ouse, tried every door, peeped in the windows,
pounded and rapped, while I watched them through the blind-slats.
Presently the fattest one, a real Falstaffian man, came back to the front
door and rung a thundering peal. I saw the chance for fun and for putting
on their own grandiloquent style. Stealing on tiptoe to the door, I turned
the key and bolt noiselessly, and suddenly threw wide back the door, and
appeared behind it. He had been leaning on it, and nearly pitched forward
with an "Oh! what's this?" Then seeing me as he straightened up, "Ah,
madam!" almost stuttering from surprise and anger, "are you aware I had
the right to break down this door if you hadn't opened it?"

"That would make no difference to me. I'm not the owner. You or the
landlord would pay the bill for the repairs."

"Why didn't you open the door?"

"Have I not done so as soon as you rung? A lady does not open the door to
men who beat on it. Gentlemen usually ring; I thought it might be
stragglers pounding."

"Well," growing much blander, "we are going to send you some wagons to
move; you must get ready."

"With pleasure, if you have selected a house for me. This is too large; it
does not suit me."

"No, I didn't find a house for you."

"You surely don't expect _me_ to run about in the dust and shelling to
look for it, and Mr. L. is too busy."

"Well, madam, then we must share the house. We will take the lower floor."

"I prefer to keep the lower floor myself; you surely don't expect _me_ to
go up and down stairs when you are so light and more able to do it."

He walked through the hall, trying the doors. "What room is that?"--"The
parlor." "And this?"--"My bedroom." "And this?"--"The dining-room."

"Well, madam, we'll find you a house and then come and take this."

"Thank you, colonel. I shall be ready when you find the house. Good
morning, sir."

I heard him say as he ran down the steps, "We must go back, captain; you
see I didn't know they were this kind of people."

Of course the orderly had lied in the beginning to scare me, for General
Pemberton is too far away from Vicksburg to send such an order. He is
looking about for General Grant. We are told he has gone out to meet
Johnston; and together they expect to annihilate Grant's army and free
Vicksburg forever. There is now a general hospital opposite this house and
a small-pox hospital next door. War, famine, pestilence, and fire surround
us. Every day the band plays in front