Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/43

 day o' the surrender. I was sorter cryin' and wonderin' how I'd get home with that stump of wood instead of a foot, when along come a chunky heavy set Yankee General, looking as glum as though his folks had surrendered instead of Marse Robert. He saw me, stopped, looked at me a minute right hard and says, "Where do you live?"

"Way down in ole No'th Caliny," I says, "at Ham-bright, not far from King's Mountain."

"How are you going to get home?" says he.

"God knows, I don't, General. I got a wife and baby down there I ain't seed fer nigh four years, and I want to see 'em so bad I can taste 'em. I was lookin' the other way when I said that, fer I was purty well played out, and feelin' weak and watery about the eyes, an' I didn't want no Yankee General to see water in my eyes."

"He called a feller to him and sorter snapped out to him, "Go bring the best horse you can spare for this man and give it to him."

"Then he turns to me and seed I was all choked up and couldn't say nothin' and says:

"I'm General Grant. Give my love to your folks when you get home. I've known what it was to be a poor white man down South myself once for awhile."

"God bless you, General. I thanks you from the bottom of my heart," I says as quick as I could find my tongue, "if it had to be surrender I'm glad it was to such a man as you."

"He never said another word, but just walked slow along smoking a big cigar. So ole woman, you know the reason I named that hoss, 'General Grant.' It may be I have seen finer hosses than that one, but I couldn't recollect anything about 'em on the road home."

Dinner over, Tom's comrades rose and looked wistfully down the dusty road leading southward.

"Well, Tom, ole man, we gotter be er movin'," said the