The old lady could scarcely repress a smile, and told Ezra the quarter where he was born and lived (on Heart’s Cove, a beautiful sheet of water near the homestead and an arm of Miles River) should be renovated and made comfortable as his home, and all that she required of him in his declining years was to keep her in oysters, fish and crabs, an easy task and eminently to the taste of Ezra.
In a few days, helped by his young Marster Arthur, Ezra was comfortably domiciled in his quarter on Heart’s Cove, and was very happy. He wished he had ridden Pigeon home instead of giving her away; he missed her so. He did not seem to worry about his wife the war had separated from him. One day whilst he was chinking and fixing up his boat, which old Sam’l had taken good care of, and singing lustily—
“When Israel wuz in Egyp’ lan’; Let meh people go; Oppress’d so hyard dey cud not stan’; Let meh people go; Go down Moses, way down in Egyp’ lan’; Tell ole Phario, Let meh people go”—
his young Marster Arthur, a lad of 15, who had already grown fond of him, and found him always entertaining, took a seat near him, asked him some questions about the South and if he saw anything of the war.
“Who, me? Mars Bedford wuz wid _me_ an’ we fit mo’n uh hunard battles, I specks, skirmages an’ all.”
“Why, Gen’l Forrest; de gre’tes’ warrior dat ebber libbed. Yo’ Pa sole me ter him. He wuz jes’ Mistah Forrest dem days, an’ wuz uh private de fus’ ub de wah; think ub dat! Well, when de wah broke out he tuck me fuh one ub his bodyguard; dat is, ter guard his body an’ keep dem blue coats ’way. He had uh hunard an’ fifty men in his bodyguard, an’ I wuz rite ’side him, his serbent an’ waitah—an’ mo’n dat, wid him night an’ day, ceppin in de battle; den I al’ays hilt his hoss when he fight on foot. You see when de battle ’tall ornsartin he meck dat bodyguard git of’n deah bosses an’ he draw dat big swo’d ub his’n an’ say, ‘Foller me,’ an’ ’mejately de blue coats see Mars Bedford an’ dat long swo’d ub his’n, dey sho’ ter run, don’ meck no difference ef’n dey ez thick ez grasshoppus. Some people say he cud look like uh goblin an’ tu’n inter uh sperrit in uh han’-ter-han’ fight; once uh week he sharpen his swo’d same ez uh raiser, an’ arfter his brudder got kilt (nebba saw uh man cry so in meh life) he sharpen dat swo’d ev’y day an’ he say, ‘Ef’n dey don’ s’render arfter I say s’render, I’ll cut de haids of’n ev’y one I gits close ’nuff ter,’ and he did it, too.”