of
his feet and hands, but 'Lizabeth said she felt a little bit safer
havin' some human bein' along with her crossin' that big field.

"The moon was about in its third quarter that night, and 'Lizabeth
said if the sentries had been awake they could 'a' seen her and Uncle
Jake creepin' through the high weeds in the field. And every now and
then she'd stop and listen, and then go on a little piece and stop and
listen again, and that way they got to the far corner of the field,
and Uncle Jake he crouched down behind a big oak stump, and she
crawled under the bars o' the fence, and there was the fires all
burnin' low, but givin' enough light along with the moon to keep her
from stumblin' over the soldiers lyin' asleep on the ground. She said
she gethered her skyirts around her and picked her way to the holler
tree and pulled the powder out and put it in the skyirt of her dress
and started back. She said she was so skeered she never stopped to see
whether there really was any danger of fire spreadin' to the tree and
settin' off the powder. She had jest one thought in her mind, and that
was to git the powder and go back home.

"Did you ever dream, child, of tryin' to go somewhere and your feet
feelin' as if they had weights on 'em and you couldn't move 'em? Well,
'Lizabeth said that was the way she felt when she started back to the
fence with that powder. It was mighty heavy and weighted her down, so
that she had to walk slow, and she could hear the soldiers breathin',
and once one of 'em said somethin' in his sleep, and she come pretty
near faintin' from fright. Every step seemed like a mile, and she
thought she never would git back to the fence. But God watched over
her, and she got out o' the camp and back to the house safe and sound.
She said when she stepped up on her back porch she felt like a weight
as heavy as the powder had been taken off her conscience, and she went
up stairs and kneeled down and thanked God for givin' her courage to
do the right thing, and then she went to bed and slept as peaceful as
a child.

"Now, you may think, child, that 'Lizabeth put on her bonnet and come
over and told me this the day after it happened; but she didn't.
'Lizabeth never was any hand to talk about herself, and it was an
accident that anybody ever heard what she'd done. I happened to be at
her house one day, maybe six months or so after the war was over, and
Harrison was searchin' around in the closet, pullin' things out lik