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diff --git a/23359-0.txt b/23359-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bcf0d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/23359-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,933 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Quite So, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Quite So + +Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23359] +Last Updated: March 3, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUITE SO *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +QUITE SO + +By Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company + +Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901 + + + + +I. + +Of course that was not his name. Even in the State of Maine, where it +is still a custom to maim a child for life by christening him Arioch or +Shadrach or Ephraim, nobody would dream of calling a boy “Quite So.” + It was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him +with such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable from my memory of +him, that I do not think I could write definitely of John Bladburn if I +were to call him anything but “Quite So.” + +It was one night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. The Army +of the Potomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was back in its +old quarters behind the earthworks. The melancholy line of ambulances +bearing our wounded to Washington was not done creeping over Long +Bridge; the blue smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on the field +of Manassas; and the gloom that weighed down our hearts was like the fog +that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, and enfolded the valley +of the Shenandoah. A drizzling rain had set in at twilight, and, growing +bolder with the darkness, was beating a dismal tattoo on the tent--the +tent of Mess 6, Company A, --th Regiment, N. Y. Volunteers. Our mess, +consisting originally of eight men, was reduced to four. Little Billy, +as one of the boys grimly remarked, had concluded to remain at Manassas; +Corporal Steele we had to leave at Fairfax Court-House, shot through +the hip; Hunter and Suydam we had said good-by to that afternoon. “Tell +Johnny Reb,” says Hunter, lifting up the leather side-piece of the +ambulance, “that I 'll be back again as soon as I get a new leg.” But +Suydam said nothing; he only unclosed his eyes languidly and smiled +farewell to us. + +The four of us who were left alive and unhurt that shameful July day +sat gloomily smoking our brier-wood pipes, thinking our thoughts, +and listening to the rain pattering against the canvas. That, and the +occasional whine of a hungry cur, foraging on the outskirts of the camp +for a stray bone, alone broke the silence, save when a vicious drop of +rain detached itself meditatively from the ridge-pole of the tent, and +fell upon the wick of our tallow candle, making it “cuss,” as Ned Strong +described it. The candle was in the midst of one of its most profane +fits when Blakely, knocking the ashes from his pipe and addressing no +one in particular, but giving breath, unconsciously as it were, to +the result of his cogitations, observed that “it was considerable of a +fizzle.” + +“The 'on to Richmond' business?” + +“Yes.” + +“I wonder what they 'll do about it over yonder,” said Curtis, pointing +over his right shoulder. By “over yonder” he meant the North in general +and Massachusetts especially. Curtis was a Boston boy, and his sense of +locality was so strong that, during all his wanderings in Virginia, I +do not believe there was a moment, day or night, when he could not have +made a bee-line for Faneuil Hall. + +“Do about it?” cried Strong. “They 'll make about two hundred thousand +blue flannel trousers and send them along, each pair with a man in +it--all the short men in the long trousers, and all the tall men in the +short ones,” he added, ruefully contemplating his own leg-gear, which +scarcely reached to his ankles. + +“That's so,” said Blakely. “Just now, when I was tackling the commissary +for an extra candle, I saw a crowd of new fellows drawing blankets.” + +“I say there, drop that!” cried Strong. “All right, sir, didn't know +it was you,” he added hastily, seeing it was Lieutenant Haines who had +thrown back the flap of the tent, and let in a gust of wind and +rain that threatened the most serious bronchial consequences to our +discontented tallow dip. + +“You 're to bunk in here,” said the lieutenant, speaking to some one +outside. The some one stepped in, and Haines vanished in the darkness. + +When Strong had succeeded in restoring the candle to consciousness, the +light fell upon a