maidenly. "I have seen so much harm from misunderstandings, and they
are so simple when it is too late--let me ask you one or two questions,
Uncle Sam. You always answer every body. And to you a crooked answer is
impossible."

"Business is business," the Sawyer said. "My dear, I contract
accordingly."

"Very well. Then, in the first place, what do you wish to have done with
me? Putting aside all the gossip, I mean, of people who have never even
heard of me."

"Why, to take you back to Saw-mill with us, where you always was so
natural."

"In the next place, what does your grandson wish?"

"To take you back to Saw-mill with him, and keep you there till death do
you part, as chanceth to all mortal pairs."

"And now, Uncle Sam, what do I wish? You say we all have so much
free-will."

"It is natural that you should wish, my dear, to go and be a great
lady, and marry a nobleman of your own rank, and have a lot of little
noblemen."

"Then I fly against nature; and the fault is yours for filling me so
with machinery."

The Sawyer was beaten, and he never said again that a woman can not
argue.

CHAPTER LVIII

BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS

From all the carnage, havoc, ruin, hatred, and fury of that wicked war
we set our little convoy forth, with passes procured from either side.
According to all rules of war, Firm was no doubt a prisoner; but having
saved his life, and taken his word to serve no more against them,
remembering also that he had done them more service than ten regiments,
the Federal authorities were not sorry to be quit of him.

He, for his part, being of a deep, retentive nature, bore in his wounded
breast a sorrow which would last his lifetime. To me he said not a
single word about his bitter fortune, and he could not bring himself
to ask me whether I would share it. Only from his eyes sometimes I knew
what he was thinking; and having passed through so much grief, I
was moved with deep compassion. Poor Firm had been trained by his
grandfather to a strong, earnest faith in Providence, and now this
compelled him almost to believe that he had been specially visited. For
flying in the face of his good grandfather, and selfishly indulging his
own stiff neck, his punishment had been hard, and almost heavier than he
could bear. Whatever might happen to him now, the spring and the flower
of his life were gone; he still might have some calm existence, but
never win another day of cloudless joy. And