“Down below Centreville.”

“Which beat?”

“The Confederates drove the Yankees off the field,” answered Tom, suspending business long enough to glance at the woman, and see how the intelligence was received.

“Yer don’t!  Then they won’t want my old man.”

Tom was unable to determine whether his hostess was Union or “Secesh” from her words or her looks.  He could not inform her whether they would want her old man or not.  When he had eaten all he could, he proposed like an honest youth to pay for what he had eaten; but Betsey had the true idea of southern hospitality, and refused to receive money for the food eaten beneath her roof.  She had a loaf of coarse bread, however, in which she permitted Tom to invest the sum of six cents.

“I am very much obliged to you, marm; and I shall be glad to do as much for you, any time,” said Tom, as he went towards the front door.

As he was about to open it, his ears were startled by an imperative knock on the outside.  He stepped back to one of the two windows on the front of the house, where he discovered an officer and two “grayback” soldiers.  The ghost of his grandmother would not have been half so appalling a sight, and he retreated to the back door with a very undignified haste.

“Gracious me!” exclaimed the lady of the house.  “Who kin thet be?”

“An officer and two soldiers,” replied Tom, hastily.

“Then they are arter my old man!” said she, dropping into the only chair the room contained.

“Don’t say I’m here, marm, and I’ll help your husband, if they catch him.  Tell them he has gone off to be absent a week.”

“He’d be absent more’n thet if he knowed them fellers was arter him.”

The woman moved towards the front door, and Tom through the back door; but as he was about to pass into the garden, he caught a glimpse of one of the graybacks in the rear of the house.  For a moment his case seemed to be hopeless; but he retreated into the room again, just as the woman opened the front door to admit the officer.  He could not escape from the house, and his only resource was to secure a hiding place within its walls.  There were only two which seemed to be available; one of these was the bed, and the other the chimney.  If any search was made, of course the soldiers would explore the bed first; and the chimney seemed the most practicable.

There was no time for consideration, for the woman had already opened the door, and was answering the questions of the Confederate officer; so Tom sprang into the fireplace, and, by the aid of the projecting stones, climbed up to a secure position.  The chimney was large enough to accommodate half a dozen boys of Tom’s size.  The fire had gone out, and though the stones were rather warm in the fireplace, he was not uncomfortable.

The fears of the lady of the house proved to be well grounded this time, for the party had actually come in search of her “old man;” and what was more, the officer announced his intention not to leave without him.