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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Regiment, by Stphen Crane
+
+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: The Little Regiment
+
+Author: Stphen Crane
+
+Posting Date: September 12, 2012 [EBook #6979]
+Release Date: November, 2004
+First Posted: February 19, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE REGIMENT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles
+Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE REGIMENT
+
+AND OTHER EPISODES OF THE
+
+AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
+
+By
+
+STEPHEN CRANE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE LITTLE REGIMENT
+
+THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS
+
+A MYSTERY OF HEROISM
+
+AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN
+
+A GREY SLEEVE
+
+THE VETERAN
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE REGIMENT
+
+I
+
+
+The fog made the clothes of the men of the column in the roadway seem
+of a luminous quality. It imparted to the heavy infantry overcoats a
+new colour, a kind of blue which was so pale that a regiment might have
+been merely a long, low shadow in the mist. However, a muttering, one
+part grumble, three parts joke, hovered in the air above the thick
+ranks, and blended in an undertoned roar, which was the voice of the
+column.
+
+The town on the southern shore of the little river loomed spectrally, a
+faint etching upon the grey cloud-masses which were shifting with oily
+languor. A long row of guns upon the northern bank had been pitiless in
+their hatred, but a little battered belfry could be dimly seen still
+pointing with invincible resolution toward the heavens.
+
+The enclouded air vibrated with noises made by hidden colossal things.
+The infantry tramplings, the heavy rumbling of the artillery, made the
+earth speak of gigantic preparation. Guns on distant heights thundered
+from time to time with sudden, nervous roar, as if unable to endure in
+silence a knowledge of hostile troops massing, other guns going to
+position. These sounds, near and remote, defined an immense
+battle-ground, described the tremendous width of the stage of the
+prospective drama. The voices of the guns, slightly casual, unexcited
+in their challenges and warnings, could not destroy the unutterable
+eloquence of the word in the air, a meaning of impending struggle which
+made the breath halt at the lips.
+
+The column in the roadway was ankle-deep in mud. The men swore piously
+at the rain which drizzled upon them, compelling them to stand always
+very erect in fear of the drops that would sweep in under their
+coat-collars. The fog was as cold as wet cloths. The men stuffed their
+hands deep in their pockets, and huddled their muskets in their arms.
+The machinery of orders had rooted these soldiers deeply into the mud,
+precisely as almighty nature roots mullein stalks.
+
+They listened and speculated when a tumult of fighting came from the
+dim town across the river. When the noise lulled for a time they
+resumed their descriptions of the mud and graphically exaggerated the
+number of hours they had been kept waiting. The general commanding
+their division rode along the ranks, and they cheered admiringly,
+affectionately, crying out to him gleeful prophecies of the coming
+battle. Each man scanned him with a peculiarly keen personal interest,
+and afterward spoke of him with unquestioning devotion and confidence,
+narrating anecdotes which were mainly untrue.
+
+When the jokers lifted the shrill voices which invariably belonged to
+them, flinging witticisms at their comrades, a loud laugh would sweep
+from rank to rank, and soldiers who had not heard would lean forward
+and demand repetition. When were borne past them some wounded men with
+grey and blood-smeared faces, and eyes that rolled in that helpless
+beseeching for assistance from the sky which comes with supreme pain,
+the soldiers in the mud watched intently, and from time to time asked
+of the bearers an account of the affair. Frequently they bragged of
+their corps, their division, their brigade, their regiment. Anon they
+referred to the mud and the cold drizzle. Upon this threshold of a wild
+scene of death they, in short, defied the proportion of events with
+that splendour of heedlessness which belongs only to veterans.
+
+"Like a lot of wooden soldiers," swore Billie Dempster, moving his feet
+in the thick mass, and casting a vindictive glance indefinitely:
+"standing in the mud for a hundred years."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" murmured his brother Dan. The manner of his words
+implied that this fraternal voice near him was an indescribable bore.
+
+"Why should I shut up?" demanded Billie.
+
+"Because you're a fool," cried Dan, taking no time to debate it; "the
+biggest fool in the regiment."
+
+There was but one man between them, and he was habituated. These
+insults from brother to brother had swept across his chest, flown past
+his face, many times during two long campaigns. Upon this occasion he
+simply grinned first at one, then at the other.
+
+The way of these brothers was not an unknown topic in regimental
+gossip. They had enlisted simultaneously, with each sneering loudly at
+the other for doing it. They left their little town, and went forward
+with the flag, exchanging protestations of undying suspicion. In the
+camp life they so openly despised each other that, when entertaining
+quarrels were lacking, their companions often contrived situations
+calculated to bring forth display of this fraternal dislike.
+
+Both were large-limbed, strong young men, and often fought with friends
+in camp unless one was near to interfere with the other. This latter
+happened rather frequently, because Dan, preposterously willing for any
+manner of combat, had a very great horror of seeing Billie in a fight;
+and Billie, almost odiously ready himself, simply refused to see Dan
+stripped to his shirt and with his fists aloft. This sat queerly upon
+them, and made them the objects of plots.
+
+When Dan jumped through a ring of eager soldiers and dragged forth his
+raving brother by the arm, a thing often predicted would almost come to
+pass. When Billie performed the same office for Dan, the prediction
+would again miss fulfilment by an inch. But indeed they never fought
+together, although they were perpetually upon the verge.
+
+They expressed longing for such conflict. As a matter of truth, they
+had at one time made full arrangement for it, but even with the
+encouragement and interest of half of the regiment they somehow failed
+to achieve collision.
+
+If Dan became a victim of police duty, no jeering was so destructive to
+the feelings as Billie's comment. If Billie got a call to appear at the
+headquarters, none would so genially prophesy his complete undoing as
+Dan. Small misfortunes to one were, in truth, invariably greeted with
+hilarity by the other, who seemed to see in them great re-enforcement
+of his opinion.
+
+As soldiers, they expressed each for each a scorn intense and blasting.
+After a certain battle, Billie was promoted to corporal. When Dan was
+told of it, he seemed smitten dumb with astonishment and patriotic
+indignation. He stared in silence, while the dark blood rushed to
+Billie's forehead, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Dan at
+last found his tongue, and said: "Well, I'm durned!" If he had heard
+that an army mule had been appointed to the post of corps commander,
+his tone could not have had more derision in it. Afterward, he adopted
+a fervid insubordination, an almost religious reluctance to obey the
+new corporal's orders, which came near to developing the desired strife.
+
+It is here finally to be recorded also that Dan, most ferociously
+profane in speech, very rarely swore in the presence of his brother;
+and that Billie, whose oaths came from his lips with the grace of
+falling pebbles, was seldom known to express himself in this manner
+when near his brother Dan.
+
+At last the afternoon contained a suggestion of evening. Metallic cries
+rang suddenly from end to end of the column. They inspired at once a
+quick, business-like adjustment. The long thing stirred in the mud. The
+men had hushed, and were looking across the river. A moment later the
+shadowy mass of pale blue figures was moving steadily toward the
+stream. There could be heard from the town a clash of swift fighting
+and cheering. The noise of the shooting coming through the heavy air
+had its sharpness taken from it, and sounded in thuds.
+
+There was a halt upon the bank above the pontoons. When the column went
+winding down the incline, and streamed out upon the bridge, the fog had
+faded to a great degree, and in the clearer dusk the guns on a distant
+ridge were enabled to perceive the crossing. The long whirling outcries
+of the shells came into the air above the men. An occasional solid shot
+struck the surface of the river, and dashed into view a sudden vertical
+jet. The distance was subtly illuminated by the lightning from the
+deep-booming guns. One by one the batteries on the northern shore
+aroused, the innumerable guns bellowing in angry oration at the distant
+ridge. The rolling thunder crashed and reverberated as a wild surf
+sounds on a still night, and to this music the column marched across
+the pontoons.
+
+The waters of the grim river curled away in a smile from the ends of
+the great boats, and slid swiftly beneath the planking. The dark,
+riddled walls of the town upreared before the troops, and from a region
+hidden by these hammered and tumbled houses came incessantly the yells
+and firings of a prolonged and close skirmish.
+
+When Dan had called his brother a fool, his voice had been so decisive,
+so brightly assured, that many men had laughed, considering it to be
+great humour under the circumstances. The incident happened to rankle
+deep in Billie. It was not any strange thing that his brother had
+called him a fool. In fact, he often called him a fool with exactly the
+same amount of cheerful and prompt conviction, and before large
+audiences, too. Billie wondered in his own mind why he took such
+profound offence in this case; but, at any rate, as he slid down the
+bank and on to the bridge with his regiment, he was searching his
+knowledge for something that would pierce Dan's blithesome spirit. But
+he could contrive nothing at this time, and his impotency made the
+glance which he was once able to give his brother still more malignant.
+
+The guns far and near were roaring a fearful and grand introduction for
+this column which was marching upon the stage of death. Billie felt it,
+but only in a numb way. His heart was cased in that curious dissonant
+metal which covers a man's emotions at such times. The terrible voices
+from the hills told him that in this wide conflict his life was an
+insignificant fact, and that his death would be an insignificant fact.
+They portended the whirlwind to which he would be as necessary as a
+butterfly's waved wing. The solemnity, the sadness of it came near
+enough to make him wonder why he was neither solemn nor sad. When his
+mind vaguely adjusted events according to their importance to him, it
+appeared that the uppermost thing was the fact that upon the eve of
+battle, and before many comrades, his brother had called him a fool.
+
+Dan was in a particularly happy mood. "Hurray! Look at 'em shoot," he
+said, when the long witches' croon of the shells came into the air. It
+enraged Billie when he felt the little thorn in him, and saw at the
+same time that his brother had completely forgotten it.
+
+The column went from the bridge into more mud. At this southern end
+there was a chaos of hoarse directions and commands. Darkness was
+coming upon the earth, and regiments were being hurried up the slippery
+bank. As Billie floundered in the black mud, amid the swearing, sliding
+crowd, he suddenly resolved that, in the absence of other means of
+hurting Dan, he would avoid looking at him, refrain from speaking to
+him, pay absolutely no heed to his existence; and this done skilfully
+would, he imagined, soon reduce his brother to a poignant sensitiveness.
+
+At the top of the bank the column again halted and rearranged itself,
+as a man after a climb rearranges his clothing. Presently the great
+steel-backed brigade, an infinitely graceful thing in the rhythm and
+ease of its veteran movement, swung up a little narrow, slanting street.
+
+Evening had come so swiftly that the fighting on the remote borders of
+the town was indicated by thin flashes of flame. Some building was on
+fire, and its reflection upon the clouds was an oval of delicate pink.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+All demeanour of rural serenity had been wrenched violently from the
+little town by the guns and by the waves of men which had surged
+through it. The hand of war laid upon this village had in an instant
+changed it to a thing of remnants. It resembled the place of a
+monstrous shaking of the earth itself. The windows, now mere unsightly
+holes, made the tumbled and blackened dwellings seem skeletons. Doors
+lay splintered to fragments. Chimneys had flung their bricks
+everywhere. The artillery fire had not neglected the rows of gentle
+shade-trees which had lined the streets. Branches and heavy trunks
+cluttered the mud in driftwood tangles, while a few shattered forms had
+contrived to remain dejectedly, mournfully upright. They expressed an
+innocence, a helplessness, which perforce created a pity for their
+happening into this caldron of battle. Furthermore, there was under
+foot a vast collection of odd things reminiscent of the charge, the
+fight, the retreat. There were boxes and barrels filled with earth,
+behind which riflemen had lain snugly, and in these little trenches
+were the dead in blue with the dead in grey, the poses eloquent of the
+struggles for possession of the town, until the history of the whole
+conflict was written plainly in the streets.
+
+And yet the spirit of this little city, its quaint individuality,
+poised in the air above the ruins, defying the guns, the sweeping
+volleys; holding in contempt those avaricious blazes which had attacked
+many dwellings. The hard earthen sidewalks proclaimed the games that
+had been played there during long lazy days, in the careful, shadows of
+the trees. "General Merchandise," in faint letters upon a long board,
+had to be read with a slanted glance, for the sign dangled by one end;
+but the porch of the old store was a palpable legend of wide-hatted
+men, smoking.
+
+This subtle essence, this soul of the life that had been, brushed like
+invisible wings the thoughts of the men in the swift columns that came
+up from the river.
+
+In the darkness a loud and endless humming arose from the great blue
+crowds bivouacked in the streets. From time to time a sharp spatter of
+firing from far picket lines entered this bass chorus. The smell from
+the smouldering ruins floated on the cold night breeze.
+
+Dan, seated ruefully upon the doorstep of a shot-pierced house, was
+proclaiming the campaign badly managed. Orders had been issued
+forbidding camp-fires.
+
+Suddenly he ceased his oration, and scanning the group of his comrades,
+said: "Where's Billie? Do you know?"
+
+"Gone on picket."
+
+"Get out! Has he?" said Dan. "No business to go on picket. Why don't
+some of them other corporals take their turn?"
+
+A bearded private was smoking his pipe of confiscated tobacco, seated
+comfortably upon a horse-hair trunk which he had dragged from the
+house. He observed: "Was his turn."
+
+"No such thing," cried Dan. He and the man on the horse-hair trunk held
+discussion in which Dan stoutly maintained that if his brother had been
+sent on picket it was an injustice. He ceased his argument when another
+soldier, upon whose arms could faintly be seen the two stripes of a
+corporal, entered the circle. "Humph," said Dan, "where you been?"
+
+The corporal made no answer. Presently Dan said: "Billie, where you
+been?"
+
+His brother did not seem to hear these inquiries. He glanced at the
+house which towered above them, and remarked casually to the man on the
+horse-hair trunk: "Funny, ain't it? After the pelting this town got,
+you'd think there wouldn't be one brick left on another."
+
+"Oh," said Dan, glowering at his brother's back. "Getting mighty smart,
+ain't you?"
+
+The absence of camp-fires allowed the evening to make apparent its
+quality of faint silver light in which the blue clothes of the throng
+became black, and the faces became white expanses, void of expression.
+There was considerable excitement a short distance from the group
+around the doorstep. A soldier had chanced upon a hoop-skirt, and
+arrayed in it he was performing a dance amid the applause of his
+companions. Billie and a greater part of the men immediately poured
+over there to witness the exhibition.
+
+"What's the matter with Billie?" demanded Dan of the man upon the
+horse-hair trunk.
+
+"How do I know?" rejoined the other in mild resentment. He arose and
+walked away. When he returned he said briefly, in a weather-wise tone,
+that it would rain during the night.
+
+Dan took a seat upon one end of the horse-hair trunk. He was facing the
+crowd around the dancer, which in its hilarity swung this way and that
+way. At times he imagined that he could recognise his brother's face.
+
+He and the man on the other end of the trunk thoughtfully talked of the
+army's position. To their minds, infantry and artillery were in a most
+precarious jumble in the streets of the town; but they did not grow
+nervous over it, for they were used to having the army appear in a
+precarious jumble to their minds. They had learned to accept such
+puzzling situations as a consequence of their position in the ranks,
+and were now usually in possession of a simple but perfectly immovable
+faith that somebody understood the jumble. Even if they had been
+convinced that the army was a headless monster, they would merely have
+nodded with the veteran's singular cynicism. It was none of their
+business as soldiers. Their duty was to grab sleep and food when
+occasion permitted, and cheerfully fight wherever their feet were
+planted until more orders came. This was a task sufficiently absorbing.
