"Well, you see we've been skirmishin' round here for a week, for the
woods are full of rebs waitin' to surprise some commissary stores
that's expected along. Contrabands is always comin' into camp, and
we do the best we can for the poor devils, and send 'em along where
they'll be safe. Yesterday four women and a boy come: about as
desperate a lot as I ever see; for they'd been two days and a night
in the big swamp, wadin' up to their waists in mud and water, with
nothin' to eat, and babies on their backs all the way. Every woman
had a child, one dead, but she'd fetched it, 'so it might be buried
free,' the poor soul said."
Mr. Wilkins stopped an instant as if for breath, but the thought of
his own "little chaps" filled his heart with pity for that bereaved
mother; and he understood now why decent men were willing to be shot
and starved for "the confounded niggers," as he once called them.
"Go on," said Christie, and he made haste to tell the little story
that was so full of intense interest to his listener.
"I never saw the Captain so worked up as he was by the sight of them
wretched women. He fed and warmed 'em, comforted their poor scared
souls, give what clothes we could find, buried the dead baby with
his own hands, and nussed the other little creeters as if they were
his own.
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