'It wa'n't
much,' said the good soul, with tears in her eyes, 'it wa'n't much we's
could do for him, but I washed him, and dressed him, peart as I could,
and Sam and me, we buried him. We wished, both on us, that we could have
done heaps more for him, but we did all that we could,'--which, indeed,
was plain enough to be seen.
"Before we went away, Sam brought from a little hole, which he burrowed
in the floor of his cabin, a something, done up in dirty old rags; and
when we opened it, what under the heavens do you suppose we found?
You'll never guess. Three hundred dollars in bank-bills, and some
important papers, which he had taken and hid,--concealed them even from
his wife, because, he said, the guerillas often came round, and they
might frighten her into giving them up if she knew they were there.
"I collapsed at that, and stood with open mouth, watching for the next
proceeding. I knew there was to be some more of it, and there was.
Hunt's brother offered back half the money; _offered_ it! why, he tried
to force it on the fellow, and couldn't. His master wouldn't let him
buy himself and his wife,--I suspect, out of sheer cussedness,--and he
hadn't any other use for money, he said. Besides, he didn't want to
take, and wouldn't take, anything that looked like pay for doing aught
for a 'Linkum sojer,' alive or dead.
"'They'se going to make us all free, sometime,' he said, 'that's enough.
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