“Yes, I see it.”
“Well, John’s bones are right in there!”
“Good gracious!” I cried, and jumped over her to the other side of the bed.
“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked. “You look like you were scared, Nell. Why, Nell, the whole of John wouldn’t hurt you, much less those few bones. I’m carrying them home to put them in the family burying-ground. That’s the reason I think so much of that satchel and keep it so close to me. I don’t want John to be buried all about in different places, you see. But I don’t see anything for you to be afraid of in a few bones. John’s as well as ever—it isn’t like he was dead, now.”
I lay down quietly, ashamed of my sudden fright, but there were cold chills running down my spine.
After a little more talk she turned over, and I presently heard a comfortable snore, but I lay awake a long time, my eyes riveted on the satchel containing fragments of John. Then I began to think of seeing Dan in the morning, and fell asleep feeling how good it was that he was safe and sound, all his bones together and not scattered around like poor John’s.
I reached Culpeper Court-house the next afternoon about four o’clock. Dan met me looking tired and shabby, and as soon as he had me settled went back to camp.
“I’ll come to see you as often as I can get leave,” he said when he told me good-by. “We may be quartered here for some time—long enough for us to get ourselves and our horses rested up, I hope; but I’m afraid I can’t see much of you. Hardly worth the trouble of your coming, is it, little woman?”
“Oh, Dan, yes,” I said cheerfully; “just so you are not shot up! It would be worth the coming if I only got to see you through a car window as the train went by.”
A few days after my arrival a heavy snow-storm set in. As my trunk had not yet come, I was still in the same dress in which I had left Petersburg, and, though we were all willing enough to lend, clothes were so scarce that borrowing from your neighbor was a last resort. I suffered in silence for a week before my trunk arrived, and then it was exchanging one discomfort for another, for my flannels were so tight from shrinkage and so worn that I felt as if something would break every time I moved.