+
+They spoke of other corps, and this talk being confidential, their
+voices dropped to tones of awe. "The Ninth"--"The First"--"The
+Fifth"--"The Sixth"--"The Third"--the simple numerals rang with
+eloquence, each having a meaning which was to float through many years
+as no intangible arithmetical mist, but as pregnant with individuality
+as the names of cities.
+
+Of their own corps they spoke with a deep veneration, an idolatry, a
+supreme confidence which apparently would not blanch to see it match
+against everything.
+
+It was as if their respect for other corps was due partly to a wonder
+that organisations not blessed with their own famous numeral could take
+such an interest in war. They could prove that their division was the
+best in the corps, and that their brigade was the best in the division.
+And their regiment--it was plain that no fortune of life was equal to
+the chance which caused a man to be born, so to speak, into this
+command, the keystone of the defending arch.
+
+At times Dan covered with insults the character of a vague, unnamed
+general to whose petulance and busy-body spirit he ascribed the order
+which made hot coffee impossible.
+
+Dan said that victory was certain in the coming battle. The other man
+seemed rather dubious. He remarked upon the fortified line of hills,
+which had impressed him even from the other side of the river.
+"Shucks," said Dan. "Why, we----" He pictured a splendid overflowing of
+these hills by the sea of men in blue. During the period of this
+conversation Dan's glance searched the merry throng about the dancer.
+Above the babble of voices in the street a far-away thunder could
+sometimes be heard--evidently from the very edge of the horizon--the
+boom-boom of restless guns.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Ultimately the night deepened to the tone of black velvet. The outlines
+of the fireless camp were like the faint drawings upon ancient
+tapestry. The glint of a rifle, the shine of a button, might have been
+of threads of silver and gold sewn upon the fabric of the night. There
+was little presented to the vision, but to a sense more subtle there
+was discernible in the atmosphere something like a pulse; a mystic
+beating which would have told a stranger of the presence of a giant
+thing--the slumbering mass of regiments and batteries.
+
+With tires forbidden, the floor of a dry old kitchen was thought to be
+a good exchange for the cold earth of December, even if a shell had
+exploded in it, and knocked it so out of shape that when a man lay
+curled in his blanket his last waking thought was likely to be of the
+wall that bellied out above him, as if strongly anxious to topple upon
+the score of soldiers.
+
+Billie looked at the bricks ever about to descend in a shower upon his
+face, listened to the industrious pickets plying their rifles on the
+border of the town, imagined some measure of the din of the coming
+battle, thought of Dan and Dan's chagrin, and rolling over in his
+blanket went to sleep with satisfaction.
+
+At an unknown hour he was aroused by the creaking of boards. Lifting
+himself upon his elbow, he saw a sergeant prowling among the sleeping
+forms. The sergeant carried a candle in an old brass candlestick. He
+would have resembled some old farmer on an unusual midnight tour if it
+were not for the significance of his gleaming buttons and striped
+sleeves.
+
+Billie blinked stupidly at the light until his mind returned from the
+journeys of slumber. The sergeant stooped among the unconscious
+soldiers, holding the candle close, and peering into each face.
+
+"Hello, Haines," said Billie. "Relief?"
+
+"Hello, Billie," said the sergeant. "Special duty."
+
+"Dan got to go?"
+
+"Jameson, Hunter, McCormack, D. Dempster. Yes. Where is he?"
+
+"Over there by the winder," said Billie, gesturing. "What is it for,
+Haines?"
+
+"You don't think I know, do you?" demanded the sergeant. He began to
+pipe sharply but cheerily at men upon the floor. "Come, Mac, get up
+here. Here's a special for you. Wake up, Jameson. Come along, Dannie,
+me boy."
+
+Each man at once took this call to duty as a personal affront. They
+pulled themselves out of their blankets, rubbed their eyes, and swore
+at whoever was responsible. "Them's orders," cried the sergeant. "Come!
+Get out of here." An undetailed head with dishevelled hair thrust out
+from a blanket, and a sleepy voice said: "Shut up, Haines, and go home."
+
+When the detail clanked out of the kitchen, all but one of the
+remaining men seemed to be again asleep. Billie, leaning on his elbow,
+was gazing into darkness. When the footsteps died to silence, he curled
+himself into his blanket.
+
+At the first cool lavender lights of daybreak he aroused again, and
+scanned his recumbent companions. Seeing a wakeful one he asked: "Is
+Dan back yet?"
+
+The man said: "Hain't seen 'im."
+
+Billie put both hands behind his head, and scowled into the air. "Can't
+see the use of these cussed details in the night-time," he muttered in
+his most unreasonable tones. "Darn nuisances. Why can't they----" He
+grumbled at length and graphically.
+
+When Dan entered with the squad, however, Billie was convincingly
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The regiment trotted in double time along the street, and the colonel
+seemed to quarrel over the right of way with many artillery officers.
+Batteries were waiting in the mud, and the men of them, exasperated by
+the bustle of this ambitious infantry, shook their fists from saddle
+and caisson, exchanging all manner of taunts and jests. The slanted
+guns continued to look reflectively at the ground.
+
+On the outskirts of the crumbled town a fringe of blue figures were
+firing into the fog. The regiment swung out into skirmish lines, and
+the fringe of blue figures departed, turning their backs and going
+joyfully around the flank.
+
+The bullets began a low moan off toward a ridge which loomed faintly in
+the heavy mist. When the swift crescendo had reached its climax, the
+missiles zipped just overhead, as if piercing an invisible curtain. A
+battery on the hill was crashing with such tumult that it was as if the
+guns had quarrelled and had fallen pell-mell and snarling upon each
+other. The shells howled on their journey toward the town. From
+short-range distance there came a spatter of musketry, sweeping along
+an invisible line, and making faint sheets of orange light.
+
+Some in the new skirmish lines were beginning to fire at various
+shadows discerned in the vapour, forms of men suddenly revealed by some
+humour of the laggard masses of clouds. The crackle of musketry began
+to dominate the purring of the hostile bullets. Dan, in the front rank,
+held his rifle poised, and looked into the fog keenly, coldly, with the
+air of a sportsman. His nerves were so steady that it was as if they
+had been drawn from his body, leaving him merely a muscular machine;
+but his numb heart was somehow beating to the pealing march of the
+fight.
+
+The waving skirmish line went backward and forward, ran this way and
+that way. Men got lost in the fog, and men were found again. Once they
+got too close to the formidable ridge, and the thing burst out as if
+repulsing a general attack. Once another blue regiment was apprehended
+on the very edge of firing into them. Once a friendly battery began an
+elaborate and scientific process of extermination. Always as busy as
+brokers, the men slid here and there over the plain, fighting their
+foes, escaping from their friends, leaving a history of many movements
+in the wet yellow turf, cursing the atmosphere, blazing away every time
+they could identify the enemy.
+
+In one mystic changing of the fog as if the fingers of spirits were
+drawing aside these draperies, a small group of the grey skirmishers,
+silent, statuesque, were suddenly disclosed to Dan and those about him.
+So vivid and near were they that there was something uncanny in the
+revelation.
+
+There might have been a second of mutual staring. Then each rifle in
+each group was at the shoulder. As Dan's glance flashed along the
+barrel of his weapon, the figure of a man suddenly loomed as if the
+musket had been a telescope. The short black beard, the slouch hat, the
+pose of the man as he sighted to shoot, made a quick picture in Dan's
+mind. The same moment, it would seem, he pulled his own trigger, and
+the man, smitten, lurched forward, while his exploding rifle made a
+slanting crimson streak in the air, and the slouch hat fell before the
+body. The billows of the fog, governed by singular impulses, rolled
+between.
+
+"You got that feller sure enough," said a comrade to Dan. Dan looked at
+him absent-mindedly.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+When the next morning calmly displayed another fog, the men of the
+regiment exchanged eloquent comments; but they did not abuse it at
+length, because the streets of the town now contained enough galloping
+aides to make three troops of cavalry, and they knew that they had come
+to the verge of the great fight.
+
+Dan conversed with the man who had once possessed a horse-hair trunk;
+but they did not mention the line of hills which had furnished them in
+more careless moments with an agreeable topic. They avoided it now as
+condemned men do the subject of death, and yet the thought of it stayed
+in their eyes as they looked at each other and talked gravely of other
+things.
+
+The expectant regiment heaved a long sigh of relief when the sharp
+call: "Fall in," repeated indefinitely, arose in the streets. It was
+inevitable that a bloody battle was to be fought, and they wanted to
+get it off their minds. They were, however, doomed again to spend a
+long period planted firmly in the mud. They craned their necks, and
+wondered where some of the other regiments were going.
+
+At last the mists rolled carelessly away. Nature made at this time all
+provisions to enable foes to see each other, and immediately the roar
+of guns resounded from every hill. The endless cracking of the
+skirmishers swelled to rolling crashes of musketry. Shells screamed
+with panther-like noises at the houses. Dan looked at the man of the
+horse-hair trunk, and the man said: "Well, here she comes!"
+
+The tenor voices of younger officers and the deep and hoarse voices of
+the older ones rang in the streets. These cries pricked like spurs. The
+masses of men vibrated from the suddenness with which they were plunged
+into the situation of troops about to fight. That the orders were
+long-expected did not concern the emotion.
+
+Simultaneous movement was imparted to all these thick bodies of men and
+horses that lay in the town. Regiment after regiment swung rapidly into
+the streets that faced the sinister ridge.
+
+This exodus was theatrical. The little sober-hued village had been like
+the cloak which disguises the king of drama. It was now put aside, and
+an army, splendid thing of steel and blue, stood forth in the sunlight.
+
+Even the soldiers in the heavy columns drew deep breaths at the sight,
+more majestic than they had dreamed. The heights of the enemy's
+position were crowded with men who resembled people come to witness
+some mighty pageant. But as the column moved steadily to their
+positions, the guns, matter-of-fact warriors, doubled their number, and
+shells burst with red thrilling tumult on the crowded plain. One came
+into the ranks of the regiment, and after the smoke and the wrath of it
+had faded, leaving motionless figures, every one stormed according to
+the limits of his vocabulary, for veterans detest being killed when
+they are not busy.
+
+The regiment sometimes looked sideways at its brigade companions
+composed of men who had never been in battle; but no frozen blood could
+withstand the heat of the splendour of this army before the eyes on the
+plain, these lines so long that the flanks were little streaks, this
+mass of men of one intention. The recruits carried themselves
+heedlessly. At the rear was an idle battery, and three artillerymen in
+a foolish row on a caisson nudged each other and grinned at the
+recruits. "You'll catch it pretty soon," they called out. They were
+impersonally gleeful, as if they themselves were not also likely to
+catch it pretty soon. But with this picture of an army in their hearts,
+the new men perhaps felt the devotion which the drops may feel for the
+wave; they were of its power and glory; they smiled jauntily at the
+foolish row of gunners, and told them to go to blazes.
+
+The column trotted across some little bridges, and spread quickly into
+lines of battle. Before them was a bit of plain, and back of the plain
+was the ridge. There was no time left for considerations. The men were
+staring at the plain, mightily wondering how it would feel to be out
+there, when a brigade in advance yelled and charged. The hill was all
+grey smoke and fire-points.
+
+That fierce elation in the terrors of war, catching a man's heart and
+making it burn with such ardour that he becomes capable of dying,
+flashed in the faces of the men like coloured lights, and made them
+resemble leashed animals, eager, ferocious, daunting at nothing. The
+line was really in its first leap before the wild, hoarse crying of the
+orders.
+
+The greed for close quarters, which is the emotion of a bayonet charge,
+came then into the minds of the men and developed until it was a
+madness. The field, with its faded grass of a Southern winter, seemed
+to this fury miles in width.
+
+High, slow-moving masses of smoke, with an odour of burning cotton,
+engulfed the line until the men might have been swimmers. Before them
+the ridge, the shore of this grey sea, was outlined, crossed, and
+recrossed by sheets of flame. The howl of the battle arose to the noise
+of innumerable wind demons.
+
+The line, galloping, scrambling, plunging like a herd of wounded
+horses, went over a field that was sown with corpses, the records of
+other charges.
+
+Directly in front of the black-faced, whooping Dan, carousing in this
+onward sweep like a new kind of fiend, a wounded man appeared, raising
+his shattered body, and staring at this rush of men down upon him. It
+seemed to occur to him that he was to be trampled; he made a desperate,
+piteous effort to escape; then finally huddled in a waiting heap. Dan
+and the soldier near him widened the interval between them without
+looking down, without appearing to heed the wounded man. This little
+clump of blue seemed to reel past them as boulders reel past a train.
+
+Bursting through a smoke-wave, the scampering, unformed bunches came
+upon the wreck of the brigade that had preceded them, a floundering
+mass stopped afar from the hill by the swirling volleys.
+
+It was as if a necromancer had suddenly shown them a picture of the
+fate which awaited them; but the line with muscular spasm hurled itself
+over this wreckage and onward, until men were stumbling amid the relics
+of other assaults, the point where the fire from the ridge consumed.
+
+The men, panting, perspiring, with crazed faces, tried to push against
+it; but it was as if they had come to a wall. The wave halted,
+shuddered in an agony from the quick struggle of its two desires, then
+toppled, and broke into a fragmentary thing which has no name.
+
+Veterans could now at last be distinguished from recruits. The new
+regiments were instantly gone, lost, scattered, as if they never had
+been. But the sweeping failure of the charge, the battle, could not
+make the veterans forget their business. With a last throe, the band of
+maniacs drew itself up and blazed a volley at the hill, insignificant
+to those iron entrenchments, but nevertheless expressing that singular
+final despair which enables men coolly to defy the walls of a city of
+death.
+
+After this episode the men renamed their command. They called it the
+Little Regiment.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+"I seen Dan shoot a feller yesterday. Yes, sir. I'm sure it was him
+that done it. And maybe he thinks about that feller now, and wonders if
+he tumbled down just about the same way. Them things come up in a man's
+mind."
+
+Bivouac fires upon the sidewalks, in the streets, in the yards, threw
+high their wavering reflections, which examined, like slim, red
+fingers, the dingy, scarred walls and the piles of tumbled brick. The
+droning of voices again arose from great blue crowds.
+
+The odour of frying bacon, the fragrance from countless little
+coffee-pails floated among the ruins. The rifles, stacked in the
+shadows, emitted flashes of steely light. Wherever a flag lay
+horizontally from one stack to another was the bed of an eagle which
+had led men into the mystic smoke.
+
+The men about a particular fire were engaged in holding in check their
+jovial spirits. They moved whispering around the blaze, although they
+looked at it with a certain fine contentment, like labourers after a
+day's hard work.
+
+There was one who sat apart. They did not address him save in tones
+suddenly changed. They did not regard him directly, but always in
+little sidelong glances.
+
+At last a soldier from a distant fire came into this circle of light.
+He studied for a time the man who sat apart. Then he hesitatingly
+stepped closer, and said: "Got any news, Dan?"
+
+"No," said Dan.
+
+The new-comer shifted his feet. He looked at the fire, at the sky, at
+the other men, at Dan. His face expressed a curious despair; his tongue
+was plainly in rebellion. Finally, however, he contrived to say: "Well,
+there's some chance yet, Dan. Lots of the wounded are still lying out
+there, you know. There's some chance yet."
+
+"Yes," said Dan.
+
+The soldier shifted his feet again, and looked miserably into the air.
+After another struggle he said: "Well, there's some chance yet, Dan."
+He moved hastily away.
+
+One of the men of the squad, perhaps encouraged by this example, now
+approached the still figure. "No news yet, hey?" he said, after
+coughing behind his hand.
