"Well, that _might_ depend on who 'her' is." We had reached the
cross-roads and he was turning south.

"Look!" he said, and gave the glance and smile of the lady in the
curtained wagon so perfectly that I cackled like a small boy. "Oh, you
know that, do you? I dare you to say she didn't bring it!"

"I give you my word I don't know!" called I as the distance grew between
us. "And I give you my word I don't care!" he crowed back as we
galloped apart. His speech was two or three words longer, but they are
inappropriate at the end of a chapter, and I expurgate.



V


EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN, TWENTY

On entering Hazlehurst I observed all about the railway-station a
surprising amount of quartermaster's stores. A large part were cases of
boots and shoes. Laden with such goods, a train of shabby box-cars stood
facing south, its beggarly wood-burner engine sniffing and weeping,
while the cork-legged conductor helped all hands wood up. Though homely,
the picture was a stirring one. Up through the blue summer morning came
the sun, bringing to mind the words of the dying Mirabeau, "If that is
not God, at least it's his first cousin."

Even in the character of the goods there was eloquence, and not a