“‘Bob,’ ses he, jest that way, ‘we’ve got to part agin’ and I’ve come to gin your paw a shake afore I leave.’
“‘What’s up now, Jim?’ ses I, pooty surprised and settin’ up amazin’ fast in bed to strike a light, ’cause I allers liked Jim. Drat my pictur, if I didn’t. He stuck to me like a hoss-leech when I was down with the yaller fever. I was peeled down so mi’ty thin that I didn’t make a shadder only arter I’d been eatin’ corn-dodgers or somethin’ that wasn’t transparent. Soon as I got a light I seed his face was tombstun white exceptin’ some long red scratches onto it, that made me think thar had been cats a-clawin’ of him.
“‘I haint time to gin perticulars now, but water’s gettin’ too plaguey shaller for me in Gosport,’ ses he, jest that way. ‘And I’m gwine to pull out for deeper soundin’s. I want to head off the night express, and as I’ve got only fifteen minutes to do it in, must be a movin’,’ and givin’ my hand a rattlin’ shake he turned, and before I could say ‘scat,’ he was goin’ down the stairs like a bucket fallin’ down a well, and I thought he hadn’t more than got to the middle of the flight when I heer’d the door slam behind him.
“I lay awake thar for hours thinkin’ and wonderin’ what on airth could have turned up to make Jim dust out of town so all-fired sudden, bein’ as how he was doin’ pooty well pecun’ar’ly—that is, for him.
“I kind of mistrusted somethin’ had gone wrong with him out to old Hurley’s—the butcher’s. So the next day, bein’ kind of curious, I took a stroll out that way, to look around a leetle and see what was goin’ on. I seed a glaz’er a fussin’ round a winder, and old Hurley sittin’ on the steps lookin’ mi’ty solemn at a hat—which I knowed was Jim’s—that was a-hangin’ on a bush in the garden.
“Some months arter this the war was a bilin’ and I jined a company and went down to Cairo to go into camp. By jingo! would you believe it? almost the first man I ran ag’in’ was Jim Dudley! He’d enlisted in a hoss regiment up to St. Louis, and come down to camp a few days afore me. We were both mi’ty tickled to meet one another right thar, so we p’inted for a place where we could have a straight-out chat, and while we were sittin’ thar, talkin’ about old times, ses I to him:—
“‘Jim, now we’re a gwine down into this blamed muss, and the chances are pooty good for us to git chawed up down thar, and nothin’ more to be heer’d about us—now s’posin’ you tell a feller what made you pull up stakes and dust from Gosport so amazin’ fast, last Fall.’
“‘Wal, Bob,’ ses he, ‘seein’ we’ve met agin, I don’t mind if I do ‘lighten you a leetle in regard to my leavin’ so sudden. You remember I’d bin over to Franklin some time afore I left, and jest got back to Gosport that day, and in the evenin’ I started out to see Mag. I was a hopin’ the old man wouldn’t be to hum—he ginerally was away Saturday nights.
OLD HURLEY WELCOMES JIM.