+
+"No," said Dan.
+
+"Well," said the man, "I've been thinking of how he was fretting about
+you the night you went on special duty. You recollect? Well, sir, I was
+surprised. He couldn't say enough about it. I swan, I don't believe he
+slep' a wink after you left, but just lay awake cussing special duty
+and worrying. I was surprised. But there he lay cussing. He----"
+
+Dan made a curious sound, as if a stone had wedged in his throat. He
+said: "Shut up, will you?"
+
+Afterward the men would not allow this moody contemplation of the fire
+to be interrupted.
+
+"Oh, let him alone, can't you?"
+
+"Come away from there, Casey!"
+
+"Say, can't you leave him be?"
+
+They moved with reverence about the immovable figure, with its
+countenance of mask-like invulnerability.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+After the red round eye of the sun had stared long at the little plain
+and its burden, darkness, a sable mercy, came heavily upon it, and the
+wan hands of the dead were no longer seen in strange frozen gestures.
+
+The heights in front of the plain shone with tiny camp-fires, and from
+the town in the rear, small shimmerings ascended from the blazes of the
+bivouac. The plain was a black expanse upon which, from time to time,
+dots of light, lanterns, floated slowly here and there. These fields
+were long steeped in grim mystery.
+
+Suddenly, upon one dark spot, there was a resurrection. A strange thing
+had been groaning there, prostrate. Then it suddenly dragged itself to
+a sitting posture, and became a man.
+
+The man stared stupidly for a moment at the lights on the hill, then
+turned and contemplated the faint colouring over the town. For some
+moments he remained thus, staring with dull eyes, his face unemotional,
+wooden.
+
+Finally he looked around him at the corpses dimly to be seen. No change
+flashed into his face upon viewing these men. They seemed to suggest
+merely that his information concerning himself was not too complete. He
+ran his fingers over his arms and chest, bearing always the air of an
+idiot upon a bench at an almshouse door.
+
+Finding no wound in his arms nor in his chest, he raised his hand to
+his head, and the fingers came away with some dark liquid upon them.
+Holding these fingers close to his eyes, he scanned them in the same
+stupid fashion, while his body gently swayed.
+
+The soldier rolled his eyes again toward the town. When he arose, his
+clothing peeled from the frozen ground like wet paper. Hearing the
+sound of it, he seemed to see reason for deliberation. He paused and
+looked at the ground, then at his trousers, then at the ground.
+
+Finally he went slowly off toward the faint reflection, holding his
+hands palm outward before him, and walking in the manner of a blind man.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The immovable Dan again sat unaddressed in the midst of comrades, who
+did not joke aloud. The dampness of the usual morning fog seemed to
+make the little camp-fires furious.
+
+Suddenly a cry arose in the streets, a shout of amazement and delight.
+The men making breakfast at the fire looked up quickly. They broke
+forth in clamorous exclamation: "Well! Of all things! Dan! Dan! Look
+who's coming! Oh, Dan!"
+
+Dan the silent raised his eyes and saw a man, with a bandage of the
+size of a helmet about his head, receiving a furious demonstration from
+the company. He was shaking hands, and explaining, and haranguing to a
+high degree.
+
+Dan started. His face of bronze flushed to his temples. He seemed about
+to leap from the ground, but then suddenly he sank back, and resumed
+his impassive gazing.
+
+The men were in a flurry. They looked from one to the other. "Dan!
+Look! See who's coming!" some cried again. "Dan! Look!"
+
+He scowled at last, and moved his shoulders sullenly. "Well, don't I
+know it?"
+
+But they could not be convinced that his eyes were in service. "Dan,
+why can't you look! See who's coming!"
+
+He made a gesture then of irritation and rage. "Curse it! Don't I know
+it?"
+
+The man with a bandage of the size of a helmet moved forward, always
+shaking hands and explaining. At times his glance wandered to Dan, who
+saw with his eyes riveted.
+
+After a series of shiftings, it occurred naturally that the man with
+the bandage was very near to the man who saw the flames. He paused, and
+there was a little silence. Finally he said: "Hello, Dan."
+
+"Hello, Billie."
+
+
+
+
+THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS
+
+I
+
+
+The girl was in the front room on the second floor, peering through the
+blinds. It was the "best room." There was a very new rag carpet on the
+floor. The edges of it had been dyed with alternate stripes of red and
+green. Upon the wooden mantel there were two little puffy figures in
+clay--a shepherd and a shepherdess probably. A triangle of pink and
+white wool hung carefully over the edge of this shelf. Upon the bureau
+there was nothing at all save a spread newspaper, with edges folded to
+make it into a mat. The quilts and sheets had been removed from the bed
+and were stacked upon a chair. The pillows and the great feather
+mattress were muffled and tumbled until they resembled great dumplings.
+The picture of a man terribly leaden in complexion hung in an oval
+frame on one white wall and steadily confronted the bureau.
+
+From between the slats of the blinds she had a view of the road as it
+wended across the meadow to the woods, and again where it reappeared
+crossing the hill, half a mile away. It lay yellow and warm in the
+summer sunshine. From the long grasses of the meadow came the rhythmic
+click of the insects. Occasional frogs in the hidden brook made a
+peculiar chug-chug sound, as if somebody throttled them. The leaves of
+the wood swung in gentle winds. Through the dark-green branches of the
+pines that grew in the front yard could be seen the mountains, far to
+the south-east, and inexpressibly blue.
+
+Mary's eyes were fastened upon the little streak of road that appeared
+on the distant hill. Her face was flushed with excitement, and the hand
+which stretched in a strained pose on the sill trembled because of the
+nervous shaking of the wrist. The pines whisked their green needles
+with a soft, hissing sound against the house.
+
+At last the girl turned from the window and went to the head of the
+stairs. "Well, I just know they're coming, anyhow," she cried
+argumentatively to the depths.
+
+A voice from below called to her angrily: "They ain't. We've never seen
+one yet. They never come into this neighbourhood. You just come down
+here and 'tend to your work insteader watching for soldiers."
+
+"Well, ma, I just know they're coming."
+
+A voice retorted with the shrillness and mechanical violence of
+occasional housewives. The girl swished her skirts defiantly and
+returned to the window.
+
+Upon the yellow streak of road that lay across the hillside there now
+was a handful of black dots--horsemen. A cloud of dust floated away.
+The girl flew to the head of the stairs and whirled down into the
+kitchen.
+
+"They're coming! They're coming!"
+
+It was as if she had cried "Fire!" Her mother had been peeling potatoes
+while seated comfortably at the table. She sprang to her feet. "No--it
+can't be--how you know it's them--where?" The stubby knife fell from
+her hand, and two or three curls of potato skin dropped from her apron
+to the floor.
+
+The girl turned and dashed upstairs. Her mother followed, gasping for
+breath, and yet contriving to fill the air with questions, reproach,
+and remonstrance. The girl was already at the window, eagerly pointing.
+"There! There! See 'em! See 'em!"
+
+Rushing to the window, the mother scanned for an instant the road on
+the hill. She crouched back with a groan. "It's them, sure as the
+world! It's them!" She waved her hands in despairing gestures.
+
+The black dots vanished into the wood. The girl at the window was
+quivering and her eyes were shining like water when the sun flashes.
+"Hush! They're in the woods! They'll be here directly." She bent down
+and intently watched the green archway whence the road emerged. "Hush!
+I hear 'em coming," she swiftly whispered to her mother, for the elder
+woman had dropped dolefully upon the mattress and was sobbing. And,
+indeed, the girl could hear the quick, dull trample of horses. She
+stepped aside with sudden apprehension, but she bent her head forward
+in order to still scan the road.
+
+"Here they are!"
+
+There was something very theatrical in the sudden appearance of these
+men to the eyes of the girl. It was as if a scene had been shifted. The
+forest suddenly disclosed them--a dozen brown-faced troopers in
+blue--galloping.
+
+"Oh, look!" breathed the girl. Her mouth was puckered into an
+expression of strange fascination, as if she had expected to see the
+troopers change into demons and gloat at her. She was at last looking
+upon those curious beings who rode down from the North--those men of
+legend and colossal tale--they who were possessed of such marvellous
+hallucinations.
+
+The little troop rode in silence. At its head was a youthful fellow
+with some dim yellow stripes upon his arm. In his right hand he held
+his carbine, slanting upward, with the stock resting upon his knee. He
+was absorbed in a scrutiny of the country before him.
+
+At the heels of the sergeant the rest of the squad rode in thin column,
+with creak of leather and tinkle of steel and tin. The girl scanned the
+faces of the horsemen, seeming astonished vaguely to find them of the
+type she knew.
+
+The lad at the head of the troop comprehended the house and its
+environments in two glances. He did not check the long, swinging stride
+of his horse. The troopers glanced for a moment like casual tourists,
+and then returned to their study of the region in front. The heavy
+thudding of the hoofs became a small noise. The dust, hanging in
+sheets, slowly sank.
+
+The sobs of the woman on the bed took form in words which, while strong
+in their note of calamity, yet expressed a querulous mental reaching
+for some near thing to blame. "And it'll be lucky fer us if we ain't
+both butchered in our sleep--plundering and running off horses--old
+Santo's gone--you see if he ain't--plundering--"
+
+"But, ma," said the girl, perplexed and terrified in the same moment,
+"they've gone."
+
+"Oh, but they'll come back!" cried the mother, without pausing her
+wail. "They'll come back--trust them for that--running off horses. O
+John, John! why did you, why did you?" She suddenly lifted herself and
+sat rigid, staring at her daughter. "Mary," she said in tragic whisper,
+"the kitchen door isn't locked!" Already she was bended forward to
+listen, her mouth agape, her eyes fixed upon her daughter.
+
+"Mother," faltered the girl.
+
+Her mother again whispered, "The kitchen door isn't locked."
+
+Motionless and mute they stared into each other's eyes.
+
+At last the girl quavered, "We better--we better go and lock it." The
+mother nodded. Hanging arm in arm they stole across the floor toward
+the head of the stairs. A board of the floor creaked. They halted and
+exchanged a look of dumb agony.
+
+At last they reached the head of the stairs. From the kitchen came the
+bass humming of the kettle and frequent sputterings and cracklings from
+the fire. These sounds were sinister. The mother and the girl stood
+incapable of movement. "There's somebody down there!" whispered the
+elder woman.
+
+Finally, the girl made a gesture of resolution. She twisted her arm
+from her mother's hands and went two steps downward. She addressed the
+kitchen: "Who's there?" Her tone was intended to be dauntless. It rang
+so dramatically in the silence that a sudden new panic seized them as
+if the suspected presence in the kitchen had cried out to them. But the
+girl ventured again: "Is there anybody there?" No reply was made save
+by the kettle and the fire.
+
+With a stealthy tread the girl continued her journey. As she neared the
+last step the fire crackled explosively and the girl screamed. But the
+mystic presence had not swept around the corner to grab her, so she
+dropped to a seat on the step and laughed. "It was--was only the--the
+fire," she said, stammering hysterically.
+
+Then she arose with sudden fortitude and cried: "Why, there isn't
+anybody there! I know there isn't." She marched down into the kitchen.
+In her face was dread, as if she half expected to confront something,
+but the room was empty. She cried joyously: "There's nobody here! Come
+on down, ma." She ran to the kitchen door and locked it.
+
+The mother came down to the kitchen. "Oh, dear, what a fright I've had!
+It's given me the sick headache. I know it has."
+
+"Oh, ma," said the girl.
+
+"I know it has--I know it. Oh, if your father was only here! He'd
+settle those Yankees mighty quick--he'd settle 'em! Two poor helpless
+women--"
+
+"Why, ma, what makes you act so? The Yankees haven't--"
+
+"Oh, they'll be back--they'll be back. Two poor helpless women! Your
+father and your uncle Asa and Bill off galavanting around and fighting
+when they ought to be protecting their home! That's the kind of men
+they are. Didn't I say to your father just before he left--"
+
+"Ma," said the girl, coming suddenly from the window, "the barn door is
+open. I wonder if they took old Santo?"
+
+"Oh, of course they have--of course--Mary, I don't see what we are
+going to do--I don't see what we are going to do."
+
+The girl said, "Ma, I'm going to see if they took old Santo."
+
+"Mary," cried the mother, "don't you dare!"
+
+"But think of poor old Sant, ma."
+
+"Never you mind old Santo. We're lucky to be safe ourselves, I tell
+you. Never mind old Santo. Don't you dare to go out there, Mary--Mary!"
+
+The girl had unlocked the door and stepped out upon the porch. The
+mother cried in despair, "Mary!"
+
+"Why, there isn't anybody out here," the girl called in response. She
+stood for a moment with a curious smile upon her face as of gleeful
+satisfaction at her daring.
+
+The breeze was waving the boughs of the apple trees. A rooster with an
+air importantly courteous was conducting three hens upon a foraging
+tour. On the hillside at the rear of the grey old barn the red leaves
+of a creeper flamed amid the summer foliage. High in the sky clouds
+rolled toward the north. The girl swung impulsively from the little
+stoop and ran toward the barn.
+
+The great door was open, and the carved peg which usually performed the
+office of a catch lay on the ground. The girl could not see into the
+barn because of the heavy shadows. She paused in a listening attitude
+and heard a horse munching placidly. She gave a cry of delight and
+sprang across the threshold. Then she suddenly shrank back and gasped.
+She had confronted three men in grey seated upon the floor with their
+legs stretched out and their backs against Santo's manger. Their
+dust-covered countenances were expanded in grins.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+As Mary sprang backward and screamed, one of the calm men in grey,
+still grinning, announced, "I knowed you'd holler." Sitting there
+comfortably the three surveyed her with amusement.
+
+Mary caught her breath, throwing her hand up to her throat. "Oh!" she
+said, "you--you frightened me!"
+
+"We're sorry, lady, but couldn't help it no way," cheerfully responded
+another. "I knowed you'd holler when I seen you coming yere, but I
+raikoned we couldn't help it no way. We hain't a-troubling this yere
+barn, I don't guess. We been doing some mighty tall sleeping yere. We
+done woke when them Yanks loped past."
+
+"Where did you come from? Did--did you escape from the--the Yankees?"
+The girl still stammered and trembled.
+
+The three soldiers laughed. "No, m'm. No, m'm. They never cotch us. We
+was in a muss down the road yere about two mile. And Bill yere they gin
+it to him in the arm, kehplunk. And they pasted me thar, too. Curious,
+And Sim yere, he didn't get nothing, but they chased us all quite a
+little piece, and we done lose track of our boys."
+
+"Was it--was it those who passed here just now? Did they chase you?"
+
+The men in grey laughed again. "What--them? No, indeedee! There was a
+mighty big swarm of Yanks and a mighty big swarm of our boys, too.
+What--that little passel? No, m'm."
+
+She became calm enough to scan them more attentively. They were much
+begrimed and very dusty. Their grey clothes were tattered. Splashed mud
+had dried upon them in reddish spots. It appeared, too, that the men
+had not shaved in many days. In the hats there was a singular
+diversity. One soldier wore the little blue cap of the Northern
+infantry, with corps emblem and regimental number; one wore a great
+slouch hat with a wide hole in the crown; and the other wore no hat at
+all. The left sleeve of one man and the right sleeve of another had
+been slit, and the arms were neatly bandaged with clean cloths. "These
+hain't no more than two little cuts," explained one. "We stopped up
+yere to Mis' Leavitts--she said her name was--and she bind them for us.
