"What for?" he asked sullenly.
"Because you are no friend of mine. This is now my house. You are not to set foot in it again."
Strange to say, he left.
He had admitted into the house more soldiers than these three. I had brought with me from the farm a little negress, Lizzie, who had been hired by Eliza "to amuse the baby." Lizzie had obeyed the instinct which always leads a child's Southern nurse to the kitchen, and had gone below with my baby. I heard the most tremendous stamping and singing in the basement kitchen, and from the top of the staircase I called to Lizzie, who ran up, frightened, with the child in her arms. A soldier looked up from the bottom.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Getting breakfast," he replied.
"You'll get none here," I told him.
He set his bayonet forward and started up the steps. I slipped back and luckily found a bolt on the door. Quick as thought I bolted him out.
But I was burningly indignant. I saw the street full of troops standing, and a young officer on horseback. I ran out and said to him:—
"Is it your pleasure we should be murdered in our houses? My kitchen is full of soldiers."