tall, shy-looking man of about thirty-five, with +long, hay-colored beard and mustache, upon which the rain-drops stood in +clusters, like the night-dew on patches of cobweb in a meadow. It was +an honest face, with unworldly sort of blue eyes, that looked out from +under the broad visor of the infantry cap. With a deferential glance +towards us, the new-comer unstrapped his knapsack, spread his blanket +over it, and sat down unobtrusively. + +“Rather damp night out,” remarked Blakely, whose strong hand was +supposed to be conversation. + +“Quite so,” replied the stranger, not curtly, but pleasantly, and with +an air as if he had said all there was to be said about it. + +“Come from the North recently?” inquired Blakely, after a pause. + +“Yes.” + +“From any place in particular?” + +“Maine.” + +“People considerably stirred up down there?” continued Blakely, +determined not to give up. + +“Quite so.” + +Blakely threw a puzzled look over the tent, and seeing Ned Strong on +the broad grin, frowned severely. Strong instantly assumed an abstracted +air, and began humming softly, + + “I wish I was in Dixie.” + +“The State of Maine,” observed Blakely, with a certain defiance of +manner not at all necessary in discussing a geographical question, “is a +pleasant State.” + +“In summer,” suggested the stranger. + +“In summer, I mean,” returned Blakely with animation, thinking he had +broken the ice. “Cold as blazes in winter, though--Isn't it?” + +The new recruit merely nodded. + +Blakely eyed the man homicidally for a moment, and then, smiling one of +those smiles of simulated gayety which the novelists inform us are more +tragic than tears, turned upon him with withering irony. + +“Trust you left the old folks pretty comfortable?” + +“Dead.” + +“The old folks dead!” + +“Quite so.” + +Blakely made a sudden dive for his blanket, tucked it around him with +painful precision, and was heard no more. + +Just then the bugle sounded “lights out,”--bugle answering bugle in +far-off camps. When our not elaborate night-toilets were complete, +Strong threw somebody else's old boot at the candle with infallible +aim, and darkness took possession of the tent. Ned, who lay on my left, +presently reached over to me, and whispered, “I say, our friend 'quite +so' is a garrulous old boy! He'll talk himself to death some of these +odd times, if he is n't careful. How he _did_ run on!” + +The next morning, when I opened my eyes, the new member of Mess 6 was +sitting on his knapsack, combing his blonde beard with a horn comb. He +nodded pleasantly to me, and to each of the boys as they woke up, one by +one. Blakely did not appear disposed to renew the animated conversation +of the previous night; but while he was gone to make a requisition for +what was in pure sarcasm called coffee, Curtis ventured to ask the man +his name. + +“Bladburn, John,” was the reply. + +“That's rather an unwieldy name for every-day use,” put in Strong. “If +it would n't hurt your feelings, I 'd like to call you Quite So--for +short. Don't say no, if you don't like it. Is it agreeable?” + +Bladburn gave a little laugh, all to himself, seemingly, and was about +to say, “Quite so,” when he caught at the words, blushed like a girl, +and nodded a sunny assent to Strong. From that day until the end, the +sobriquet clung to him. + +The disaster at Bull Bun was followed, as the reader knows, by a long +period of masterly inactivity, so far as the Army of the Potomac was +concerned. McDowell, a good soldier, but unlucky, retired to Arlington +Heights, and McClellan, who had distinguished himself in Western +Virginia, took command of the forces in front of Washington, and bent +his energies to reorganizing the demoralized troops. It was a dreary +time to the people of the North, who looked fatuously from week to week +for “the fall of Richmond;” and it was a dreary time to the denizens of +that vast city of tents and forts which stretched in a semicircle before +the beleaguered Capitol--so tedious and soul-wearing a time that the +hardships of forced marches and the horrors of battle became desirable +things to them. + +Roll-call morning and evening, guard-duty, dress-parades, an occasional +reconnoissance, dominoes, wrestling-matches, and such rude games as +could be carried on in camp made up the sum of our lives. The arrival of +the mail with letters and papers from home was the event of the day. We +noticed that Bladburn neither wrote nor received any letters. When the +rest of the boys were scribbling away for dear life, with drum-heads +and knapsacks and cracker-boxes for writing-desks, he would sit serenely +smoking his pipe, but looking out on us through rings of smoke with a +face expressive of the tenderest