+Bill yere, he had the thirst come on him. And the fever too. We----"
+
+"Did you ever see my father in the army?" asked Mary. "John
+Hinckson--his name is."
+
+The three soldiers grinned again, but they replied kindly: "No, m'm.
+No, m'm, we hain't never. What is he--in the cavalry?"
+
+"No," said the girl. "He and my uncle Asa and my cousin--his name is
+Bill Parker--they are all with Longstreet--they call him."
+
+"Oh," said the soldiers. "Longstreet? Oh, they're a good smart ways
+from yere. 'Way off up nawtheast. There hain't nothing but cavalry down
+yere. They're in the infantry, probably."
+
+"We haven't heard anything from them for days and days," said Mary.
+
+"Oh, they're all right in the infantry," said one man, to be consoling.
+"The infantry don't do much fighting. They go bellering out in a big
+swarm and only a few of 'em get hurt. But if they was in the
+cavalry--the cavalry--"
+
+Mary interrupted him without intention. "Are you hungry?" she asked.
+
+The soldiers looked at each other, struck by some sudden and singular
+shame. They hung their heads. "No, m'm," replied one at last.
+
+Santo, in his stall, was tranquilly chewing and chewing. Sometimes he
+looked benevolently over at them. He was an old horse, and there was
+something about his eyes and his forelock which created the impression
+that he wore spectacles. Mary went and patted his nose. "Well, if you
+are hungry, I can get you something," she told the men. "Or you might
+come to the house."
+
+"We wouldn't dast go to the house," said one. "That passel of Yanks was
+only a scouting crowd, most like. Just an advance. More coming, likely."
+
+"Well, I can bring you something," cried the girl eagerly. "Won't you
+let me bring you something?"
+
+"Well," said a soldier with embarrassment, "we hain't had much. If you
+could bring us a little snack--like--just a snack--we'd--"
+
+Without waiting for him to cease, the girl turned toward the door. But
+before she had reached it she stopped abruptly. "Listen!" she
+whispered. Her form was bent forward, her head turned and lowered, her
+hand extended toward the men, in a command for silence.
+
+They could faintly hear the thudding of many hoofs, the clank of arms,
+and frequent calling voices.
+
+"By cracky, it's the Yanks!" The soldiers scrambled to their feet and
+came toward the door. "I knowed that first crowd was only an advance."
+
+The girl and the three men peered from the shadows of the barn. The
+view of the road was intersected by tree trunks and a little henhouse.
+However, they could see many horsemen streaming down the road. The
+horsemen were in blue. "Oh, hide--hide--hide!" cried the girl, with a
+sob in her voice.
+
+"Wait a minute," whispered a grey soldier excitedly. "Maybe they're
+going along by. No, by thunder, they hain't! They're halting. Scoot,
+boys!"
+
+They made a noiseless dash into the dark end of the barn. The girl,
+standing by the door, heard them break forth an instant later in
+clamorous whispers. "Where'll we hide? Where'll we hide? There hain't a
+place to hide!" The girl turned and glanced wildly about the barn. It
+seemed true. The stock of hay had grown low under Santo's endless
+munching, and from occasional levyings by passing troopers in grey. The
+poles of the mow were barely covered, save in one corner where there
+was a little bunch.
+
+The girl espied the great feed-box. She ran to it and lifted the lid.
+"Here! here!" she called. "Get in here."
+
+They had been tearing noiselessly around the rear part of the barn. At
+her low call they came and plunged at the box. They did not all get in
+at the same moment without a good deal of a tangle. The wounded men
+gasped and muttered, but they at last were flopped down on the layer of
+feed which covered the bottom. Swiftly and softly the girl lowered the
+lid and then turned like a flash toward the door.
+
+No one appeared there, so she went close to survey the situation. The
+troopers had dismounted, and stood in silence by their horses.
+
+A grey-bearded man, whose red cheeks and nose shone vividly above the
+whiskers, was strolling about with two or three others. They wore
+double-breasted coats, and faded yellow sashes were wound under their
+black leather sword-belts. The grey-bearded soldier was apparently
+giving orders, pointing here and there.
+
+Mary tiptoed to the feed-box. "They've all got off their horses," she
+said to it. A finger projected from a knot-hole near the top, and said
+to her very plainly, "Come closer." She obeyed, and then a muffled
+voice could be heard: "Scoot for the house, lady, and if we don't see
+you again, why, much obliged for what you done."
+
+"Good-bye," she said to the feed-box.
+
+She made two attempts to walk dauntlessly from the barn, but each time
+she faltered and failed just before she reached the point where she
+could have been seen by the blue-coated troopers. At last, however, she
+made a sort of a rush forward and went out into the bright sunshine.
+
+The group of men in double-breasted coats wheeled in her direction at
+the instant. The grey-bearded officer forgot to lower his arm which had
+been stretched forth in giving an order.
+
+She felt that her feet were touching the ground in a most unnatural
+manner. Her bearing, she believed, was suddenly grown awkward and
+ungainly. Upon her face she thought that this sentence was plainly
+written: "There are three men hidden in the feed-box."
+
+The grey-bearded soldier came toward her. She stopped; she seemed about
+to run away. But the soldier doffed his little blue cap and looked
+amiable. "You live here, I presume?" he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"Well, we are obliged to camp here for the night, and as we've got two
+wounded men with us I don't suppose you'd mind if we put them in the
+barn."
+
+"In--in the barn?"
+
+He became aware that she was agitated. He smiled assuringly. "You
+needn't be frightened. We won't hurt anything around here. You'll all
+be safe enough."
+
+The girl balanced on one foot and swung the other to and fro in the
+grass. She was looking down at it. "But--but I don't think ma would
+like it if--if you took the barn."
+
+The old officer laughed. "Wouldn't she?" said he. "That's so. Maybe she
+wouldn't." He reflected for a time and then decided cheerfully: "Well,
+we will have to go ask her, anyhow. Where is she? In the house?"
+
+"Yes," replied the girl, "she's in the house. She--she'll be scared to
+death when she sees you!"
+
+"Well, you go and ask her then," said the soldier, always wearing a
+benign smile. "You go ask her and then come and tell me."
+
+When the girl pushed open the door and entered the kitchen, she found
+it empty. "Ma!" she called softly. There was no answer. The kettle
+still was humming its low song. The knife and the curl of potato-skin
+lay on the floor.
+
+She went to her mother's room and entered timidly. The new, lonely
+aspect of the house shook her nerves. Upon the bed was a confusion of
+coverings. "Ma!" called the girl, quaking in fear that her mother was
+not there to reply. But there was a sudden turmoil of the quilts, and
+her mother's head was thrust forth. "Mary!" she cried, in what seemed
+to be a supreme astonishment, "I thought--I thought----"
+
+"Oh, ma," blurted the girl, "there's over a thousand Yankees in the
+yard, and I've hidden three of our men in the feed-box!"
+
+The elder woman, however, upon the appearance of her daughter had begun
+to thrash hysterically about on the bed and wail.
+
+"Ma!" the girl exclaimed, "and now they want to use the barn--and our
+men in the feed-box! What shall I do, ma? What shall I do?"
+
+Her mother did not seem to hear, so absorbed was she in her grievous
+flounderings and tears. "Ma!" appealed the girl. "Ma!"
+
+For a moment Mary stood silently debating, her lips apart, her eyes
+fixed. Then she went to the kitchen window and peeked.
+
+The old officer and the others were staring up the road. She went to
+another window in order to get a proper view of the road, and saw that
+they were gazing at a small body of horsemen approaching at a trot and
+raising much dust. Presently she recognised them as the squad that had
+passed the house earlier, for the young man with the dim yellow chevron
+still rode at their head. An unarmed horseman in grey was receiving
+their close attention.
+
+As they came very near to the house she darted to the first window
+again. The grey-bearded officer was smiling a fine broad smile of
+satisfaction. "So you got him?" he called out. The young sergeant
+sprang from his horse and his brown hand moved in a salute. The girl
+could not hear his reply. She saw the unarmed horseman in grey stroking
+a very black moustache and looking about him coolly and with an
+interested air. He appeared so indifferent that she did not understand
+he was a prisoner until she heard the grey-beard call out: "Well, put
+him in the barn. He'll be safe there, I guess." A party of troopers
+moved with the prisoner toward the barn.
+
+The girl made a sudden gesture of horror, remembering the three men in
+the feed-box.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The busy troopers in blue scurried about the long lines of stamping
+horses. Men crooked their backs and perspired in order to rub with
+cloths or bunches of grass these slim equine legs, upon whose splendid
+machinery they depended so greatly. The lips of the horses were still
+wet and frothy from the steel bars which had wrenched at their mouths
+all day. Over their backs and about their noses sped the talk of the
+men.
+
+"Moind where yer plug is steppin', Finerty! Keep 'im aff me!"
+
+"An ould elephant! He shtrides like a school-house."
+
+"Bill's little mar'--she was plum beat when she come in with Crawford's
+crowd."
+
+"Crawford's the hardest-ridin' cavalryman in the army. An' he don't use
+up a horse, neither--much. They stay fresh when the others are most
+a-droppin'."
+
+"Finerty, will yeh moind that cow a yours?"
+
+Amid a bustle of gossip and banter, the horses retained their air of
+solemn rumination, twisting their lower jaws from side to side and
+sometimes rubbing noses dreamfully.
+
+Over in front of the barn three troopers sat talking comfortably. Their
+carbines were leaned against the wall. At their side and outlined in
+the black of the open door stood a sentry, his weapon resting in the
+hollow of his arm. Four horses, saddled and accoutred, were conferring
+with their heads close together. The four bridle-reins were flung over
+a post.
+
+Upon the calm green of the land, typical in every way of peace, the
+hues of war brought thither by the troops shone strangely. Mary, gazing
+curiously, did not feel that she was contemplating a familiar scene. It
+was no longer the home acres. The new blue, steel, and faded yellow
+thoroughly dominated the old green and brown. She could hear the voices
+of the men, and it seemed from their tone that they had camped there
+for years. Everything with them was usual. They had taken possession of
+the landscape in such a way that even the old marks appeared strange
+and formidable to the girl.
+
+Mary had intended to go and tell the commander in blue that her mother
+did not wish his men to use the barn at all, but she paused when she
+heard him speak to the sergeant. She thought she perceived then that it
+mattered little to him what her mother wished, and that an objection by
+her or by anybody would be futile. She saw the soldiers conduct the
+prisoner in grey into the barn, and for a long time she watched the
+three chatting guards and the pondering sentry. Upon her mind in
+desolate weight was the recollection of the three men in the feed-box.
+
+It seemed to her that in a case of this description it was her duty to
+be a heroine. In all the stories she had read when at boarding-school
+in Pennsylvania, the girl characters, confronted with such
+difficulties, invariably did hair-breadth things. True, they were
+usually bent upon rescuing and recovering their lovers, and neither the
+calm man in grey, nor any of the three in the feed-box, was lover of
+hers, but then a real heroine would not pause over this minor question.
+Plainly a heroine would take measures to rescue the four men. If she
+did not at least make the attempt, she would be false to those
+carefully constructed ideals which were the accumulation of years of
+dreaming.
+
+But the situation puzzled her. There was the barn with only one door,
+and with four armed troopers in front of this door, one of them with
+his back to the rest of the world, engaged, no doubt, in a steadfast
+contemplation of the calm man, and incidentally, of the feed-box. She
+knew, too, that even if she should open the kitchen door, three heads,
+and perhaps four, would turn casually in her direction. Their ears were
+real ears.
+
+Heroines, she knew, conducted these matters with infinite precision and
+despatch. They severed the hero's bonds, cried a dramatic sentence, and
+stood between him and his enemies until he had run far enough away. She
+saw well, however, that even should she achieve all things up to the
+point where she might take glorious stand between the escaping and the
+pursuers, those grim troopers in blue would not pause. They would run
+around her, make a circuit. One by one she saw the gorgeous
+contrivances and expedients of fiction fall before the plain, homely
+difficulties of this situation. They were of no service. Sadly,
+ruefully, she thought of the calm man and of the contents of the
+feed-box.
+
+The sum of her invention was that she could sally forth to the
+commander of the blue cavalry, and confessing to him that there were
+three of her friends and his enemies secreted in the feed-box, pray him
+to let them depart unmolested. But she was beginning to believe the old
+greybeard to be a bear. It was hardly probable that he would give this
+plan his support. It was more probable that he and some of his men
+would at once descend upon the feed-box and confiscate her three
+friends. The difficulty with her idea was that she could not learn its
+value without trying it, and then in case of failure it would be too
+late for remedies and other plans. She reflected that war made men very
+unreasonable.
+
+All that she could do was to stand at the window and mournfully regard
+the barn. She admitted this to herself with a sense of deep
+humiliation. She was not, then, made of that fine stuff, that mental
+satin, which enabled some other beings to be of such mighty service to
+the distressed. She was defeated by a barn with one door, by four men
+with eight eyes and eight ears--trivialities that would not impede the
+real heroine.
+
+The vivid white light of broad day began slowly to fade. Tones of grey
+came upon the fields, and the shadows were of lead. In this more sombre
+atmosphere the fires built by the troops down in the far end of the
+orchard grew more brilliant, becoming spots of crimson colour in the
+dark grove.
+
+The girl heard a fretting voice from her mother's room. "Mary!" She
+hastily obeyed the call. She perceived that she had quite forgotten her
+mother's existence in this time of excitement.
+
+The elder woman still lay upon the bed. Her face was flushed and
+perspiration stood amid new wrinkles upon her forehead. Weaving wild
+glances from side to side, she began to whimper. "Oh, I'm just
+sick--I'm just sick! Have those men gone yet? Have they gone?"
+
+The girl smoothed a pillow carefully for her mother's head. "No, ma.
+They're here yet. But they haven't hurt anything--it doesn't seem. Will
+I get you something to eat?"
+
+Her mother gestured her away with the impatience of the ill.
+"No--no--just don't bother me. My head is splitting, and you know very
+well that nothing can be done for me when I get one of these spells.
+It's trouble--that's what makes them. When are those men going? Look
+here, don't you go 'way. You stick close to the house now."
+
+"I'll stay right here," said the girl. She sat in the gloom and
+listened to her mother's incessant moaning. When she attempted to move,
+her mother cried out at her. When she desired to ask if she might try
+to alleviate the pain, she was interrupted shortly. Somehow her sitting
+in passive silence within hearing of this illness seemed to contribute
+to her mother's relief. She assumed a posture of submission. Sometimes
+her mother projected questions concerning the local condition, and
+although she laboured to be graphic and at the same time soothing,
+unalarming, her form of reply was always displeasing to the sick woman,
+and brought forth ejaculations of angry impatience.
+
+Eventually the woman slept in the manner of one worn from terrible
+labour. The girl went slowly and softly to the kitchen. When she looked
+from the window, she saw the four soldiers still at the barn door. In
+the west, the sky was yellow. Some tree-trunks intersecting it appeared
+black as streaks of ink. Soldiers hovered in blue clouds about the
+bright splendour of the fires in the orchard. There were glimmers of
+steel.
+
+The girl sat in the new gloom of the kitchen and watched. The soldiers
+lit a lantern and hung it in the barn. Its rays made the form of the
+sentry seem gigantic. Horses whinnied from the orchard. There was a low
+hum of human voices. Sometimes small detachments of troopers rode past
+the front of the house. The girl heard the abrupt calls of sentries.
+She fetched some food and ate it from her hand, standing by the window.
