and
laughed at 'Mother Murray's prisoner.' After awhile I did not heed them.
The moon came up, and I cried then thinking if mother or Joe could know
what had come to me. _Then I made up my mind what to do._ I prayed to
the Lord Jesus; but I thought, through all, what I would do. She brought
me some food, but I would not touch it, though I was sick with hunger.
When the drum had beat and the camp was all quiet, there was a sentry
came walking up and down before the pen. He had a kind, good face: he
whistled to keep himself awake. Afterwards he stopped it, and, leaning
over the log-fence, said, 'Forgive me. I didn't think of your being a
prisoner, or I would not have whistled.' It was so sudden, his kind way
of speaking, that I began to cry, sitting back in the corner. He bade me
never heed, for that I would be free in the morning. 'You're no spy,' he
said,--'only Captain Roberts heard Mother Murray's story, and put me
here till he could see for himself in the morning.' Then he asked me
questions, and somehow it did me good to tell all about Joe, and how I
had not found him. He stood there when I had done, thinking, and
whistling again, soft to himself. 'Just you wait, Ellen,' he says,--'I
know what you want.' And with that he takes out a little Testament, and,
sitting down, he reads to me. Then he asked me what verses I liked, and
talked of the chapters, till I began to forget all that had happened.
Then he put the book in his pocket, and talked of other things, and made
me laugh once or twice; and at last he took a card out of his pocket,
and thought for a good while. Then he wrote a name on it, Mrs. Jane
Burroughs, Xenia, Ohio, and gave it to me. 'That is my mother,' he said,
very gravely,--'as good a woman as God lets live. Do you go to her,
Ellen, when you're out of this den, and tell her I sent you, and, if I
should die in this bloody business, to remember I said to be good to
you.' Soon after that another man came and took his place, and I saw him
no more. He was very kind. But I knew what _I_ would do,"--with the same
dropping of the voice.

In the morning Ellen was released, and the soldiers forbidden to molest
her. She hurried along the road to Fairmont. There is a long bridge
there, spanning the Monongahela. "I saw it when I was in the cars, and
the sight of the water below it came back to me through all my trouble.
It was noon when I came to it again. I don't think I stopped at all, to
think about Joe, or to t