"Where did yer come from?" asked the woman, when Tom had about half finished his dinner.
"From down below," replied Tom, rather indefinitely.
"Don't b'long in these yere parts, I reckon?"
"How long yer been travelling?" persisted the woman, who was perhaps afraid that the guest would eat up the whole of the family's dinner, if she did not make some kind of a feint to attract his attention.
"Kin yer till me what all thet noise was about day 'fore yesterday?"
"Gracious me! Yer don't say so! Whar was it?"
"The Confederates drove the Yankees off the field," answered Tom, suspending business long enough to glance at the woman, and see how the intelligence was received.
"Yer don't! Then they won't want my old man."
Tom was unable to determine whether his hostess was Union or "Secesh" from her words or her looks. He could not inform her whether they would want her old man or not. When he had eaten all he could, he proposed like an honest youth to pay for what he had eaten; but Betsey had the true idea of southern hospitality, and refused to receive money for the food eaten beneath her roof. She had a loaf of coarse bread, however, in which she permitted Tom to invest the sum of six cents.
"I am very much obliged to you, marm; and I shall be glad to do as much for you, any time," said Tom, as he went towards the front door.
As he was about to open it, his ears were startled by an imperative knock on the outside. He stepped back to one of the two windows on the front of the house, where he discovered an officer and two "grayback" soldiers. The ghost of his grandmother would not have been half so appalling a sight, and he retreated to the back door with a very undignified haste.
"Gracious me!" exclaimed the lady of the house. "Who kin thet be?"
"An officer and two soldiers," replied Tom, hastily.
"Then they are arter my old man!" said she, dropping into the only chair the room contained.
"Don't say I'm here, marm, and I'll help your husband, if they catch him. Tell them he has gone off to be absent a week."
"He'd be absent more'n thet if he knowed them fellers was arter him."
The woman moved towards the front door, and Tom through the back door; but as he was about to pass into the garden, he caught a glimpse of one of the graybacks in the rear of the house. For a moment his case seemed to be hopeless; but he retreated into the room again, just as the woman opened the front door to admit the officer. He could not escape from the house, and his only resource was to secure a hiding place within its walls. There were only two which seemed to be available; one of these was the bed, and the other the chimney. If any search was made, of course the soldiers would explore the bed first; and the chimney seemed the most practicable.