+She was so afraid that something would occur that she barely left her
+post for an instant.
+
+A picture of the interior of the barn hung vividly in her mind. She
+recalled the knot-holes in the boards at the rear, but she admitted
+that the prisoners could not escape through them. She remembered some
+inadequacies of the roof, but these also counted for nothing. When
+confronting the problem, she felt her ambitions, her ideals tumbling
+headlong like cottages of straw.
+
+Once she felt that she had decided to reconnoitre at any rate. It was
+night; the lantern at the barn and the camp fires made everything
+without their circle into masses of heavy mystic blackness. She took
+two steps toward the door. But there she paused. Innumerable
+possibilities of danger had assailed her mind. She returned to the
+window and stood wavering. At last, she went swiftly to the door,
+opened it, and slid noiselessly into the darkness.
+
+For a moment she regarded the shadows. Down in the orchard the camp
+fires of the troops appeared precisely like a great painting, all in
+reds upon a black cloth. The voices of the troopers still hummed. The
+girl started slowly off in the opposite direction. Her eyes were fixed
+in a stare; she studied the darkness in front for a moment, before she
+ventured upon a forward step. Unconsciously, her throat was arranged
+for a sudden shrill scream. High in the tree-branches she could hear
+the voice of the wind, a melody of the night, low and sad, the plaint
+of an endless, incommunicable sorrow. Her own distress, the plight of
+the men in grey--these near matters as well as all she had known or
+imagined of grief--everything was expressed in this soft mourning of
+the wind in the trees. At first she felt like weeping. This sound told
+her of human impotency and doom. Then later the trees and the wind
+breathed strength to her, sang of sacrifice, of dauntless effort, of
+hard carven faces that did not blanch when Duty came at midnight or at
+noon.
+
+She turned often to scan the shadowy figures that moved from time to
+time in the light at the barn door. Once she trod upon a stick, and it
+flopped, crackling in the intolerable manner of all sticks. At this
+noise, however, the guards at the barn made no sign. Finally, she was
+where she could see the knot-holes in the rear of the structure
+gleaming like pieces of metal from the effect of the light within.
+Scarcely breathing in her excitement she glided close and applied an
+eye to a knot-hole. She had barely achieved one glance at the interior
+before she sprang back shuddering.
+
+For the unconscious and cheerful sentry at the door was swearing away
+in flaming sentences, heaping one gorgeous oath upon another, making a
+conflagration of his description of his troop-horse. "Why," he was
+declaring to the calm prisoner in grey, "you ain't got a horse in your
+hull ---- army that can run forty rod with that there little mar'!"
+
+As in the outer darkness Mary cautiously returned to the knot-hole, the
+three guards in front suddenly called in low tones: "S-s-s-h!" "Quit,
+Pete; here comes the lieutenant." The sentry had apparently been about
+to resume his declamation, but at these warnings he suddenly posed in a
+soldierly manner.
+
+A tall and lean officer with a smooth face entered the barn. The sentry
+saluted primly. The officer flashed a comprehensive glance about him.
+"Everything all right?"
+
+"All right, sir."
+
+This officer had eyes like the points of stilettos. The lines from his
+nose to the corners of his mouth were deep, and gave him a slightly
+disagreeable aspect, but somewhere in his face there was a quality of
+singular thoughtfulness, as of the absorbed student dealing in
+generalities, which was utterly in opposition to the rapacious keenness
+of the eyes which saw everything.
+
+Suddenly he lifted a long finger and pointed. "What's that?"
+
+"That? That's a feed-box, I suppose."
+
+"What's in it?"
+
+"I don't know. I--"
+
+"You ought to know," said the officer sharply. He walked over to the
+feed-box and flung up the lid. With a sweeping gesture he reached down
+and scooped a handful of feed. "You ought to know what's in everything
+when you have prisoners in your care," he added, scowling.
+
+During the time of this incident, the girl had nearly swooned. Her
+hands searched weakly over the boards for something to which to cling.
+With the pallor of the dying she had watched the downward sweep of the
+officer's arm, which after all had only brought forth a handful of
+feed. The result was a stupefaction of her mind. She was astonished out
+of her senses at this spectacle of three large men metamorphosed into a
+handful of feed.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+It is perhaps a singular thing that this absence of the three men from
+the feed-box at the time of the sharp lieutenant's investigation should
+terrify the girl more than it should joy her. That for which she had
+prayed had come to pass. Apparently the escape of these men in the face
+of every improbability had been granted her, but her dominating emotion
+was fright. The feed-box was a mystic and terrible machine, like some
+dark magician's trap. She felt it almost possible that she should see
+the three weird man floating spectrally away through the air. She
+glanced with swift apprehension behind her, and when the dazzle from
+the lantern's light had left her eyes, saw only the dim hillside
+stretched in solemn silence.
+
+The interior of the barn possessed for her another fascination because
+it was now uncanny. It contained that extraordinary feed-box. When she
+peeped again at the knot-hole, the calm, grey prisoner was seated upon
+the feed-box, thumping it with his dangling, careless heels as if it
+were in nowise his conception of a remarkable feed-box. The sentry also
+stood facing it. His carbine he held in the hollow of his arm. His legs
+were spread apart, and he mused. From without came the low mumble of
+the three other troopers. The sharp lieutenant had vanished.
+
+The trembling yellow light of the lantern caused the figures of the men
+to cast monstrous wavering shadows. There were spaces of gloom which
+shrouded ordinary things in impressive garb. The roof presented an
+inscrutable blackness, save where small rifts in the shingles glowed
+phosphorescently. Frequently old Santo put down a thunderous hoof. The
+heels of the prisoner made a sound like the booming of a wild kind of
+drum. When the men moved their heads, their eyes shone with ghoulish
+whiteness, and their complexions were always waxen and unreal. And
+there was that profoundly strange feed-box, imperturbable with its
+burden of fantastic mystery.
+
+Suddenly from down near her feet the girl heard a crunching sound, a
+sort of a nibbling, as if some silent and very discreet terrier was at
+work upon the turf. She faltered back; here was no doubt another
+grotesque detail of this most unnatural episode. She did not run,
+because physically she was in the power of these events. Her feet
+chained her to the ground in submission to this march of terror after
+terror. As she stared at the spot from which this sound seemed to come,
+there floated through her mind a vague, sweet vision--a vision of her
+safe little room, in which at this hour she usually was sleeping.
+
+The scratching continued faintly and with frequent pauses, as if the
+terrier was then listening. When the girl first removed her eyes from
+the knot-hole the scene appeared of one velvet blackness; then
+gradually objects loomed with a dim lustre. She could see now where the
+tops of the trees joined the sky and the form of the barn was before
+her dyed in heavy purple. She was ever about to shriek, but no sound
+came from her constricted throat. She gazed at the ground with the
+expression of countenance of one who watches the sinister-moving grass
+where a serpent approaches.
+
+Dimly she saw a piece of sod wrenched free and drawn under the great
+foundation-beam of the barn. Once she imagined that she saw human
+hands, not outlined at all, but sufficient, in colour, form, or
+movement to make subtle suggestion.
+
+Then suddenly a thought that illuminated the entire situation flashed
+in her mind like a light. The three men, late of the feed-box, were
+beneath the floor of the barn and were now scraping their way under
+this beam. She did not consider for a moment how they could come there.
+They were marvellous creatures. The supernatural was to be expected of
+them. She no longer trembled, for she was possessed upon this instant
+of the most unchangeable species of conviction. The evidence before her
+amounted to no evidence at all, but nevertheless her opinion grew in an
+instant from an irresponsible acorn to a rooted and immovable tree. It
+was as if she was on a jury.
+
+She stooped down hastily and scanned the ground. There she indeed saw a
+pair of hands hauling at the dirt where the sod had been displaced.
+Softly, in a whisper like a breath, she said, "Hey!"
+
+The dim hands were drawn hastily under the barn. The girl reflected for
+a moment. Then she stooped and whispered: "Hey! It's me!"
+
+After a time there was a resumption of the digging. The ghostly hands
+began once more their cautious mining. She waited. In hollow
+reverberations from the interior of the barn came the frequent sounds
+of old Santo's lazy movements. The sentry conversed with the prisoner.
+
+At last the girl saw a head thrust slowly from under the beam. She
+perceived the face of one of the miraculous soldiers from the feed-box.
+A pair of eyes glintered and wavered, then finally settled upon her, a
+pale statue of a girl. The eyes became lit with a kind of humorous
+greeting. An arm gestured at her.
+
+Stooping, she breathed, "All right." The man drew himself silently back
+under the beam. A moment later the pair of hands resumed their cautious
+task. Ultimately the head and arms of the man were thrust strangely
+from the earth. He was lying on his back. The girl thought of the dirt
+in his hair. Wriggling slowly and pushing at the beam above him he
+forced his way out of the curious little passage. He twisted his body
+and raised himself upon his hands. He grinned at the girl and drew his
+feet carefully from under the beam. When he at last stood erect beside
+her, he at once began mechanically to brush the dirt from his clothes
+with his hands. In the barn the sentry and his prisoner were evidently
+engaged in an argument.
+
+The girl and the first miraculous soldier signalled warily. It seemed
+that they feared that their arms would make noises in passing through
+the air. Their lips moved, conveying dim meanings.
+
+In this sign-language the girl described the situation in the barn.
+With guarded motions, she told him of the importance of absolute
+stillness. He nodded, and then in the same manner he told her of his
+two companions under the barn floor. He informed her again of their
+wounded state, and wagged his head to express his despair. He contorted
+his face, to tell how sore were their arms; and jabbed the air
+mournfully, to express their remote geographical position.
+
+This signalling was interrupted by the sound of a body being dragged or
+dragging itself with slow, swishing sound under the barn. The sound was
+too loud for safety. They rushed to the hole and began to semaphore
+until a shaggy head appeared with rolling eyes and quick grin.
+
+With frantic downward motions of their arms they suppressed this grin
+and with it the swishing noise. In dramatic pantomime they informed
+this head of the terrible consequences of so much noise. The head
+nodded, and painfully, but with extreme care, the second man pushed and
+pulled himself from the hole.
+
+In a faint whisper the first man said, "Where's Sim?"
+
+The second man made low reply: "He's right here." He motioned
+reassuringly toward the hole.
+
+When the third head appeared, a soft smile of glee came upon each face,
+and the mute group exchanged expressive glances.
+
+When they all stood together, free from this tragic barn, they breathed
+a long sigh that was contemporaneous with another smile and another
+exchange of glances.
+
+One of the men tiptoed to a knot-hole and peered into the barn. The
+sentry was at that moment speaking. "Yes, we know 'em all. There isn't
+a house in this region that we don't know who is in it most of the
+time. We collar 'em once in a while--like we did you. Now, that house
+out yonder, we----"
+
+The man suddenly left the knot-hole and returned to the others. Upon
+his face, dimly discerned, there was an indication that he had made an
+astonishing discovery. The others questioned him with their eyes, but
+he simply waved an arm to express his inability to speak at that spot.
+He led them back toward the hill, prowling carefully. At a safe
+distance from the barn he halted, and as they grouped eagerly about
+him, he exploded in an intense undertone: "Why, that--that's Cap'n
+Sawyer they got in yonder."
+
+"Cap'n Sawyer!" incredulously whispered the other men.
+
+But the girl had something to ask. "How did you get out of that
+feed-box?" He smiled. "Well, when you put us in there, we was just in a
+minute when we allowed it wasn't a mighty safe place, and we allowed
+we'd get out. And we did. We skedaddled 'round and 'round until it
+'peared like we was going to get cotched, and then we flung ourselves
+down in the cow-stalls where it's low-like--just dirt floor--and then
+we just naturally went a-whooping under the barn floor when the Yanks
+come. And we didn't know Cap'n Sawyer by his voice nohow. We heard 'im
+discoursing, and we allowed it was a mighty pert man, but we didn't
+know that it was him. No, m'm."
+
+These three men, so recently from a situation of peril, seemed suddenly
+to have dropped all thought of it. They stood with sad faces looking at
+the barn. They seemed to be making no plans at all to reach a place of
+more complete safety. They were halted and stupefied by some unknown
+calamity.
+
+"How do you raikon they cotch him, Sim?" one whispered mournfully.
+
+"I don't know," replied another in the same tone.
+
+Another with a low snarl expressed in two words his opinion of the
+methods of Fate: "Oh, hell!"
+
+The three men started then as if simultaneously stung, and gazed at the
+young girl who stood silently near them. The man who had sworn began to
+make agitated apology: "Pardon, miss! 'Pon my soul, I clean forgot you
+was by. 'Deed, and I wouldn't swear like that if I had knowed. 'Deed, I
+wouldn't."
+
+The girl did not seem to hear him. She was staring at the barn.
+Suddenly she turned and whispered, "Who is he?"
+
+"He's Cap'n Sawyer, m'm," they told her sorrowfully. "He's our own
+cap'n. He's been in command of us yere since a long time. He's got
+folks about yere. Raikon they cotch him while he was a-visiting."
+
+She was still for a time, and then, awed, she said: "Will they--will
+they hang him?"
+
+"No, m'm. Oh no, m'm. Don't raikon no such thing. No, m'm."
+
+The group became absorbed in a contemplation of the barn. For a time no
+one moved nor spoke. At last the girl was aroused by slight sounds, and
+turning, she perceived that the three men who had so recently escaped
+from the barn were now advancing toward it.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The girl, waiting in the darkness, expected to hear the sudden crash
+and uproar of a fight as soon as the three creeping men should reach
+the barn. She reflected in an agony upon the swift disaster that would
+befall any enterprise so desperate. She had an impulse to beg them to
+come away. The grass rustled in silken movements as she sped toward the
+barn.
+
+When she arrived, however, she gazed about her bewildered. The men were
+gone. She searched with her eyes, trying to detect some moving thing,
+but she could see nothing.
+
+Left alone again, she began to be afraid of the night. The great
+stretches of darkness could hide crawling dangers. From sheer desire to
+see a human, she was obliged to peep again at the knot-hole. The sentry
+had apparently wearied of talking. Instead, he was reflecting. The
+prisoner still sat on the feed-box, moodily staring at the floor. The
+girl felt in one way that she was looking at a ghastly group in wax.
+She started when the old horse put down an echoing hoof. She wished the
+men would speak; their silence re-enforced the strange aspect. They
+might have been two dead men.
+
+The girl felt impelled to look at the corner of the interior where were
+the cow-stalls. There was no light there save the appearance of
+peculiar grey haze which marked the track of the dimming rays of the
+lantern. All else was sombre shadow. At last she saw something move
+there. It might have been as small as a rat, or it might have been a
+part of something as large as a man. At any rate, it proclaimed that
+something in that spot was alive. At one time she saw it plainly, and
+at other times it vanished, because her fixture of gaze caused her
+occasionally to greatly tangle and blur those peculiar shadows and
+faint lights. At last, however, she perceived a human head. It was
+monstrously dishevelled and wild. It moved slowly forward until its
+glance could fall upon the prisoner and then upon the sentry. The
+wandering rays caused the eyes to glitter like silver. The girl's heart
+pounded so that she put her hand over it.
+
+The sentry and the prisoner remained immovably waxen, and over in the
+gloom the head thrust from the floor watched them with its silver eyes.
+
+Finally, the prisoner slipped from the feed-box, and raising his arms,
+yawned at great length. "Oh, well," he remarked, "you boys will get a
+good licking if you fool around here much longer. That's some
+satisfaction, anyhow, even if you did bag me. You'll get a good
+walloping." He reflected for a moment, and decided: "I'm sort of
+willing to be captured if you fellows only get a d----d good licking
+for being so smart."
