imb to seats on the top of his load. Jennie found a
berth between a flour barrel and mattress, while Mandy sat astride of an
enormous bundle of bed clothes. Lucy scrambled up beside the driver.

The hot sun was pouring its fierce rays down without mercy. The old
negro pulled a faded umbrella from beneath his seat, raised it, and
handed it to Jennie with a grand bow.

"Thank you, uncle. You certainly are good to us!"

"Yassam--yassam--I wish I could do mo', honey chile. De ve'y idee er dem
slue-footed Yankees er shellin' our town an' scerin' all our ladies ter
death. Dey gwine ter pay fur all dis 'fore dey git through."

Three miles out they began to overtake the main body of the fugitives
who escaped at the first mad rush. Hundreds of bedraggled women and
children were toiling along the dust-covered road in the blistering sun,
some bare-headed, some with hats on, some with street clothes, others
with their morning wrappers just as they had fled from their unfinished
breakfast.

Little girls of eight and ten and twelve were wandering along through
the suffocating dust alone.

Jennie called to one she knew:

"Where's your mother, child?"

The girl shook her dust-powdered head.

"I don't know, m'am."

"Where are you going?"

"To walk on till I find her."

Her mother was wandering with distracted cries among the crowds a mile
in the rear looking for a nursing baby she had lost in the excitement.

Jennie's eyes kindled at the sight of faithful negroes everywhere
lugging the treasures of their mistresses. She began asking them what
they were carrying just to hear the answer that always came with a touch
of loyal pride.

"Dese is my missy's clothes! I sho weren't gwine let dem Yankees steal
dem!"

"Didn't you save any of your own things?"

"Didn't have time ter git mine!"

They came to a guerilla camp. Men and horses were resting on either side
of the road. Some of them were carrying water to their horses or to the
women who cooked about their camp fires. The scene looked like a monster
barbecue. These irregular troops of the South were friends in time of
need to-day.

They crowded the road, asking for news and commenting freely on the
shelling of the city.

A rough-looking fellow pushed his way to Jennie's cart.

"When did they begin firin'?"

"Just after breakfast."

Yesterday she would have resented the familiar tones in which this
uncouth illiterate countryman spoke without the formality of an