interest. + +“Look here, Quite So,” Strong would say, “the mail-bag closes in half an +hour. Ain't you going to write?” + +“I believe not to-day,” Bladburn would reply, as if he had written +yesterday, or would write to-morrow: but he never wrote. + +He had become a great favorite with us, and with all the officers of the +regiment. He talked less than any man I ever knew, but there was nothing +sinister or sullen in his reticence. It was sunshine,--warmth and +brightness, but no voice. Unassuming and modest to the verge of shyness, +he impressed every one as a man of singular pluck and nerve. + +“Do you know,” said Curtis to me one day, “that that fellow Quite So +is clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto +brethren over yonder, he'll do something devilish?” + +“What makes you think so?” + +“Well, nothing quite explainable; the exasperating coolness of the man, +as much as anything. This morning the boys were teasing Muffin Fan [a +small mulatto girl who used to bring muffins into camp three times a +week,--at the peril of her life!] and Jemmy Blunt of Company K--you know +him--was rather rough on the girl, when Quite So, who had been reading +under a tree, shut one finger in his book, walked over to where the +boys were skylarking, and with the smile of a juvenile angel on his face +lifted Jemmy out of that and set him down gently in front of his own +tent. There Blunt sat speechless, staring at Quite So, who was back +again under the tree, pegging away at his little Latin grammar.” + +That Latin grammar! He always had it about him, reading it or turning +over its dog's-eared pages at odd intervals and in out-of-the-way +places. Half a dozen times a day he would draw it out from the bosom +of his blouse, which had taken the shape of the book just over the left +breast, look at it as if to assure himself it was all right, and then +put the thing back. At night the volume lay beneath his pillow. The +first thing in the morning, before he was well awake, his hand would go +groping instinctively under his knapsack in search of it. + +A devastating curiosity seized upon us boys concerning that Latin +grammar, for we had discovered the nature of the book. Strong wanted +to steal it one night, but concluded not to. “In the first place,” + reflected Strong, “I haven't the heart to do it, and in the next place I +have n't the moral courage. Quite So would placidly break every bone in +my body.” And I believe Strong was not far out of the way. + +Sometimes I was vexed with myself for allowing this tall, simple-hearted +country fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was he a simple-hearted +country fellow? City bred he certainly was not; but his manner, in spite +of his awkwardness, had an indescribable air of refinement. Now and +then, too, he dropped a word or a phrase that showed his familiarity +with unexpected lines of reading. “The other day,” said Curtis, with the +slightest elevation of eyebrow, “he had the cheek to correct my Latin +for me.” In short, Quite So was a daily problem to the members of Mess +6. Whenever he was absent, and Blakely and Curtis and Strong and I got +together in the tent, we discussed him, evolving various theories to +explain why he never wrote to anybody and why nobody ever wrote to him. +Had the man committed some terrible crime, and fled to the army to hide +his guilt? Blakely suggested that he must have murdered “the old folks.” + What did he mean by eternally conning that tattered Latin grammar? And +was his name Bladburn, anyhow? Even his imperturbable amiability became +suspicious. And then his frightful reticence! If he was the victim of +any deep grief or crushing calamity, why did n't he seem unhappy? What +business had he to be cheerful? + +“It's my opinion,” said Strong, “that he 's a rival Wandering Jew; the +original Jacobs, you know, was a dark fellow.” + +Blakely inferred from something Bladburn had said, or something he had +not said--which was more likely--that he had been a schoolmaster at some +period of his life. + +“Schoolmaster be hanged!” was Strong's comment. “Can you fancy a +schoolmaster going about conjugating baby verbs out of a dratted little +spelling-book? No, Quite So has evidently been a--a--Blest if I can +imagine _what_ he 's been!” + +Whatever John Bladburn had been, he was a lonely man. Whenever I want +a type of perfect human isolation, I shall think of him, as he was in +those days, moving remote, self-contained, and alone in the midst of two +hundred thousand men. + + + + +II. + +The Indian summer, with its infinite beauty and tenderness, came like a +reproach that year to Virginia. The foliage, touched here and there with +prismatic tints, drooped motionless in the