlight fell upon him, as he stood with one foot advanced and his stalwart arms crossed; but the prison window and Kaintuck remained in the gloom. The sergeant pulled his cap down over his eyes quite bashfully, and cleared his throat.
"Now, I'm talking confidential, Kaintuck—"
"An' you don't want me to tell the agreeable an' amusin' companions I have in here," continued Kaintuck, in the same soft, slow voice. "Fac' is, when a man's been in prison fur eighteen months, an' never had a soul but them doctors ter take no more notice of him ner a dog, excep' yourself, sergeant—"
Kaintuck stopped. The retrospect struck him unpleasantly.
"Well, I'm goin' to tell you what I ain't told even to my folks at home. I've got a girl—an' she's only twenty-one years old, an' a widder—an' the biggest rebel, b'gosh—"
The sergeant brought all this out in jerks, intermingled with suppressed laughter; and when he announced the last fact, Kaintuck joined in his hilarity.
"Blamed if women ain't the queerest lot," remarked Kaintuck, chuckling.