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from the shadows. Mordaunt had brought pencil and paper along and he slid under the cot and slipped up notes to his mother telling her just what to do. He took off his clothes and passed them up to her and she put them on under the blankets while he slid into her dress and squeezed into her shoes.

"When they'd changed their clothes complete, he passed her a scissors he'd brought along and after braiding her hair, she cut it off. Pulling his cap down over her shorn head, his mother smiled for the first time; naturally she thought they was both going to escape. But Mordaunt explained to her in scribbles that they couldn't do that because dawn was almost on them and as soon as the guard found that the tent was empty, the alarm would be raised and they'd both be caught before they had time to get away.

"'You're a soldier, Mother,' he wrote in his last note to her, 'and you must do what's best for all. I must stay here disguised as you and fool them to the very end, or when they find out you've escaped they'll never rest till you are caught and I'll only have saved you to die again. For my sake, Mother, you must go for I cannot die bravely unless I know that you will be free.'

"The poor mother wanted to speak to her boy—to say one last word of comfort—but she could not because it would have meant the death of both of them. So when she slipped down to the floor from the bed, she pressed him to her breast and kissed him and wet his cheeks with her tears—and then she crawled away in the night to freedom.

"When she was gone, Mordaunt lay upon the bed in her clothes, put her bonnet on his head and pinned her Paisley shawl tightly over it all. At sun-up the guard lifted the tent flap and he came out, his head low on his breast. He was marched between a guard of riflemen to a shallow grave beside a hill. The commanding officer was kind, thinking it was a woman and trembling pale because he was forced to shoot her as a spy. He asked if there was anything she wished to say but Mordaunt still hung his head and was silent. Misunderstanding the officer wondered how a daring spy at the last moment could be so afraid. Finally he lifted his sabre and gave the command and the soldiers fired. And so it was that Mordaunt died and was buried where he fell."

That was grandpop's favorite story of the Civil War. And no matter how frequent we heard it, we always was quiet for a minute after he was done because seems like there was nothing to say. But that last time grandpop told it, my son Roy was sitting beside me and he'd never heard it before. He'd just been studying up on American history at school and when grandpop finished Roy asked him a question right off.

"Grandfer," he said, "that's a wonderful story. But what I want to know is whether this Mordaunt was a damned Yank or a Johnnie Reb."

"Why, boy," grandpop replied, scratching his bald head. "I'll be dad busted if I ain't clean forget!"

And then it was that my dad pulled his pipe from his mouth and spoke up. "It doesn't make any difference," he said slow and thoughtful like. All that matters is that he was a hero."