Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/174

D'RI AND I and potatoes and bacon over the fire, and was filling the tea-kettle.

"On my soul," said she, frankly, "you are the oddest-looking man I ever saw. Tell me, why do you carry the long club?"

I looked down. There it was under my arm. It surprised me more than anything I ever found myself doing.

"Madame, it is because I am a fool," I said as I flung it out of the door.

"It is strange," said she. "Your clothes—they are not your own; they are as if they were hung up to dry. And you have a sabre and spurs."

"Of that the less said the better," I answered, pulling out the sabre. "Unless—unless, madame, you would like me to die young."

"Mon Dieu!" she whispered. "A Yankee soldier?"

"With good French blood in him," I added, "who was never so hungry in all his life."

I went out of the door as I spoke, and shoved my sabre under the house.

"I have a daughter on the other side of the lake," said she, "married to a Yankee, and her