A little more of the same nature wrung from me the query, "Are there none on the other side who need the rod?"
"Oh—well, now—my dear lady! You must consider! You were in the wrong in this unhappy contest, or, I should say, this most righteous war."
"Væ victis!" I exclaimed. "Our homes were invaded. We are on our own soil!"
My reverend brother grew red in the face. Rising and bowing himself out, he sent me a Parthian arrow:—
"No thief e'er felt the halter draw
With good opinion of the law."
On the afternoon of a sultry day, a black cloud suddenly darkened the sky, thundered, lightened, and poured down a pelting storm of hailstones and rain. A party of young people galloped up to the gate, hastily dismounted, and ran for the shelter of our porch. There were half a dozen or more young girls and men. The small roof affording them scant shelter, I invited them into the parlor, where they stood dripping and shivering until a fire was kindled. A sudden cold wind came on with the hail. It had been a long time since I had seen happy, cheerful young girls in their riding-habits, and I fell in love with them at once, putting them at ease, chafing their hands, and drying their little coats. I never saw young folk so much embarrassed. They were Northern tourists, and felt the full force of our relative positions. When hot tea was brought in, they were overwhelmed. I was loath to give them up—these pretty girls. When they bade me good-by and thanked me for my nice tea and fire, the black eyes of one little beauty snapped with an unmistakable expression—"for your coals of fire!"
Such incidents as these were our only events. Our friends in town were in too much poverty and sorrow to visit us. A deadly silence and apathy had succeeded the storm. It was a long time before the community waked up from this apathy—not, indeed, until the cool, invigorating weather of autumn. The blood-soaked soil and the dead animals emitted sickening odors until the frosts came to chain them up.
A bachelor friend occasionally visited us and invited the little boys to accompany him upon relic-hunting expeditions to the narrow plain which had divided the opposing lines on that fateful April morning, just three months before. Ropes were fastened around extinct shells, and they were hauled in, to stand sentinel at the door. The shells were short cylinders, with one pointed end like a candle before it is lighted. Numbers of minie balls were dug out of the sand.