s if he were
prepared to do battle with the first one of his auditors who dared
dispute his words. Marcy saw at a glance that some of the crowd were
very much shocked, while others were grinning broadly, and nodding now
and then as if to say that the speaker was expressing their sentiments
exactly. Marcy knew him well. He lived in the settlement, and had been
one of the first to put on a uniform and hasten to the front; and so
very patriotic was he that he was anxious to fight all his neighbors who
could not be persuaded to go into the army with him. But his experience
at Hatteras and Roanoke Island had somewhat dampened his ardor, and
showed him that there were some things in war that he had never dreamed
of.

"How does it come that you stay-at-homers know so much about this
business, and about my duty as a soldier, that you take it upon
yourselves to tell me what I had oughter do?" shouted the man who had
heard the shrieking of Yankee shells at Fort Bartow. "I see some among
you who are mighty hard on your niggers, but there aint one who is as
hard as our trifling officers were on us. Having no niggers to drive
they took to driving us white men, and they 'bused us like we was dogs.
Many's the time I have seen men tied up by the thumbs and bucked and
gagged for nothing at all; and, Tom Allison, I give you fair warning
that if you say again that I'm a coward kase I don't allow to go back
and be 'bused like I was afore, I'll twist your neck for ye."

This made two things plain to Marcy Gray. One was that the man had had
quite enough of soldiering and that he did not mean to try it again if
he could help it. The other was that his friend Allison had presumed to
speak his mind a little too freely, and that that was what started the
prisoner on his tirade against those whom he called "stay-at-homers."
After some twisting, and turning, and elbowing Marcy succeeded in
obtaining a glance at Tom.

He was leaning against one of the counters, as far away from the speaker
as he could get, and his face was as white as his shirt-front.

"I'm mighty glad to hear that there's Union men among you," continued
the soldier, "and if there's any here in this post-office I want them to
know that there's more of 'em now nor they was a week ago, and that some
of 'em wears gray jackets. And I am glad to hear that them same Union
men have took to burning out them among you who was cowards enough to
persecute women and children on account of