As Dick spoke, Colonel Winchester, who had already noticed the man, gave an order to stop. The stranger, bent and knotted by hard work on the farm, hurried toward them. He leaned against the fence a moment, gasping for breath, and then said:
“You’re Union men, ain’t you? It’s no disguise?”
“Yes,” replied Colonel Winchester, “we’re Union men, and it’s no disguise that we’re wearing, Malachi White. I’ve seen you several times in Frankfort, selling hay.”
The farmer, who had climbed upon the fence and who was sitting on the top rail, hands on his knees, stared at him open-mouthed.
“You’ve got my name right. Malachi White it is,” he said, “suah enough, but I don’t know yours. ‘Pears to me, however, that they’s somethin’ familiar about you. Mebbe it’s the way you throw back your shoulders an’ look a fellow squah in the eyes.”
Colonel Winchester smiled. No man is insensible to a compliment which is obviously spontaneous.
“I spent a night once at your house, Mr. White,” he said. “I was going to Frankfort on horseback. I was overtaken at dusk by a storm and I reached your place just in time. I remember that I slept on a mighty soft feather bed, and ate a splendid breakfast in the morning.”
Malachi White was not insensible to compliments either. He smiled, and the smile which merely showed his middle front teeth at first, gradually broadened until it showed all of them. Then it rippled and stretched in little waves, until it stopped somewhere near his ears. Dick regarded him with delight. It was the broadest and finest smile that he had seen in many a long month.
“Now I know you,” said Malachi White, looking intently at the colonel. “I ain’t as strong on faces as some people, though I reckon I’m right strong on ’em, too, but I’m pow’ful strong on recollectin’ hear’in’, that is, the voice and the trick of it. It was fo’ yea’s ago when you stopped at my house. You had a curious trick of pronouncin’ r’s when they wasn’t no r’s. You’d say door, an’ hour, when ev’body knowed it was doah, an’ houah, but I don’t hold it ag’in you fo’ not knowin’ how to pronounce them wo’ds. Yoh name is Ahthuh Winchestuh.”
“As right as right can be,” said Colonel Winchester, reaching over and giving him a hearty hand. “I’m a colonel in the Union army now, and these are my officers and men. What was it you wanted to tell us?”
“Not to ride on fuhthah. It ain’t mo’ than fifteen miles to Frankfort. The place is plum full of the Johnnies. I seed ’em thah myself. Ki’by Smith, an’ a sma’t gen’ral he is, too, is thah, an’ so’s Bragg, who I don’t know much ’bout. They’s as thick as black be’ies in a patch, an’ they’s all gettin ready fo’ a gran’ ma’ch an’ display to-mo’ow when they sweah in the new Southe’n gove’nuh, Mistah Hawes. They’ve got out scouts, too, colonel, an’ if you go on you’ll run right squah into ’em an’ be took, which I allow you don’t want to happen, nohow.”
“No, Malachi, I don’t, nor do any of us, but we’re going on and we don’t mean to be taken. Most of the men know this country well. Two of them, in fact, were born in Frankfort.”
“Then mebbe you kin look out fo’ yo’selves, bein’ as you are Kentuckians. I’m mighty strong fo’ the Union myself, but a lot of them officers that came down from the no’th ‘pear to tu’n into pow’ful fools when they git away from home, knowin’ nothin’ ’bout the country, an’ not willin’ to lea’n. Always walkin’ into traps. I guess they’ve nevah missed a single trap the rebels have planted. Sometimes I’ve been so mad ’bout it that I’ve felt like quittin’ bein’ a Yank an’ tu’nin’ to a Johnny. But somehow I’ve nevah been able to make up my mind to go ag’in my principles. Is Gen’ral Grant leadin’ you?”
“No, General Buell.”
“I’m so’y of that. Gen’ral Buell, f’om all I heah, is a good fightah, but slow. Liable to git thar, an’ hit like all ta’nation, when it’s a little mite too late. He’s one of ouah own Kentuckians, an’ I won’t say anything ag’in him; not a wo’d, colonel, don’t think that, but I’ve been pow’ful took with this fellow Grant. I ain’t any sojah, myself, but I like the tales I heah ’bout him. When a fellow hits him he hits back ha’dah, then the fellow comes back with anothah ha’dah still, an’ then Grant up an’ hits him a wallop that you heah a mile, an’ so on an’ so on.”