golden haze. The delicate +Virginia creeper was almost minded to put forth its scarlet buds again. +No wonder the lovely phantom--this dusky Southern sister of the pale +Northern June--lingered not long with us, but, filling the once peaceful +glens and valleys with her pathos, stole away rebukefully before the +savage enginery of man. + +The preparations that had been going on for months in arsenals and +foundries at the North were nearly completed. For weeks past the air had +been filled with rumors of an advance; but the rumor of to-day refuted +the rumor of yesterday, and the Grand Army did not move. Heintzelman's +corps was constantly folding its tents, like the Arabs, and as silently +stealing away; but somehow it was always in the same place the next +morning. One day, at last, orders came down for our brigade to move. + +“We 're going to Richmond, boys!” shouted Strong, thrusting his head in +at the tent; and we all cheered and waved our caps like mad. You see, +Big Bethel and Bull Run and Ball's Bluff (the bloody B's, as we used to +call them) had n't taught us any better sense. + +Rising abruptly from the plateau, to the left of our encampment, was +a tall hill covered with a stunted growth of red-oak, persimmon, and +chestnut. The night before we struck tents I climbed up to the crest to +take a parting look at a spectacle which custom had not been able to +rob of its enchantment. There, at my feet, and extending miles and miles +away, lay the camps of the Grand Army, with its camp-fires reflected +luridly against the sky. Thousands of lights were twinkling in every +direction, some nestling in the valley, some like fire-flies beating +their wings and palpitating among the trees, and others stretching in +parallel lines and curves, like the street-lamps of a city. Somewhere, +far off, a band was playing, at intervals it seemed; and now and then, +nearer to, a silvery strain from a bugle shot sharply up through the +night, and seemed to lose itself like a rocket among the stars--the +patient, untroubled stars. Suddenly a hand was laid upon my arm. + +“I 'd like to say a word to you,” said Bladburn. + +With a little start of surprise, I made room for him on the fallen tree +where I was seated. + +“I may n't get another chance,” he said. “You and the boys have been +very kind to me, kinder than I deserve; but sometimes I 've fancied that +my not saying anything about myself had given you the idea that all was +not right in my past. I want to say that I came down to Virginia with a +clean record.” + +“We never really doubted it, Bladburn.” + +“If I did n't write home,” he continued, “it was because I had n't any +home, neither kith nor kin. When I said the old folks were dead, I said +it. Am I boring you? If I thought I was”-- + +“No, Bladburn. I have often wanted you to talk to me about yourself, not +from idle curiosity, I trust, but because I liked you that rainy night +when you came to camp, and have gone on liking you ever since. This +is n't too much to say, when Heaven only knows how soon I may be past +saying it or you listening to it.” + +“That's it,” said Bladburn, hurriedly, “that's why I want to talk with +you. I 've a fancy that I sha' n't come out of our first battle.” + +The words gave me a queer start, for I had been trying several days to +throw off a similar presentiment concerning him--a foolish presentiment +that grew out of a dream. + +“In case anything of that kind turns up,” he continued, “I 'd like you +to have my Latin grammar here--you 've seen me reading it. You might +stick it away in a bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes against +me to think of it falling into rough hands or being kicked about camp +and trampled underfoot.” + +He was drumming softly with his fingers on the volume in the bosom of +his blouse. + +“I did n't intend to speak of this to a living soul,” he went on, +motioning me not to answer him; “but something took hold of me to-night +and made me follow you up here, Perhaps if I told you all, you would be +the more willing to look after the little book in case it goes ill with +me. When the war broke out I was teaching school down in Maine, in the +same village where my father was schoolmaster before me. The old man +when he died left me quite alone. I lived pretty much by myself, having +no interests outside of the district school, which seemed in a manner my +personal property. Eight years ago last spring a new pupil was brought +to the school, a slight slip of a girl, with a sad kind of face and +quiet ways. Perhaps it was because she was n't very strong, and perhaps +because she was n't used over well by those who had charge of her, or +perhaps it was because my life was lonely, that