"I tell ye we just begin to see the scope on't. There
was my cousin, you know, Dan'l Evins, that stopped with us last
winter; he was tellin' me that one o' his coastin' trips he was into
the port o' Beaufort lo'din' with yaller-pine lumber, an' he roved
into an old buryin'-ground there is there, an' he see a stone that had
on it some young Southern fellow's name that was killed in the war,
an' under it was, 'He died for his country.' Dan'l knowed how I used
to feel about them South Car'lina goings on, an' I did feel kind o'
red an' ugly for a minute, an' then somethin' come over me, an' I
says, 'Well, I don' know but what the poor chap did, Dan Evins, when
you come to view it all round.'"
The other men made no answer.
"Le's see what we can do this year. I don't care if we be a poor
han'ful," urged Henry Merrill. "The young folks ought to have the
good of it; I'd like to have my boys see somethin' different. Le's get
together what men there is. How many's left, anyhow? I know there was
thirty-seven went from old Barlow, three-months' men an' all."
"There can't be over eight now, countin' out Martin Tighe; he can't
march," said Stover. "No, 'tain't worth while." But the others did not
notice his disapproval.
"There's nine in all," announced Asa Brown, after pondering and
counting two or three times on his fingers. "I can't make us no more.
I never could carry figur's in my head."
"I make nine," said Merrill. "We'll have Martin ride, an' Jesse Dean
too, if he will.
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