“Very likely, mem; it is always best to be prepared for the worst.”
“He may be dyin’ for all you know. Do let me in.”
“There is the captain passing; ask him.”
“What’s wanted, Bill?”
“This is Jimmy’s mother and she wants to see him. Come and tell her.”
“That I won’t,” answered the captain, with an oath, “I want to have a hand in no scene; do as you like to break it to the old woman,” and on the captain passed.
“What does he mean? Jimmy ain’t to be punished, is he? He would not do wrong. It was just Tuesday week he went to the pasture for the cows and as he came back, there marched a lot of sogers, with flags aflying and drums and fifes playin’ beautiful. ‘O, mother,’ says he, ‘I would like to join em,’ an he kept acoaxin an aworryin me until I let him come up to the Corners an take the bounty, which he brings back to me, dressed in his fine clothes, the lovely boy.”
“Now, good woman, you go home an’ I will send you word of him.”
“That I won’t; if Jimmy is here I see him. Word came this morning that the Injuns had sprang on to the camp an’ there was a soger killed, stone dead, an’ two taken prisoners. An’, says I, lucky Jimmy ain’t one of them, for so they told me, an’ I will hurry up my chores an’ go and see him this evenin’, an’ here I am. An’ at the camp they tells me he is over here, and won’t you let me see him?”