my heart warmed to the +child. It all seems like a dream now, since that April morning when +little Mary stood in front of my desk with her pretty eyes looking down +bashfully and her soft hair falling over her face. One day I look up, +and six years have gone by--as they go by in dreams--and among the +scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, with serious, womanly eyes which I +cannot trust myself to look upon. The old life has come to an end. +The child has become a woman and can teach the master now. So help me +Heaven, I did n't know that I loved her until that day! + +“Long after the children had gone home I sat in the school-room with +my face resting on my hands. There was her desk, the afternoon shadows +falling across it. It never looked empty and cheerless before. I went +and stood by the low chair, as I had stood hundreds of times. On the +desk was a pile of books, ready to be taken away, and among the rest a +small Latin grammar which we had studied together. What little despairs +and triumphs and happy hours were associated with it! I took it up +curiously, as if it were some gentle dead thing, and turned over the +pages, and could hardly see them. Turning the pages, idly so, I came to +a leaf on which something was written with ink, in the familiar girlish +hand. It was only the words 'Dear John,' through which she had drawn +two hasty pencil lines--I wish she had n't drawn those lines!” added +Bladburn, under his breath. + +He was silent for a minute or two, looking off towards the camps, where +the lights were fading out one by one. + +“I had no right to go and love Mary. I was twice her age, an awkward, +unsocial man, that would have blighted her youth. I was as wrong as +wrong can be. But I never meant to tell her. I locked the grammar in my +desk and the secret in my heart for a year. I could n't bear to meet her +in the village, and kept away from every place where she was likely to +be. Then she came to me, and sat down at my feet penitently, just as she +used to do when she was a child, and asked what she had done to anger +me; and then, Heaven forgive me! I told her all, and asked her if she +could say with her lips the words she had written, and she nestled in my +arms all a-trembling like a bird, and said them over and over again. + +“When Mary's family heard of our engagement, there was trouble. They +looked higher for Mary than a middle-aged schoolmaster. No blame to +them. They forbade me the house, her uncles; but we met in the village +and at the neighbors' houses, and I was happy, knowing she loved me. +Matters were in this state when the war came on. I had a strong call to +look after the old flag, and I hung my head that day when the company +raised in our village marched by the school-house to the railroad +station; but I couldn't tear myself away. About this time the minister's +son, who had been away to college, came to the village. He met Mary here +and there, and they became great friends. He was a likely fellow, near +her own age, and it was natural they should like one another. Sometimes +I winced at seeing him made free of the home from which I was shut out; +then I would open the grammar at the leaf where 'Dear John' was written +up in the corner, and my trouble was gone. Mary was sorrowful and pale +these days, and I think her people were worrying her. + +“It was one evening two or three days before we got the news of Bull +Run. I had gone down to the burying-ground to trim the spruce hedge set +round the old man's lot, and was just stepping into the enclosure, when +I heard voices from the opposite side. One was Mary's, and the other +I knew to be young Marston's, the minister's son. I did n't mean to +listen, but what Mary was saying struck me dumb. _We must never meet +again_, she was saying in a wild way. _We must say good-by here, for +ever,--good-by, good-by!_ And I could hear her sobbing. Then, presently, +she said, hurriedly, _No, no; my hand, not my lips!_ Then it seemed he +kissed her hands, and the two parted, one going towards the parsonage, +and the other out by the gate near where I stood. + +“I don't know how long I stood there, but the night-dews had wet me to +the bone when I stole out of the graveyard and across the road to the +school-house. I unlocked the door, and took the Latin grammar from the +desk and hid it in my bosom. There was not a sound or a light anywhere +as I walked out of the village. And now,” said Bladburn, rising suddenly +from the tree-trunk, “if the little book ever falls in your way, won't +you see that it comes to no harm, for my sake, and for the sake of the +little woman who was true to me and did n't love me? Wherever she is +to-night, God bless her!” + +As