+
+The sentry looked up and smiled a superior smile. "Licking, hey?
+Nixey!" He winked exasperatingly at the prisoner. "You fellows are not
+fast enough, my boy. Why didn't you lick us at ----? and at ----? and
+at ----?" He named some of the great battles.
+
+To this the captive officer blurted in angry astonishment: "Why, we
+did!"
+
+The sentry winked again in profound irony. "Yes, I know you did. Of
+course. You whipped us, didn't you? Fine kind of whipping that was!
+Why, we----"
+
+He suddenly ceased, smitten mute by a sound that broke the stillness of
+the night. It was the sharp crack of a distant shot that made wild
+echoes among the hills. It was instantly followed by the hoarse cry of
+a human voice, a far-away yell of warning, singing of surprise, peril,
+fear of death. A moment later there was a distant, fierce spattering of
+shots. The sentry and the prisoner stood facing each other, their lips
+apart, listening.
+
+The orchard at that instant awoke to sudden tumult. There were the thud
+and scramble and scamper of feet, the mellow, swift clash of arms,
+men's voices in question, oath, command, hurried and unhurried,
+resolute and frantic. A horse sped along the road at a raging gallop. A
+loud voice shouted, "What is it, Ferguson?" Another voice yelled
+something incoherent. There was a sharp, discordant chorus of command.
+An uproarious volley suddenly rang from the orchard. The prisoner in
+grey moved from his intent, listening attitude. Instantly the eyes of
+the sentry blazed, and he said with a new and terrible sternness:
+"Stand where you are!"
+
+The prisoner trembled in his excitement. Expressions of delight and
+triumph bubbled to his lips. "A surprise, by Gawd! Now--now, you'll
+see!"
+
+The sentry stolidly swung his carbine to his shoulder. He sighted
+carefully along the barrel until it pointed at the prisoner's head,
+about at his nose. "Well, I've got you, anyhow. Remember that! Don't
+move!"
+
+The prisoner could not keep his arms from nervously gesturing. "I
+won't; but----"
+
+"And shut your mouth!"
+
+The three comrades of the sentry flung themselves into view.
+"Pete--devil of a row!--can you----"
+
+"I've got him," said the sentry calmly and without moving. It was as if
+the barrel of the carbine rested on piers of stone. The three comrades
+turned and plunged into the darkness.
+
+In the orchard it seemed as if two gigantic animals were engaged in a
+mad, floundering encounter, snarling, howling in a whirling chaos of
+noise and motion. In the barn the prisoner and his guard faced each
+other in silence.
+
+As for the girl at the knot-hole, the sky had fallen at the beginning
+of this clamour. She would not have been astonished to see the stars
+swinging from their abodes, and the vegetation, the barn, all blow
+away. It was the end of everything, the grand universal murder. When
+two of the three miraculous soldiers who formed the original feed-box
+corps emerged in detail from the hole under the beam, and slid away
+into the darkness, she did no more than glance at them.
+
+Suddenly she recollected the head with silver eyes. She started forward
+and again applied her eyes to the knot-hole. Even with the din
+resounding from the orchard, from up the road and down the road, from
+the heavens and from the deep earth, the central fascination was this
+mystic head. There, to her, was the dark god of the tragedy.
+
+The prisoner in grey at this moment burst into a laugh that was no more
+than a hysterical gurgle. "Well, you can't hold that gun out for ever!
+Pretty soon you'll have to lower it."
+
+The sentry's voice sounded slightly muffled, for his cheek was pressed
+against the weapon. "I won't be tired for some time yet."
+
+The girl saw the head slowly rise, the eyes fixed upon the sentry's
+face. A tall, black figure slunk across the cow-stalls and vanished
+back of old Santo's quarters. She knew what was to come to pass. She
+knew this grim thing was upon a terrible mission, and that it would
+reappear again at the head of the little passage between Santo's stall
+and the wall, almost at the sentry's elbow; and yet when she saw a
+faint indication as of a form crouching there, a scream from an utterly
+new alarm almost escaped her.
+
+The sentry's arms, after all, were not of granite. He moved restively.
+At last he spoke in his even, unchanging tone: "Well, I guess you'll
+have to climb into that feed-box. Step back and lift the lid."
+
+"Why, you don't mean----"
+
+"Step back!"
+
+The girl felt a cry of warning arising to her lips as she gazed at this
+sentry. She noted every detail of his facial expression. She saw,
+moreover, his mass of brown hair bunching disgracefully about his ears,
+his clear eyes lit now with a hard, cold light, his forehead puckered
+in a mighty scowl, the ring upon the third finger of the left hand.
+"Oh, they won't kill him! Surely they won't kill him!" The noise of the
+fight in the orchard was the loud music, the thunder and lightning, the
+rioting of the tempest which people love during the critical scene of a
+tragedy.
+
+When the prisoner moved back in reluctant obedience, he faced for an
+instant the entrance of the little passage, and what he saw there must
+have been written swiftly, graphically in his eyes. And the sentry read
+it and knew then that he was upon the threshold of his death. In a
+fraction of time, certain information went from the grim thing in the
+passage to the prisoner, and from the prisoner to the sentry. But at
+that instant the black formidable figure arose, towered, and made its
+leap. A new shadow flashed across the floor when the blow was struck.
+
+As for the girl at the knot-hole, when she returned to sense she found
+herself standing with clenched hands and screaming with her might.
+
+As if her reason had again departed from her, she ran around the barn,
+in at the door, and flung herself sobbing beside the body of the
+soldier in blue.
+
+The uproar of the fight became at last coherent, inasmuch as one party
+was giving shouts of supreme exultation. The firing no longer sounded
+in crashes; it was now expressed in spiteful crackles, the last words
+of the combat, spoken with feminine vindictiveness.
+
+Presently there was a thud of flying feet. A grimy, panting, red-faced
+mob of troopers in blue plunged into the barn, became instantly frozen
+to attitudes of amazement and rage, and then roared in one great
+chorus: "He's gone!"
+
+The girl who knelt beside the body upon the floor turned toward them
+her lamenting eyes and cried: "He's not dead, is he? He can't be dead?"
+
+They thronged forward. The sharp lieutenant who had been so particular
+about the feed-box knelt by the side of the girl, and laid his head
+against the chest of the prostrate soldier. "Why, no," he said, rising
+and looking at the man. "He's all right. Some of you boys throw some
+water on him."
+
+"Are you sure?" demanded the girl feverishly.
+
+"Of course! He'll be better after awhile."
+
+"Oh!" said she softly, and then looked down at the sentry. She started
+to arise, and the lieutenant reached down and hoisted rather awkwardly
+at her arm.
+
+"Don't you worry about him. He's all right."
+
+She turned her face with its curving lips and shining eyes once more
+toward the unconscious soldier upon the floor. The troopers made a lane
+to the door, the lieutenant bowed, the girl vanished.
+
+"Queer," said a young officer. "Girl very clearly worst kind of rebel,
+and yet she falls to weeping and wailing like mad over one of her
+enemies. Be around in the morning with all sorts of doctoring--you see
+if she ain't. Queer."
+
+The sharp lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. After reflection he
+shrugged his shoulders again. He said: "War changes many things; but it
+doesn't change everything, thank God!"
+
+
+
+
+A MYSTERY OF HEROISM
+
+
+The dark uniforms of the men were so coated with dust from the
+incessant wrestling of the two armies that the regiment almost seemed a
+part of the clay bank which shielded them from the shells. On the top
+of the hill a battery was arguing in tremendous roars with some other
+guns, and to the eye of the infantry, the artillerymen, the guns, the
+caissons, the horses, were distinctly outlined upon the blue sky. When
+a piece was fired, a red streak as round as a log flashed low in the
+heavens, like a monstrous bolt of lightning. The men of the battery
+wore white duck trousers, which somehow emphasised their legs: and when
+they ran and crowded in little groups at the bidding of the shouting
+officers, it was more impressive than usual to the infantry.
+
+Fred Collins, of A Company, was saying: "Thunder, I wisht I had a
+drink. Ain't there any water round here?" Then, somebody yelled: "There
+goes th' bugler!"
+
+As the eyes of half the regiment swept in one machine-like movement,
+there was an instant's picture of a horse in a great convulsive leap of
+a death-wound and a rider leaning back with a crooked arm and spread
+fingers before his face. On the ground was the crimson terror of an
+exploding shell, with fibres of flame that seemed like lances. A
+glittering bugle swung clear of the rider's back as fell headlong the
+horse and the man. In the air was an odour as from a conflagration.
+
+Sometimes they of the infantry looked down at a fair little meadow
+which spread at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently
+in a breeze. Beyond it was the grey form of a house half torn to pieces
+by shells and by the busy axes of soldiers who had pursued firewood.
+The line of an old fence was now dimly marked by long weeds and by an
+occasional post. A shell had blown the well-house to fragments. Little
+lines of grey smoke ribboning upward from some embers indicated the
+place where had stood the barn.
+
+From beyond a curtain of green woods there came the sound of some
+stupendous scuffle, as if two animals of the size of islands were
+fighting. At a distance there were occasional appearances of
+swift-moving men, horses, batteries, flags, and, with the crashing of
+infantry volleys were heard, often, wild and frenzied cheers. In the
+midst of it all Smith and Ferguson, two privates of A Company, were
+engaged in a heated discussion, which involved the greatest questions
+of the national existence.
+
+The battery on the hill presently engaged in a frightful duel. The
+white legs of the gunners scampered this way and that way, and the
+officers redoubled their shouts. The guns, with their demeanours of
+stolidity and courage, were typical of something infinitely
+self-possessed in this clamour of death that swirled around the hill.
+
+One of a "swing" team was suddenly smitten quivering to the ground, and
+his maddened brethren dragged his torn body in their struggle to escape
+from this turmoil and danger. A young soldier astride one of the
+leaders swore and fumed in his saddle, and furiously jerked at the
+bridle. An officer screamed out an order so violently that his voice
+broke and ended the sentence in a falsetto shriek.
+
+The leading company of the infantry regiment was somewhat exposed, and
+the colonel ordered it moved more fully under the shelter of the hill.
+There was the clank of steel against steel.
+
+A lieutenant of the battery rode down and passed them, holding his
+right arm carefully in his left hand. And it was as if this arm was not
+at all a part of him, but belonged to another man. His sober and
+reflective charger went slowly. The officer's face was grimy and
+perspiring, and his uniform was tousled as if he had been in direct
+grapple with an enemy. He smiled grimly when the men stared at him. He
+turned his horse toward the meadow.
+
+Collins, of A Company, said: "I wisht I had a drink. I bet there's
+water in that there ol' well yonder!"
+
+"Yes; but how you goin' to git it?"
+
+For the little meadow which intervened was now suffering a terrible
+onslaught of shells. Its green and beautiful calm had vanished utterly.
+Brown earth was being flung in monstrous handfuls. And there was a
+massacre of the young blades of grass. They were being torn, burned,
+obliterated. Some curious fortune of the battle had made this gentle
+little meadow the object of the red hate of the shells, and each one as
+it exploded seemed like an imprecation in the face of a maiden.
+
+The wounded officer who was riding across this expanse said to himself:
+"Why, they couldn't shoot any harder if the whole army was massed here!"
+
+A shell struck the grey ruins of the house, and as, after the roar, the
+shattered wall fell in fragments, there was a noise which resembled the
+flapping of shutters during a wild gale of winter. Indeed, the infantry
+paused in the shelter of the bank appeared as men standing upon a shore
+contemplating a madness of the sea. The angel of calamity had under its
+glance the battery upon the hill. Fewer white-legged men laboured about
+the guns. A shell had smitten one of the pieces, and after the flare,
+the smoke, the dust, the wrath of this blow were gone, it was possible
+to see white lugs stretched horizontally upon the ground. And at that
+interval to the rear, where it is the business of battery horses to
+stand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag their
+guns out of the destruction, or into it, or wheresoever these
+incomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur--in this line of
+passive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not let
+them forget the iron laws of man's control of them--in this rank of
+brute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From the
+ruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, the men of the infantry could
+see one animal raising its stricken body with its fore legs, and
+turning its nose with mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky.
+
+Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. "Well, if yeh want a
+drink so bad, why don't yeh go git it?"
+
+"Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't shut up!"
+
+A lieutenant of artillery floundered his horse straight down the hill
+with as little concern as if it were level ground. As he galloped past
+the colonel of the infantry, he threw up his hand in swift salute.
+"We've got to get out of that," he roared angrily. He was a
+black-bearded officer, and his eyes, which resembled beads, sparkled
+like those of an insane man. His jumping horse sped along the column of
+infantry.
+
+The fat major, standing carelessly with his sword held horizontally
+behind him and with his legs far apart, looked after the receding
+horseman and laughed. "He wants to get back with orders pretty quick,
+or there'll be no batt'ry left," he observed.
+
+The wise young captain of the second company hazarded to the
+lieutenant-colonel that the enemy's infantry would probably soon attack
+the hill, and the lieutenant-colonel snubbed him.
+
+A private in one of the rear companies looked out over the meadow, and
+then turned to a companion and said, "Look there, Jim!" It was the
+wounded officer from the battery, who some time before had started to
+ride across the meadow, supporting his right arm carefully with his
+left hand. This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when
+no one perceived him, and he could now be seen lying face downward with
+a stirruped foot stretched across the body of his dead horse. A leg of
+the charger extended slantingly upward precisely as stiff as a stake.
+Around this motionless pair the shells still howled.
+
+There was a quarrel in A Company. Collins was shaking his fist in the
+faces of some laughing comrades. "Dern yeh! I ain't afraid t' go. If
+yeh say much, I will go!"
+
+"Of course, yeh will! You'll run through that there medder, won't yeh?"
+
+Collins said, in a terrible voice: "You see now!" At this ominous
+threat his comrades broke into renewed jeers.
+
+Collins gave them a dark scowl, and went to find his captain. The
+latter was conversing with the colonel of the regiment.
+
+"Captain," said Collins, saluting and standing at attention--in those
+days all trousers bagged at the knees--"Captain, I wan't t' get
+permission to go git some water from that there well over yonder!"
+
+The colonel and the captain swung about simultaneously and stared
+across the meadow. The captain laughed. "You must be pretty thirsty,
+Collins?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I am."
+
+"Well--ah," said the captain. After a moment, he asked, "Can't you
+wait?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The colonel was watching Collins's face. "Look here, my lad," he said,
+in a pious sort of a voice--"Look here, my lad"--Collins was not a
+lad--"don't you think that's taking pretty big risks for a little drink
+of water."
+
+"I dunno," said Collins uncomfortably. Some of the resentment toward
+his companions, which perhaps had forced him into this affair, was
+beginning to fade. "I dunno wether 'tis."
+
+The colonel and the captain contemplated him for a time.
+
+"Well," said the captain finally.
+
+"Well," said the colonel, "if you want to go, why, go."
+
+Collins saluted. "Much obliged t' yeh."
+
+As he moved away the colonel called after him. "Take some of the other
+boys' canteens with you an' hurry back now."
+
+"Yes, sir, I will."
+
+The colonel and the captain looked at each other then, for it had
+suddenly occurred that they could not for the life of them tell whether
+Collins wanted to go or whether he did not.
+
+They turned to regard Collins, and as they perceived him surrounded by
+gesticulating comrades, the colonel said: "Well, by thunder! I guess
+he's going."
