In the Saddle

by Oliver Optic

"As I have been of him more than once," said the younger in a low tone, as though he did not feel fully justified in speaking in that manner of his father, who had a gross failing, which had recently been gaining upon him.

Sandy heard the remark; and he was disgusted, though he could not deny the justness of it. He had been ashamed of his father, but his inborn pride did not permit him to say so outside of the family. If he had been as plain-spoken as his brother, he might have informed Deck, who was the only listener to the conversation, that the furlough had grown out of a quarrel between Captain Titus and his older son.

The captain had always been what is known as a moderate drinker, but the habit had grown upon him after he went to Kentucky. Some of the Home Guard had been shot at while engaged in foraging among the farmers for food in the outskirts of the county-seat where the company was encamped, and it became a dangerous pursuit, as even the commander of the company would not authorize it; for in the status of the body it was nothing but plundering.

Sandy noticed that his father had his whiskey ration in increased proportions, and he knew that it cost money. He and Orly were not half fed, and the father lived on his favorite beverage. It provoked him to wrath, and in a fit of desperation he spoke out to him as plainly as Orly could have done it. The quarrel followed; and when Sandy declared that he and his brother would leave the company, he had driven them from his presence, and ordered them not to return. This was the furlough, "in so many words," as Sandy put it.

Perhaps the approach of the squadron of cavalry was a relief to Sandy Lyon, for it put an end to the conversation of a disagreeable nature to him. He realized the truth of nearly all that Orly had said in regard to the desperate situation of the Home Guard, and the family of its commander; but his pride was still superior to the groans of his stomach.

"Mother and the girls are going back to Derry as soon as she can get money enough to pay the bills," said Orly in a low voice.

"I am ashamed of you, Orly!" protested Sandy, who had heard the remark; for the bugle of the battalion had ceased its blast at that moment. "You have no business to tell family secrets like that."

"Confound your family secrets!" exclaimed his brother. "I don't want to quarrel with you, my brother, as father has done with Uncle Noah; but I am not in favor of starving to death for the benefit of the Southern Confederacy. You have too much family pride when it don't pay, Sandy. You said that our sister Mabel should not go out to work in the family of Dr. Falkirk, when mother said she might."

"Dr. Falkirk might have got a nigger woman to do his housework, instead of paying double wages to Mabel," replied Sandy.

"That is nothing to do with the question. Mabel's wages have been all we had to live on since we got home," returned Orly, letting out more of the secrets of the family without any compunction.