Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/389

Rh "'Bully!' says I—'bully for you, Doc! I suppose it 's marines with a Catling. I am going to love your country all I can for this.' "'Negotiations,' says old Doc, 'will be opened between the two governments at once. You will know later on to-day if they are successful.'

"About four in the afternoon a soldier in red trousers brings a paper round to the jail, and they unlocks the door and I walks out. The guard at the door bows and I bows, and I steps into the grass and wades around to Doc Millikin s shack.

"Doc was sitting in his hammock, playing 'Dixie,' soft and low and out of tune, on his flute. I interrupted him at 'Look away! look away!' and shook his hand for five minutes. "'I never thought,' says Doc, taking a chew fretfully, 'that I'd ever try to save any blame Yank's life. But, Mr. O'Keefe, I don't see but what you are entitled to be considered part human, anyhow. I never thought Yanks had any of the rudiments of decorum and laudability about them. I reckon I might have been too aggregative in my tabulation. But it ain't me you want to thank—it 's the Confederate States of America.' "'And I'm much obliged to 'em,' says I. 'It 's a poor man that would not be patriotic with a country that 's saved his life. I'll drink to the Stars and Bars whenever there 's a flagstaff and a glass convenient. But where,' says I, 'are the rescuing troops? If there was a gun fired or a shell burst, I did n't hear it.'

"Doc Millikin raises up and points out the window with his flute at the banana steamer loading with fruit.

"'Yank,' says he, 'there 's a steamer that 's going to sail in the morning. If I was you, I 'd sail on it. The Confederate government 's done all it can for you. There was n't a gun fired. The negotiations was carried on secretly between the two nations by the purser of that steamer. I got him to do it