+
+Collins appeared as a man dreaming. In the midst of the questions, the
+advice, the warnings, all the excited talk of his company mates, he
+maintained a curious silence.
+
+They were very busy in preparing him for his ordeal. When they
+inspected him carefully, it was somewhat like the examination that
+grooms give a horse before a race; and they were amazed, staggered by
+the whole affair. Their astonishment found vent in strange repetitions.
+
+"Are yeh sure a-goin'?" they demanded again and again.
+
+"Certainly I am," cried Collins at last furiously.
+
+He strode sullenly away from them. He was swinging five or six canteens
+by their cords. It seemed that his cap would not remain firmly on his
+head, and often he reached and pulled it down over his brow.
+
+There was a general movement in the compact column. The long
+animal-like thing moved slightly. Its four hundred eyes were turned
+upon the figure of Collins.
+
+"Well, sir, if that ain't th' derndest thing! I never thought Fred
+Collins had the blood in him for that kind of business."
+
+"What's he goin' to do, anyhow?"
+
+"He's goin' to that well there after water."
+
+"We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness."
+
+"Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it."
+
+"Say, he must be a desperate cuss."
+
+When Collins faced the meadow and walked away from the regiment, he was
+vaguely conscious that a chasm, the deep valley of all prides, was
+suddenly between him and his comrades. It was provisional, but the
+provision was that he return as a victor. He had blindly been led by
+quaint emotions, and laid himself under an obligation to walk squarely
+up to the face of death.
+
+But he was not sure that he wished to make a retraction, even if he
+could do so without shame. As a matter of truth, he was sure of very
+little. He was mainly surprised.
+
+It seemed to him supernaturally strange that he had allowed his mind to
+manoeuvre his body into such a situation. He understood that it might
+be called dramatically great.
+
+However, he had no full appreciation of anything, excepting that he was
+actually conscious of being dazed. He could feel his dulled mid groping
+after the form and colour of this incident. He wondered why he did not
+feel some keen agony of fear cutting his sense like a knife. He
+wondered at this, because human expression had said loudly for
+centuries that men should feel afraid of certain things, and that all
+men who did not feel this fear were phenomena--heroes.
+
+He was, then, a hero. He suffered that disappointment which we would
+all have if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deeds
+which we most admire in history and legend. This, then, was a hero.
+After all, heroes were not much.
+
+No, it could not be true. He was not a hero. Heroes had no shames in
+their lives, and, as for him, he remembered borrowing fifteen dollars
+from a friend and promising to pay it back the next day, and then
+avoiding that friend for ten months. When at home his mother had
+aroused him for the early labour of his life on the farm, it had often
+been his fashion to be irritable, childish, diabolical; and his mother
+had died since he had come to the war.
+
+He saw that, in this matter of the well, the canteens, the shells, he
+was an intruder in the land of fine deeds.
+
+He was now about thirty paces from his comrades. The regiment had just
+turned its many faces toward him.
+
+From the forest of terrific noises there suddenly emerged a little
+uneven line of men. They fired fiercely and rapidly at distant foliage
+on which appeared little puffs of white smoke. The spatter of skirmish
+firing was added to the thunder of the guns on the hill. The little
+line of men ran forward. A colour-sergeant fell flat with his flag as
+if he had slipped on ice. There was hoarse cheering from this distant
+field.
+
+Collins suddenly felt that two demon fingers were pressed into his
+ears. He could see nothing but flying arrows, flaming red. He lurched
+from the shock of this explosion, but he made a mad rush for the house,
+which he viewed as a man submerged to the neck in a boiling surf might
+view the shore. In the air, little pieces of shell howled and the
+earthquake explosions drove him insane with the menace of their roar.
+As he ran the canteens knocked together with a rhythmical tinkling.
+
+As he neared the house, each detail of the scene became vivid to him.
+He was aware of some bricks of the vanished chimney lying on the sod.
+There was a door which hung by one hinge.
+
+Rifle bullets called forth by the insistent skirmishers came from the
+far-off bank of foliage. They mingled with the shells and the pieces of
+shells until the air was torn in all directions by hootings, yells,
+howls. The sky was full of fiends who directed all their wild rage at
+his head.
+
+When he came to the well, he flung himself face downward and peered
+into its darkness. There were furtive silver glintings some feet from
+the surface. He grabbed one of the canteens, and, unfastening its cap,
+swung it down by the cord. The water flowed slowly in with an indolent
+gurgle.
+
+And now as he lay with his face turned away he was suddenly smitten
+with the terror. It came upon his heart like the grasp of claws. All
+the power faded from his muscles. For an instant he was no more than a
+dead man.
+
+The canteen filled with a maddening slowness, in the manner of all
+bottles. Presently he recovered his strength and addressed a screaming
+oath to it. He leaned over until it seemed as if he intended to try to
+push water into it with his hands. His eyes as he gazed down into the
+well shone like two pieces of metal, and in their expression was a
+great appeal and a great curse. The stupid water derided him.
+
+There was the blaring thunder of a shell. Crimson light shone through
+the swift-boiling smoke, and made a pink reflection on part of the wall
+of the well. Collins jerked out his arm and canteen with the same
+motion that a man would use in withdrawing his head from a furnace.
+
+He scrambled erect and glared and hesitated. On the ground near him lay
+the old well bucket, with a length of rusty chain. He lowered it
+swiftly into the well. The bucket struck the water and then, turning
+lazily over, sank. When, with hand reaching tremblingly over hand, he
+hauled it out, it knocked often against the walls of the well and
+spilled some of its contents.
+
+In running with a filled bucket, a man can adopt but one kind of gait.
+So through this terrible field, over which screamed practical angels of
+death, Collins ran in the manner of a farmer chased out of a dairy by a
+bull.
+
+His face went staring white with anticipation--anticipation of a blow
+that would whirl him around and down. He would fall as he had seen
+other men fall, the life knocked out of them so suddenly that their
+knees were no more quick to touch the ground than their heads. He saw
+the long blue line of the regiment, but his comrades were standing
+looking at him from the edge of an impossible star. He was aware of
+some deep wheel-ruts and hoof-prints in the sod beneath his feet.
+
+The artillery officer who had fallen in this meadow had been making
+groans in the teeth of the tempest of sound. These futile cries,
+wrenched from him by his agony, were heard only by shells, bullets.
+When wild-eyed Collins came running, this officer raised himself. His
+face contorted and blanched from pain, he was about to utter some great
+beseeching cry. But suddenly his face straightened and he called:
+
+"Say, young man, give me a drink of water, will you?"
+
+Collins had no room amid his emotions for surprise. He was mad from the
+threats of destruction.
+
+"I can't!" he screamed, and in his reply was a full description of his
+quaking apprehension. His cap was gone and his hair was riotous. His
+clothes made it appear that he had been dragged over the ground by the
+heels. He ran on.
+
+The officer's head sank down, and one elbow crooked. His foot in its
+brass-bound stirrup still stretched over the body of his horse, and the
+other leg was under the steed.
+
+But Collins turned. He came dashing back. His face had now turned grey,
+and in his eyes was all terror. "Here it is! here it is!"
+
+The officer was as a man gone in drink. His arm bent like a twig. His
+head drooped as if his neck were of willow. He was sinking to the
+ground, to lie face downward.
+
+Collins grabbed him by the shoulder. "Here it is. Here's your drink.
+Turn over. Turn over, man, for God's sake!"
+
+With Collins hauling at his shoulder, the officer twisted his body and
+fell with his face turned toward that region where lived the
+unspeakable noises of the swirling missiles. There was the faintest
+shadow of a smile on his lips as he looked at Collins. He gave a sigh,
+a little primitive breath like that from a child.
+
+Collins tried to hold the bucket steadily, but his shaking hands caused
+the water to splash all over the face of the dying man. Then he jerked
+it away and ran on.
+
+The regiment gave him a welcoming roar. The grimed faces were wrinkled
+in laughter.
+
+His captain waved the bucket away. "Give it to the men!"
+
+The two genial, skylarking young lieutenants were the first to gain
+possession of it. They played over it in their fashion.
+
+When one tried to drink the other teasingly knocked his elbow. "Don't,
+Billie! You'll make me spill it," said the one. The other laughed.
+
+Suddenly there was an oath, the thud of wood on the ground, and a swift
+murmur of astonishment among the ranks. The two lieutenants glared at
+each other. The bucket lay on the ground empty.
+
+
+
+
+AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN
+
+I
+
+
+When the able-bodied citizens of the village formed a company and
+marched away to the war, Major Tom Boldin assumed in a manner the
+burden of the village cares. Everybody ran to him when they felt
+obliged to discuss their affairs. The sorrows of the town were dragged
+before him. His little bench at the sunny side of Migglesville tavern
+became a sort of an open court where people came to speak resentfully
+of their grievances. He accepted his position and struggled manfully
+under the load. It behoved him, as a man who had seen the sky red over
+the quaint, low cities of Mexico, and the compact Northern bayonets
+gleaming on the narrow roads.
+
+One warm summer day the major sat asleep on his little bench. There was
+a lull in the tempest of discussion which usually enveloped him. His
+cane, by use of which he could make the most tremendous and impressive
+gestures, reposed beside him. His hat lay upon the bench, and his old
+bald head had swung far forward until his nose actually touched the
+first button of his waistcoat.
+
+The sparrows wrangled desperately in the road, defying perspiration.
+Once a team went jangling and creaking past, raising a yellow blur of
+dust before the soft tones of the field and sky. In the long grass of
+the meadow across the road the insects chirped and clacked eternally.
+
+Suddenly a frouzy-headed boy appeared in the roadway, his bare feet
+pattering rapidly. He was extremely excited. He gave a shrill whoop as
+he discovered the sleeping major and rushed toward him. He created a
+terrific panic among some chickens who had been scratching intently
+near the major's feet. They clamoured in an insanity of fear, and
+rushed hither and thither seeking a way of escape, whereas in reality
+all ways lay plainly open to them.
+
+This tumult caused the major to arouse with a sudden little jump of
+amazement and apprehension. He rubbed his eyes and gazed about him.
+Meanwhile, some clever chicken had discovered a passage to safety, and
+led the flock into the garden, where they squawked in sustained alarm.
+
+Panting from his run and choked with terror, the little boy stood
+before the major, struggling with a tale that was ever upon the tip of
+his tongue.
+
+"Major--now--major----"
+
+The old man, roused from a delicious slumber, glared impatiently at the
+little boy. "Come, come! What's th' matter with yeh?" he demanded.
+"What's th' matter? Don't stand there shaking! Speak up!"
+
+"Lots is th' matter!" the little boy shouted valiantly, with a courage
+born of the importance of his tale. "My ma's chickens 'uz all stole,
+an'--now--he's over in th' woods!"
+
+"Who is? Who is over in the woods? Go ahead!"
+
+"Now--th' rebel is!"
+
+"What?" roared the major.
+
+"Th' rebel!" cried the little boy, with the last of his breath.
+
+The major pounced from his bench in tempestuous excitement. He seized
+the little boy by the collar and gave him a great jerk. "Where? Are yeh
+sure? Who saw 'im? How long ago? Where is he now? Did you see 'im?"
+
+The little boy, frightened at the major's fury, began to sob. After a
+moment he managed to stammer: "He--now--he's in the woods. I saw 'im.
+He looks uglier'n anythin'."
+
+The major released his hold upon the boy, and pausing for a time,
+indulged in a glorious dream. Then he said: "By thunder! we'll ketch
+th' cuss. You wait here," he told the boy, "and don't say a word t'
+anybody. Do you hear?"
+
+The boy, still weeping, nodded, and the major hurriedly entered the
+inn. He took down from its pegs an awkward smooth-bore rifle and
+carefully examined the enormous percussion cap that was fitted over the
+nipple. Mistrusting the cap, he removed it and replaced it with a new
+one. He scrutinised the gun keenly, as if he could judge in this manner
+of the condition of the load. All his movements were deliberate and
+deadly.
+
+When he arrived upon the porch of the tavern he beheld the yard filled
+with people. Peter Witheby, sooty-faced and grinning, was in the van.
+He looked at the major. "Well?" he said.
+
+"Well?" returned the major, bridling.
+
+"Well, what's 'che got?" said old Peter.
+
+"'Got?' Got a rebel over in th' woods!" roared the major.
+
+At this sentence the women and boys, who had gathered eagerly about
+him, gave vent to startled cries. The women had come from adjacent
+houses, but the little boys represented the entire village. They had
+miraculously heard the first whisper of rumour, and they performed
+wonders in getting to the spot. They clustered around the important
+figure of the major and gazed in silent awe. The women, however, burst
+forth. At the word "rebel," which represented to them all terrible
+things, they deluged the major with questions which were obviously
+unanswerable.
+
+He shook them off with violent impatience. Meanwhile Peter Witheby was
+trying to force exasperating interrogations through the tumult to the
+major's ears. "What? No! Yes! How d' I know?" the maddened veteran
+snarled as he struggled with his friends. "No! Yes! What? How in
+thunder d' I know?" Upon the steps of the tavern the landlady sat,
+weeping forlornly.
+
+At last the major burst through the crowd, and went to the roadway.
+There, as they all streamed after him, he turned and faced them. "Now,
+look a' here, I don't know any more about this than you do," he told
+them forcibly. "All that I know is that there's a rebel over in Smith's
+woods, an' all I know is that I'm agoin' after 'im."
+
+"But hol' on a minnet," said old Peter. "How do yeh know he's a rebel?"
+
+"I know he is!" cried the major. "Don't yeh think I know what a rebel
+is?"
+
+Then, with a gesture of disdain at the babbling crowd, he marched
+determinedly away, his rifle held in the hollow of his arm. At this
+heroic moment a new clamour arose, half admiration, half dismay. Old
+Peter hobbled after the major, continually repeating, "Hol' on a
+minnet."
+
+The little boy who had given the alarm was the centre of a throng of
+lads who gazed with envy and awe, discovering in him a new quality. He
+held forth to them eloquently. The women stared after the figure of the
+major and old Peter, his pursuer. Jerozel Bronson, a half-witted lad
+who comprehended nothing save an occasional genial word, leaned against
+the fence and grinned like a skull. The major and the pursuer passed
+out of view around the turn in the road where the great maples lazily
+shook the dust that lay on their leaves.
+
+For a moment the little group of women listened intently as if they
+expected to hear a sudden shot and cries from the distance. They looked
+at each other, their lips a little way apart. The trees sighed softly
+in the heat of the summer sun. The insects in the meadow continued
+their monotonous humming, and, somewhere, a hen had been stricken with
+fear and was cackling loudly.
+
+Finally, Mrs. Goodwin said: "Well, I'm goin' up to th' turn a' th'
+road, anyhow." Mrs. Willets and Mrs. Joe Peterson, her particular
+friends, cried out at this temerity, but she said: "Well, I'm goin',
+anyhow."
+
+She called Bronson. "Come on, Jerozel. You're a man, an' if he should
+chase us, why, you mus' pitch inteh 'im. Hey?"
+
+Bronson always obeyed everybody. He grinned an assent, and went with
+her down the road.
+
+A little boy attempted to follow them, but a shrill scream from his
+mother made him halt.
+
+The remaining women stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon Mrs.
+Goodwin and Jerozel. Then at last one gave a laugh of triumph at her
+conquest of caution and fear, and cried: "Well, I'm goin' too!"
