“Come in.”
We were shown to a room and shut in like horses. There was not even a fire made for us. We had been warmer sitting on the roadside in the sunshine. I will pass over the supper in silence. We had had no dinner and were hungry, and we ate for our part of that supper the upper crust of a biscuit each. A hard bed, the upper crusts of two biscuits, no fire—this was what we got at that house. The next morning we left before breakfast and went back to our mud-bank in the sun, first asking for our bill and paying it. It was two dollars apiece in gold!
The train came along early, however, and we were on it, and off to Culpeper, all our troubles forgotten, for every mile was bringing us nearer to Dan. As soon as we got off I saw quite a number of soldiers belonging to Dan’s command. Many of them were known to me personally. They came up and welcomed me back to Dixie, and congratulated me on my husband’s gallantry and probable promotion, and I sent word to Dan by them that I was there.
He came—the raggedest, most widowed-looking officer! But weren’t we happy!
“Oh, Dan!” I cried, after the first rapture of greeting, “I got it so it would do for a captain or a major or a colonel or a general. Didn’t I do right?”
“What are you talking about, Nell? Got what?”
He looked as if he feared recent adventures had unsettled my intellect.
“Your uniform, Dan,” I answered, but my countenance fell.
“My—uniform.”
Just like a man! He had forgotten the principal thing—next to seeing mother, of course—that I had gone to Baltimore for.