we descended to camp with our arms resting on each other's shoulder, +the watch-fires were burning low in the valleys and along the hillsides, +and as far as the eye could reach the silent tents lay bleaching in the +moonlight. + + + + +III. + +We imagined that the throwing forward of our brigade was the initial +movement of a general advance of the army; but that, as the reader will +remember, did not take place until the following March. The Confederates +had fallen back to Centreville without firing a shot, and the +national troops were in possession of Lewinsville, Vienna, and Fairfax +Court-House. Our new position was nearly identical with that which we +had occupied on the night previous to the battle of Bull Run--on the old +turnpike road to Manassas, where the enemy was supposed to be in great +force. With a field-glass we could see the Rebel pickets moving in a +belt of woodland on our right, and morning and evening we heard the +spiteful roll of their snare-drums. + +Those pickets soon became a nuisance to us. Hardly a night passed but +they fired upon our outposts, so far with no harmful result; but after +a while it grew to be a serious matter. The Rebels would crawl out on +all-fours from the wood into a field covered with underbrush, and lie +there in the dark for hours, waiting for a shot. Then our men took to +the rifle-pits--pits ten or twelve feet long by four or five deep, with +the loose earth banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides. All +the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were known +to their transient tenants. One was called “The Pepper-Box,” another +“Uncle Sam's Well,” another “The Reb-Trap,” and another, I am +constrained to say, was named after a not-to-be-mentioned tropical +locality. Though this rude sort of nomenclature predominated, there was +no lack of softer titles, such as “Fortress Matilda” and “Castle Mary,” + and one had, though unintentionally, a literary flavor to it, “Blair's +Grave,” which was not popularly considered as reflecting unpleasantly on +Nat Blair, who had assisted in making the excavation. + +Some of the regiment had discovered a field of late corn in the +neighborhood, and used to boil a few ears every day, while it lasted, +for the boys detailed on the night-picket. The corn-cobs were always +scrupulously preserved and mounted on the parapets of the pits. Whenever +a Rebel shot carried away one of these _barbette_ guns, there was +swearing in that particular trench. Strong, who was very sensitive to +this kind of disaster, was complaining bitterly one morning, because he +had lost three “pieces” the night before. + +“There's Quite So, now,” said Strong, “when a Minie-ball comes _ping!_ +and knocks one of his guns to flinders, he merely smiles, and does n't +at all see the degradation of the thing.” + +Poor Bladburn! As I watched him day by day going about his duties, in +his shy, cheery way, with a smile for every one and not an extra word +for anybody, it was hard to believe he was the same man who, that night +before we broke camp by the Potomac, had poured out to me the story of +his love and sorrow in words that burned in my memory. + +While Strong was speaking, Blakely lifted aside the flap of the tent and +looked in on us. + +“Boys, Quite So was hurt last night,” he said, with a white tremor to +his lip. + +“What!” + +“Shot on picket.” + +“Why, he was in the pit next to mine,” cried Strong. + +“Badly hurt?” + +“Badly hurt.” + +I knew he was; I need not have asked the question. He never meant to go +back to New England! + +Bladburn was lying on the stretcher in the hospital-tent The surgeon +had knelt down by him, and was carefully cutting away the bosom of his +blouse. The Latin grammar, stained and torn, slipped, and fell to the +floor. Bladburn gave me a quick glance. I picked up the book, and as I +placed it in his hand, the icy fingers closed softly over mine. He was +sinking fast. In a few minutes the surgeon finished his examination. +When he rose to his feet there were tears on the weather-beaten cheeks. +He was a rough outside, but a tender heart. + +“My poor lad,” he blurted out, “it's no use. If you 've anything to say, +say it now, for you 've nearly done with this world.” + +Then Bladburn lifted his eyes slowly to the surgeon, and the old smile +flitted over his face as he murmured, + +“Quite so.” + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Quite So, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUITE SO *** + +***** This file should be named 23359-0.txt or 23359-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/5/23359/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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