was always
a sort of hospital). He was in the boys' room in bed when the Yankees
arrived, and they were all around the house before she knew it. She went
downstairs to meet them. They had been informed by one of the negroes
that Cousin Charlie was there, and they told her that they wanted him.
She told them they could not get him. They asked her, "Why? Is he not
there?" (I heard her tell of it once.) She said:

"You know, I thought when I told them they could not get him that they
would go away, but when they asked me if he was not there, of course I
could not tell them a story; so I said I declined to answer impertinent
questions. You know poor Charlie was at that moment lying curled up
under the bed in the boys' room with a roll of carpet a foot thick
around him, and it was as hot as an oven. Well, they insisted on going
through the house, and I let them go all through the lower stories; but
when they started up the staircase I was ready for them. I had always
kept, you know, one of papa's old horse-pistols as a protection. Of
course, it was not loaded. I would not have had it loaded for anything
in the world. I always kept it safely locked up, and I was dreadfully
afraid of it even then. But you have no idea what a moral support it
gave me, and I used to unlock the drawer every afternoon to see if it
was still there all right, and then lock it again, and put the key away
carefully. Well, as it happened, I had just been looking at it--which I
called 'inspecting my garrison'. I used to feel just like Lady Margaret
in Tillietudlam Castle. Well, I had just been looking at it that
afternoon when I heard the Yankees were coming, and by a sudden
inspiration--I cannot tell for my life how I did it--I seized the
pistol, and hid it under my apron. I held on to it with both hands, I
was so afraid of it, and all the time those wretches were going through
the rooms down-stairs I was quaking with terror. But when they started
up the stairs I had a new feeling. I knew they were bound to get poor
Charlie if he had not melted and run away,--no, he would never have run
away; I mean evaporated,--and I suddenly ran up the stairway a few steps
before them, and, hauling out my big pistol, pointed it at them, and
told them that if they came one step higher I would certainly pull the
trigger. I could not say I would shoot, for it was not loaded. Well,
do you know, they stopped! They stopped dead still. I declare I was so
afraid the old pist