Home Again - August 1864

"Lone Cedar! Sarah!" he called as if trying to be heard in the next hollow.

"They're back. Sarah, they're back," he exclaimed with a smile that crunched up his eyes. The back door of the house slammed open and closed as Mama Bear came bounding down the back steps.

"Yes, yes," she said with assurance and joy.

"Where's Alex, J. N.? They tending the stock?" John L. asked as he visually searched toward the house and the corner where Lou had appeared. Lou's eyes went down to her grandfather's shuffled, worn brogans.

"What, Lou? What? They hurt, girl?" John L.'s joy evaporated and he was filled with foreboding. "Dead!?"

"No, no, they're fine, Granddaddy, fine," she assured her grandfather. "They are with General Joe in Athens. We came up nearly a week ago from Dalton to make a mess of Sherman's supply line," Lou reported.

"Lord in Heaven, they ain't with you? You all got within fifty miles of home and they didn't come? I swear." Totally flustered, he swung his axe like a hickory switch, the axe head embedding three inches into his busting block.

Mama Sarah took charge. "That's enough John Longstreet. They're alive. Lou's here." She looked deep into Lou's brown eyes and Lou kept her eyes locked on the woman who was her life's touchstone. "She's here and we're going to keep her if I have to tie her to a barn stall with a log chain." She smiled at her granddaughter and turned.