If I wanted breastworks all I've
got to do is to dig paths in the snow. I could hold Lee till the snow
melts or till they took it by zig-zags and parallels through the
drifts. But there's no use talking about any such thing, for there's
no fight left in the men, not a bit. If they had ever so little grit
left, we might hold out long enough at least to get some sort of fair
terms, but, Lord they haven't. They'll just run like sheep."
"Ef we on'y hed a cannon naow, ef 'twan't but a three-pounder!" said
Abner, pathetically. "We could jess sot it in the middle of the road,
and all creation couldn't get intew Lee. Yew an I could stop em alone
then. Gosh naow wat wouldn't I give fer a cannon the size o' Mis
Perry's yarn-beam thar. Ef the white feathers seen a gun the size o'
that p'inted at em an a feller behind it with a hot coal, I callate
they'd be durn glad tew 'gree tew a fa'r settlement. But Lordomassy,
gosh knows we hain't got no cannon, and we can't make one."
"I don't know about that, Abner," replied Perez, deliberately. His
glance had followed Abner's to the loom standing in the back of the
kitchen, and as he answered his lieutenant he was fixedly regarding
the very yarn-beam to which the other had alluded, a round, smooth,
dark colored wooden roller, five or six feet long and eight or ten
inches through.
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