Old Man--"Why, don't you know? Our folks are fixin' up a place foh Bill
Sherman to butt his brains out gain'."

"Bill Sherman!" we all shouted in surprise: "Why he ain't within two
hundred miles of this place, is he?"

Old Man--"Yes, but he is, tho'. He thinks he's played a sharp Yankee
trick on Hood. He found out he couldn't lick him in a squar' fight,
nohow; he'd tried that on too often; so he just sneaked 'round behind
him, and made a break for the center of the State, where he thought there
was lots of good stealin' to be done. But we'll show him. We'll soon
hev him just whar we want him, an' we'll learn him how to go traipesin'
'round the country, stealin' nigahs, burnin' cotton, an' runnin' off
folkses' beef critters. He sees now the scrape he's got into, an' he's
tryin' to get to the coast, whar the gun-boats'll help 'im out. But
he'll nevah git thar, sah; no sah, nevah. He's mouty nigh the end of his
rope, sah, and we'll purty' soon hev him jist whar you fellows air, sah."

Myself--"Well, if you fellows intended stopping him, why didn't you do it
up about Atlanta? What did you let him come clear through the State,
burning and stealing, as you say? It was money in your pockets to head
him off as soon as possible."

Old Man--"Oh, we didn't set nothing afore him up thar except Joe Brown's
Pets, these sorry little Reserves; they're powerful little account; no
stand-up to'em at all; they'd break their necks runnin' away ef ye so
much as bust a cap near to 'em."

Our guards, who belonged to these Reserves, instantly felt that the
conversation had progressed farther than was profitable and one of them