“Don’t you remember me? I’m Middleton—Lawrence Middleton. Don’t you remember? I happened in that night with Mr. Welch, and you took care of us? I’ve never forgotten it.”
“I remember it—you painted the horse red,” said Jacquelin.
“Yes—it was really this fellow, Reely Thurston. He is the one that got me into all that trouble. And he has got me into a lot more since. But where have you been that you look like this?”
Jacquelin told him.
By this time several of the people from the few houses in the neighborhood of the station, who had at first kept aloof from the troop of soldiers and gazed at them from a distance, had come up, seeing that they had a Confederate with them. They recognized Jacquelin and began to talk about his appearance, and to make cutting speeches as to the treatment he had undergone.
“We ain’t forgot your Pa,” some of them said.
“Nor you neither,” said one of the women, who added that she was Andy Stamper’s cousin.
They wanted Jacquelin to stay with them and let them take care of him until his mother could send for him. Captain Allen had been down to see about him, and Andy Stamper had been there several times, and had said that if he didn’t hear anything from him next time, he was going North to see about him, if he had to ride his old horse there.
Jacquelin, however, was so anxious to get home that, notwithstanding the pressing invitations of his friends, he accepted the offer of the Federal officers, and, after getting a cup of coffee from Andy’s cousin—who said it was the first she had had in three years—he was helped up in the ambulance and was driven off.