not doubt,
until the man at my side said to me, cheerily: 'Well, old chap, you've
come through it like a major, though I was mighty dubious a spell about
that pesky ball. But old Aunt Bab and me fished it out, and since then
you've begun to mend.'

"'Where am I? Who are you?' I asked, and he replied: 'Who be I? Why, I'm
Jack Jennin's, the rarinest, red-hottest secesh thar is in these yere
parts, so the rebs thinks; but 'twixt you and me, boy, I'm the tallest
kind of a Union--got a piece of the old flag sewed inside of my boots,
and every night before sleepin' I prays Lord gin Abe the victory,' and
raise Cain generally in t'other camp, and forgive Jack Jennin's for
tellin' so many lies, and makin' b'leeve he's one thing, when you know
and he knows he's t'other. If I've spared one Union chap, I'll bet I
have a hundred, me and old Bab, a black woman who lives here and tends
to the cases I fotch her, till we contrive to git 'em inter Tennessee,
whar they hev to shift for themselves.'

"I could only press his bony hand in token of my gratitude, while he
went on to say: 'Them was beans I fired at you that day, but they sarved
every purpose, and them scalliwags on the train s'pose you were put
under ground weeks ago, if, indeed, you wasn't left to rot in the sun,
as heaps and heaps on 'em is. Nobody knows you are here but Bab and me,
and nobody must know if you want to git off with a whole hide. I could
git a hundred dollars by givin' you up, but you don't s'pose Jack
Jennin's is agwine to do that ar infernal trick? No, sir,' and he
brought his brawny fist down upon his knee with a force which made me
tremble, while I tried to express my thanks for his great kindness. He
was a noble man, Helen, while Aunt Bab, the colored woman, who nursed me
so tenderly, and whose black, bony hands I kissed at parting, was as
true a woman as any with a fairer skin and more beautiful exterior.

"For three weeks longer I stayed up in that loft, and in that time three
more escaped prisoners were brought there, and one Union refugee from
North Carolina. We left in company one wild, rainy night, when the storm
and darkness must have been sent for our special protection, and Jack
Jennings cried like a little child when he bade me good-by, promising,
if he survived the war, to find his way to the North and visit me in New
York. I should be prouder, Helen, to welcome him to our home than to
entertain the Emperor of France, while Bab should have a s