that these were
not British, but Yankees,--but he was hard to convince. Even Lucy Ann,
who was incurably afraid of everything like a gun or fire-arm, partook
of the general fervor, and boasted effusively that she had actually
"tetched Marse John's big pistils."

Hugh, who was fifteen, and was permitted to accompany his father to
Richmond, was regarded by the boys with a feeling of mingled envy and
veneration, which he accepted with dignified complacency.

Frank and Willy soon found that war brought some immunities. The house
filled up so with the families of cousins and friends who were
refugees that the boys were obliged to sleep in the Office, and thus
they felt that, at a bound, they were almost as old as Hugh.

There were the cousins from Gloucester, from the Valley, and families
of relatives from Baltimore and New York, who had come south on the
declaration of war. Their favorite was their Cousin Belle, whose
beauty at once captivated both boys. This was the first time that the
boys knew anything of girls, except their own sister, Evelyn; and
after a brief period, during which the novelty gave them pleasure,
the inability of the girls to hunt, climb trees, or play knucks, etc.,
and the additional restraint which their presence imposed, caused them
to hold the opinion that "girls were no good."

CHAPTER III.

In course of time they saw a great deal of "the army,"--which meant
the Confederates. The idea that the Yankees could ever get to Oakland
never entered any one's head. It was understood that the army lay
between Oakland and them, and surely they could never get by the
innumerable soldiers who were always passing up one road or the other,
and who, day after day and night after night, were coming to be fed,
and were rapidly eating up everything that had been left on the place.
By the end of the first year they had been coming so long that they
made scarcely any difference; but the first time a regiment camped in
the neighborhood it created great excitement.

It became known one night that a cavalry regiment, in which were
several of their cousins, was encamped at Honeyman's Bridge, and the
boys' mother determined to send a supply of provisions for the camp
next morning; so several sheep were killed, the smoke-house was
opened, and all night long the great fires in the kitchen and
wash-house glowed; and even then there was not room, so that a big
fire was kindled in the back yard, beside which saddl