“I expected you would take what little we had to eat,” said the head of the family, as the tears rolled down her face. “I never thought the Yankees would be so kind to the widow of a Confederate. The Richmond papers said if you all came this way you would destroy everything; they said heaps of black things about you.”
“Do you all have hams on your saddles and sacks of corn to carry along all the time?” ventured the young miss who had listened to all that had been said.
“No, no; we confiscated these back at the big plantation yonder.”
“Where 'bouts?” inquired the widow.
“At that fine house a couple of miles north.”
“Was there an old gentleman there?”
“Yes; he gave us his benediction when we left, by expressing the wish that we would all come to the gallows.”
“And these hams and other things came from his plantation?”
“Yes.”
“I declare, 'vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' Yesterday I called there and asked the colonel—they all call him colonel—to help me along by letting me have a little meal and bacon. I promised to pay him back when we gather our crap, by and by.”