un' somebody ter fit wid back at home widout comin' out hyer ter git
yo'se'f a-jumbled up wid all de po' white trash in de county. Dis yer wah
ain' de kin' I'se use ter, caze hit jumbles de quality en de trash
tergedder des like dey wuz bo'n blood kin."

"What are you muttering about now, Big Abel?" broke in Dan impatiently.
"For heaven's sake stop and find me a bed to lie on. Are they going to
leave me out here in the street on this pile of straw?"

"De Lawd he knows," hopelessly responded Big Abel. "Dey's a-fixin' places,
dey sez, dat's why all dese folks is a-runnin' dis away en dat away like
chickens wid dere haids chopped off. 'Fo' you hed yo' sense back dey wanted
ter stick you over yonder in dat ole blue shanty wid all de skin peelin'
off hit, but I des put my foot right down en 'lowed dey 'ouldn't. W'at you
wan' ketch mo'n you got fur?"

"But I can't stay here," weakly remonstrated Dan, "and I must have
something to eat--I tell you I could eat nails. Bring me anything on God's
earth except green corn."

The street was filled with women, and one of them, passing with a bowl of
gruel in her hand, came back and held it to his lips.

"You poor fellow!" she said impulsively, in a voice that was rich with
sympathy. "Why, I don't believe you've had a bite for a month."

Dan smiled at her from his heap of straw--an unkempt haggard figure.

"Not from so sweet a hand," he responded, his old spirit rising strong
above misfortune.

His voice held her, and she regarded him with a pensive face. She had known
men in her day, which had declined long since toward its evening, and with
the unerring instinct of her race she knew that the one before her was well
worth the saving. Gallantry that could afford to jest in rags upon a pile
of straw appealed to her Southern blood as little short of the heroic. She
saw the pinch of hunger about the mouth, and she saw, too, the singular
beauty which lay, obscured to less keen eyes, beneath the fever and the
dirt.

"The march must have been fearful--I couldn't have stood it," she said,
half to test the man.

Rising to the challenge, he laughed outright. "Well, since you mention it,
it wasn't just the thing for a lady," he answered, true to his salt.

For a moment she looked at him in silence, then turned regretfully to Big
Abel.

"The houses have filled up already, I believe," she said, "but there is a
nice dry stable up the street which has just been cleaned out for a
hospita