“Well, I should think so!” he muttered. “He’s lost enough of the life fluid to paint a barn. Quick, Sally, put down a quilt fer ’im to lie on in front o’ the fire!”
The girl obeyed as by clock-work, the whiteness of terror and regret in her face. She brought an armful of straw and some quilts and hastily patted out a crude bed for the soldier.
“Now,” said the old man, “you must lie down, Johnny.”
Ericson sat up erect.
“I don’t want to—to be helpless heer,” he stammered. “All through the war I’ve never thought o’ one single thing except Sally, an’ now—”
The girl cowered down on the hearth in front of him, and hid her face with her hands.
“I didn’t dream you was wounded,” she said. “Ef I’d ‘a’ knowed that, I’d never ‘a’ said what I did. Grandpa told the truth jest now, he did. Lie down, please do!”
He raised his eyes to her with a grateful glance. At this juncture the small, remote blast of a bugle fell on their ears, and it struck the tenderness from her great moist eyes. She rose and went to the door.
“It’s a searchin’ squad,” she cried, her voice vibrating with fear. “They are at Joe French’s house now. They are shore to come heer next. Ef they take John away he ’ll die!”
The old man stared at her rigidly.