"Well, then," said Roberta in desperation, "I'll give you my red sash that
you think so pretty; I will indeed."

That did the work; Polly's love of finery was intense. She began to sing
in a surly tone, that straightened out as visions suggested by the song
flitted before her. The circus was her delight.

If the soldiers, in passing, noticed the incongruous lullaby, they made
no comment. Possibly, they were not family men.

They went through the house; pushed their bayonets in the mattresses,
lifted them up and looked underneath; searched every nook and corner below
stairs, then tramped up. Roberta called to Polly:

"Is the baby asleep, Polly?"

"No; yes. Lawdy, Lawdy! I'ze gwiner drap it, sho'; it's sliden'."

Roberta looked through the window at the counterfeit baby; she flew out on
the porch, took it away from the awkward nurse, saying:

"You will never make a nurse, Polly; there's no use trying to teach you;"
carried it in and laid it on the dismantled bed, just in time to prevent
the drapery from slipping off and exposing the shining metal. She darkened
the room, and sat there patting it and singing to it till the search was
over and the soldiers gone. Then the child put her head in her mamma's
lap, and sobbed from pure nervousness. But she had kept her promise, the
loyal little soul. In years to come, she made and kept another promise,
that the first one led to, as links in a chain.