Bob had gathered the lines in one hand and with the other was laying the whip on Rube’s pets. The horses, utterly unused to the whip, plunged like mad. There was an ominous sound!--our axle was broken, and we were helplessly stuck in the mud.
“Dar now!” wailed Uncle Rube. “What I tole you? I said Miss Sally’s kerridge gwi’ git ruint! and now it’s done been did. It’s clean ruint, Miss Sally’s kerridge is. I tole Mars Bob dem horses don’t know nothin’ ’bout a whoop. Dey ain’t nuvver bin ’quainted wid er whoop. I bin er-sayin’ an’ er-sayin’ all erlong dat de kerridge gwi’ git broke, an’ it’s done been did. O Lawdy!”
Our young rescuers borrowed a cart from a farmer near by and got us home in it. I have forgotten how Uncle Rube managed, if I ever knew. But I shall never forget the scene when several hours later we all sat around the fire in the sitting-room, chatting over our adventures, and Uncle Rube, hat in hand, came to the door and made report to his mistress of the family misfortune. His eyes were big as saucers. He laid the blame thick and heavy on “Mars Bob’s” shoulders, exonerating his horses with great care.
“Dey’s sensubble horses ef anybody jes got de sense ter manage ’em, dey is.”
And then Miss Sally, in spite of her efforts to preserve a gravity befitting the calamity, broke down like the “kerridge” and laughed hysterically.
There was plenty to eat at General Chambliss’s. I always remember that fact when it was a fact, because it was beginning to be so pleasant and unusual to have enough to eat. Hicksford hadn’t been raided, and there were still chickens on the roost, bees in the hive, turkeys up the trees, partridges in the woods, and corn in the barns. The barn, by the way, was new, and the soldiers gave a ball in it. We all went and had a most delightful evening. I well remember that I went in “Miss Sally’s kerridge,” and that General Rooney Lee and I led off the ball together. I remember, too, that we had a fine supper: turkeys, chicken-salad, barbecued mutton, roast pig with an apple in his mouth, pound-cake, silver-cake, cheese-cake or transparent pudding, “floating island” or “tipsy squire”; plenty of bread, milk, sure-enough coffee--everything and enough of it. We danced till morning and leaving our gallant entertainers in the gray dawn, went off to sleep nearly all day.