rmy, by means
of their railroads, are only a few hours from home, and old
Forrest is not in their neighborhood, so it is an easy thing
for them to have good times. And here we were, away down in
Tennessee, in the mud and the cold, no tents, on quarter
rations, and picking scraps of hardtack out of the mud and
eating them--it was enough to make a preacher swear. But along
about noon John Richey came to me and proposed that inasmuch as
it was Christmas Day, we should strike out and forage for a
square meal. It didn't take much persuasion, and straightway we
sallied forth. I wanted to hunt up the old colored woman who
gave me the mess of boiled roasting ears when we were here last
summer, but John said he thought he had a better thing than
that, and as he is ten years older than I am, I knocked under
and let him take the lead.

"About half a mile from our camp, in the outskirts of the town,
we came to a large, handsome, two-story and a half frame house,
with a whole lot of nigger cabins in the rear. John took a
survey of the premises and said, 'Lee, right here's our meat.'
We went into the yard at a little side gate between the big
house and the nigger quarters, and were steering for one of the
cabins, when out steps from the back porch of the big house the
lady of the place herself. That spoiled the whole game; John
whirled in his tracks and commenced to sidle away. But the lady
walked towards us and said in a very kind and friendly manner:
'Do you men want anything?' 'Oh, no, ma'am,' replied John; 'we
just came here to see if we could get some of the colored women
to do some washing for us, but I guess we'll not bother about
it today;' still backing away as he spoke. But the lady was not
satisfied. Looking at us very sharply, she asked: 'Don't you
men want something to eat?' My heart gave a great thump at
that, but, to my inexpressible disgust, John, with his head
thrown back and nose pointed skyward, answered, speaking very
fast, 'Oh, no, ma'am, not at all, ma'am, a thousand times
obleeged, ma'am,' and continued his sneaking retreat. By this
time I had hold of the cape of his overcoat and was plucking it
in utter desperation. 'John,' I s