+
+Another instantly said, "So am I." There began a general movement. Some
+of the little boys had already ventured a hundred feet away from the
+main body, and at this unanimous advance they spread out ahead in
+little groups. Some recounted terrible stories of rebel ferocity. Their
+eyes were large with excitement. The whole thing, with its possible
+dangers, had for them a delicious element. Johnnie Peterson, who could
+whip any boy present, explained what he would do in case the enemy
+should happen to pounce out at him.
+
+The familiar scene suddenly assumed a new aspect. The field of corn,
+which met the road upon the left, was no longer a mere field of corn.
+It was a darkly mystic place whose recesses could contain all manner of
+dangers. The long green leaves, waving in the breeze, rustled from the
+passing of men. In the song of the insects there were now omens,
+threats.
+
+There was a warning in the enamel blue of the sky, in the stretch of
+yellow road, in the very atmosphere. Above the tops of the corn loomed
+the distant foliage of Smith's woods, curtaining the silent action of a
+tragedy whose horrors they imagined.
+
+The women and the little boys came to a halt, overwhelmed by the
+impressiveness of the landscape. They waited silently.
+
+Mrs. Goodwin suddenly said: "I'm goin' back." The others, who all
+wished to return, cried at once disdainfully:
+
+"Well, go back, if yeh want to!"
+
+A cricket at the roadside exploded suddenly in his shrill song, and a
+woman, who had been standing near, shrieked in startled terror. An
+electric movement went through the group of women. They jumped and gave
+vent to sudden screams. With the fears still upon their agitated faces,
+they turned to berate the one who had shrieked. "My! what a goose you
+are, Sallie! Why, it took my breath away. Goodness sakes, don't holler
+like that again!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"Hol' on a minnet!" Peter Witheby was crying to the major, as the
+latter, full of the importance and dignity of his position as protector
+of Migglesville, paced forward swiftly. The veteran already felt upon
+his brow a wreath formed of the flowers of gratitude, and as he strode
+he was absorbed in planning a calm and self-contained manner of wearing
+it. "Hol' on a minnet!" piped old Peter in the rear.
+
+At last the major, aroused from his dream of triumph, turned about
+wrathfully. "Well, what?"
+
+"Now, look a' here," said Peter. "What 'che goin' t' do?"
+
+The major, with a gesture of supreme exasperation, wheeled again and
+went on. When he arrived at the cornfield he halted and waited for
+Peter. He had suddenly felt that indefinable menace in the landscape.
+
+"Well?" demanded Peter, panting.
+
+The major's eyes wavered a trifle. "Well," he repeated--"well, I'm
+goin' in there an' bring out that there rebel."
+
+They both paused and studied the gently swaying masses of corn, and
+behind them the looming woods, sinister with possible secrets.
+
+"Well," said old Peter.
+
+The major moved uneasily and put his hand to his brow. Peter waited in
+obvious expectation.
+
+The major crossed through the grass at the roadside and climbed the
+fence. He put both legs over the topmost rail and then sat perched
+there, facing the woods. Once he turned his head and asked, "What?"
+
+"I hain't said anythin'," answered Peter.
+
+The major clambered down from the fence and went slowly into the corn,
+his gun held in readiness. Peter stood in the road.
+
+Presently the major returned and said, in a cautious whisper: "If yeh
+hear anythin', you come a-runnin', will yeh?"
+
+"Well, I hain't got no gun nor nuthin'," said Peter, in the same low
+tone; "what good 'ud I do?"
+
+"Well, yeh might come along with me an' watch," said the major. "Four
+eyes is better'n two."
+
+"If I had a gun--" began Peter.
+
+"Oh, yeh don't need no gun," interrupted the major, waving his hand:
+"All I'm afraid of is that I won't find 'im. My eyes ain't so good as
+they was."
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Come along," whispered the major. "Yeh hain't afraid, are yeh?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Well, come along, then. What's th' matter with yeh?"
+
+Peter climbed the fence. He paused on the top rail and took a prolonged
+stare at the inscrutable woods. When he joined the major in the
+cornfield he said, with a touch of anger:
+
+"Well, you got the gun. Remember that. If he comes for me, I hain't got
+a blame thing!"
+
+"Shucks!" answered the major. "He ain't agoin' t' come for yeh."
+
+The two then began a wary journey through the corn. One by one the long
+aisles between the rows appeared. As they glanced along each of them it
+seemed as if some gruesome thing had just previously vacated it. Old
+Peter halted once and whispered: "Say, look a' here;
+supposin'--supposin'--"
+
+"Supposin' what?" demanded the major.
+
+"Supposin'--" said Peter. "Well, remember you got th' gun, an' I hain't
+got anythin'."
+
+"Thunder!" said the major.
+
+When they got to where the stalks were very short because of the shade
+cast by the trees of the wood, they halted again. The leaves were
+gently swishing in the breeze. Before them stretched the mystic green
+wall of the forest, and there seemed to be in it eyes which followed
+each of their movements.
+
+Peter at last said, "I don't believe there's anybody in there."
+
+"Yes, there is, too," said the major. "I'll bet anythin' he's in there."
+
+"How d' yeh know?" asked Peter. "I'll bet he ain't within a mile o'
+here."
+
+The major suddenly ejaculated, "Listen!"
+
+They bent forward, scarce breathing, their mouths agape, their eyes
+glinting. Finally, the major turned his head. "Did yeh hear that?" he
+said hoarsely.
+
+"No," said Peter in a low voice. "What was it?"
+
+The major listened for a moment. Then he turned again. "I thought I
+heerd somebody holler!" he explained cautiously.
+
+They both bent forward and listened once more. Peter, in the intentness
+of his attitude, lost his balance, and was obliged to lift his foot
+hastily and with noise. "S-s-sh!" hissed the major.
+
+After a minute Peter spoke quite loudly: "Oh, shucks! I don't believe
+yeh heerd anythin'."
+
+The major made a frantic downward gesture with his hand. "Shet up, will
+yeh!" he said in an angry undertone.
+
+Peter became silent for a moment, but presently he said again: "Oh, yeh
+didn't hear anythin'."
+
+The major turned to glare at his companion in despair and wrath.
+
+"What's th' matter with yeh? Can't yeh shet up?"
+
+"Oh, this here ain't no use. If you're goin' in after 'im, why don't
+yeh go in after 'im?"
+
+"Well, gimme time, can't yeh?" said the major in a growl. And, as if to
+add more to this reproach, he climbed the fence that compassed the
+woods, looking resentfully back at his companion.
+
+"Well," said Peter, when the major paused.
+
+The major stepped down upon the thick carpet of brown leaves that
+stretched under the trees. He turned then to whisper: "You wait here,
+will yeh?" His face was red with determination.
+
+"Well, hol' on a minnet!" said Peter. "You--I--we'd better--"
+
+"No," said the major. "You wait here."
+
+He went stealthily into the thickets. Peter watched him until he grew
+to be a vague, slow-moving shadow. From time to time he could hear the
+leaves crackle and twigs snap under the major's awkward tread. Peter,
+intent, breathless, waited for the peal of sudden tragedy. Finally, the
+woods grew silent in a solemn and impressive hush that caused Peter to
+feel the thumping of his heart. He began to look about him to make sure
+that nothing should spring upon him from the sombre shadows. He
+scrutinised this cool gloom before him, and at times he thought he
+could perceive the moving of swift silent shapes. He concluded that he
+had better go back and try to muster some assistance to the major.
+
+As Peter came through the corn, the women in the road caught sight of
+the glittering figure and screamed. Many of them began to run. The
+little boys, with all their valour, scurried away in clouds. Mrs. Joe
+Peterson, however, cast a glance over her shoulders as she, with her
+skirts gathered up, was running as best she could. She instantly
+stopped and, in tones of deepest scorn, called out to the others, "Why,
+it's on'y Pete Witheby!" They came faltering back then, those who had
+been naturally swiftest in the race avoiding the eyes of those whose
+limbs had enabled them to flee a short distance.
+
+Peter came rapidly, appreciating the glances of vivid interest in the
+eyes of the women. To their lightning-like questions, which hit all
+sides of the episode, he opposed a new tranquillity, gained from his
+sudden ascent in importance. He made no answer to their clamour. When
+he had reached the top of the fence he called out commandingly: "Here
+you, Johnnie, you and George, run an' git my gun! It's hangin' on th'
+pegs over th' bench in th' shop."
+
+At this terrible sentence, a shuddering cry broke from the women. The
+boys named sped down the road, accompanied by a retinue of envious
+companions.
+
+Peter swung his legs over the rail and faced the woods again. He
+twisted his head once to say: "Keep still, can't yeh? Quit scufflin'
+aroun'!" They could see by his manner that this was a supreme moment.
+The group became motionless and still. Later, Peter turned to say,
+"S-s-sh!" to a restless boy, and the air with which he said it smote
+them all with awe.
+
+The little boys who had gone after the gun came pattering along
+hurriedly, the weapon borne in the midst of them. Each was anxious to
+share in the honour. The one who had been delegated to bring it was
+bullying and directing his comrades.
+
+Peter said, "S-s-sh!" He took the gun and poised it in readiness to
+sweep the cornfield. He scowled at the boys and whispered angrily: "Why
+didn't yeh bring th' powder-horn an' th' thing with th' bullets in? I
+told yeh t' bring 'em. I'll send somebody else next time."
+
+"Yeh didn't tell us!" cried the two boys shrilly.
+
+"S-s-sh! Quit yeh noise," said Peter, with a violent gesture.
+
+However, this reproof enabled other boys to recover that peace of mind
+which they had lost when seeing their friends loaded with honours.
+
+The women had cautiously approached the fence, and, from time to time,
+whispered feverish questions; but Peter repulsed them savagely, with an
+air of being infinitely bothered by their interference in his intent
+watch. They were forced to listen again in silence to the weird and
+prophetic chanting of the insects and the mystic silken rustling of the
+corn.
+
+At last the thud of hurrying feet in the soft soil of the field came to
+their ears. A dark form sped toward them. A wave of a mighty fear swept
+over the group, and the screams of the women came hoarsely from their
+choked throats. Peter swung madly from his perch, and turned to use the
+fence as a rampart.
+
+But it was the major. His face was inflamed and his eyes were glaring.
+He clutched his rifle by the middle and swung it wildly. He was
+bounding at a great speed for his fat, short body.
+
+"It's all right! it's all right!" he began to yell some distance away.
+"It's all right! It's on'y ol' Milt' Jacoby!"
+
+When he arrived at the top of the fence he paused, and mopped his brow.
+
+"What?" they thundered, in an agony of sudden, unreasoning
+disappointment.
+
+Mrs. Joe Peterson, who was a distant connection of Milton Jacoby,
+thought to forestall any damage to her social position by saying at
+once disdainfully, "Drunk, I s'pose!"
+
+"Yep," said the major, still on the fence, and mopping his brow. "Drunk
+as a fool. Thunder! I was surprised. I--I--thought it was a rebel,
+sure."
+
+The thoughts of all these women wavered for a time. They were at a loss
+for precise expression of their emotion. At last, however, they hurled
+this superior sentence at the major:
+
+"Well, yeh might have known."
+
+
+
+
+A GREY SLEEVE
+
+I
+
+
+"It looks as if it might rain this afternoon," remarked the lieutenant
+of artillery.
+
+"So it does," the infantry captain assented. He glanced casually at the
+sky. When his eyes had lowered to the green-shadowed landscape before
+him, he said fretfully: "I wish those fellows out yonder would quit
+pelting at us. They've been at it since noon."
+
+At the edge of a grove of maples, across wide fields, there
+occasionally appeared little puffs of smoke of a dull hue in this gloom
+of sky which expressed an impending rain. The long wave of blue and
+steel in the field moved uneasily at the eternal barking of the
+far-away sharpshooters, and the men, leaning upon their rifles, stared
+at the grove of maples. Once a private turned to borrow some tobacco
+from a comrade in the rear rank, but, with his hand still stretched
+out, he continued to twist his head and glance at the distant trees. He
+was afraid the enemy would shoot him at a time when he was not looking.
+
+Suddenly the artillery officer said: "See what's coming!"
+
+Along the rear of the brigade of infantry a column of cavalry was
+sweeping at a hard gallop. A lieutenant, riding some yards to the right
+of the column, bawled furiously at the four troopers just at the rear
+of the colours. They had lost distance and made a little gap, but at
+the shouts of the lieutenant they urged their horses forward. The
+bugler, careering along behind the captain of the troop, fought and
+tugged like a wrestler to keep his frantic animal from bolting far
+ahead of the column.
+
+On the springy turf the innumerable hoofs thundered in a swift storm of
+sound. In the brown faces of the troopers their eyes were set like bits
+of flashing steel.
+
+The long line of the infantry regiments standing at ease underwent a
+sudden movement at the rush of the passing squadron. The foot soldiers
+turned their heads to gaze at the torrent of horses and men.
+
+The yellow folds of the flag fluttered back in silken, shuddering
+waves, as if it were a reluctant thing. Occasionally a giant spring of
+a charger would rear the firm and sturdy figure of a soldier suddenly
+head and shoulders above his comrades. Over the noise of the scudding
+hoofs could be heard the creaking of leather trappings, the jingle and
+clank of steel, and the tense, low-toned commands or appeals of the men
+to their horses; and the horses were mad with the headlong sweep of
+this movement. Powerful under jaws bent back and straightened, so that
+the bits were clamped as rigidly as vices upon the teeth, and
+glistening necks arched in desperate resistance to the hands at the
+bridles. Swinging their heads in rage at the granite laws of their
+lives, which compelled even their angers and their ardours to chosen
+directions and chosen faces, their flight was as a flight of harnessed
+demons.
+
+The captain's bay kept its pace at the head of the squadron with the
+lithe bounds of a thoroughbred, and this horse was proud as a chief at
+the roaring trample of his fellows behind him. The captain's glance was
+calmly upon the grove of maples whence the sharpshooters of the enemy
+had been picking at the blue line. He seemed to be reflecting. He
+stolidly rose and fell with the plunges of his horse in all the
+indifference of a deacon's figure seated plumply in church. And it
+occurred to many of the watching infantry to wonder why this officer
+could remain imperturbable and reflective when his squadron was
+thundering and swarming behind him like the rushing of a flood.
+
+The column swung in a sabre-curve toward a break in a fence, and dashed
+into a roadway. Once a little plank bridge was encountered, and the
+sound of the hoofs upon it was like the long roll of many drums. An old
+captain in the infantry turned to his first lieutenant and made a
+remark, which was a compound of bitter disparagement of cavalry in
+general and soldierly admiration of this particular troop.
+
+Suddenly the bugle sounded, and the column halted with a jolting
+upheaval amid sharp, brief cries. A moment later the men had tumbled
+from their horses, and, carbines in hand, were running in a swarm
+toward the grove of maples. In the road one of every four of the
+troopers was standing with braced legs, and pulling and hauling at the
+bridles of four frenzied horses.
+
+The captain was running awkwardly in his boots. He held his sabre low,
+so that the point often threatened to catch in the turf. His yellow
+hair ruffled out from under his faded cap. "Go in hard now!" he roared,
+in a voice of hoarse fury. His face was violently red.
+
+The troopers threw themselves upon the grove like wolves upon a great
+animal. Along the whole front of woods there was the dry crackling of
+musketry, with bitter, swift flashes and smoke that writhed like stung
+phantoms. The troopers yelled shrilly and spanged bullets low into the
+foliage.
+
+For a moment, when near the woods, the line almost halted. The men
+struggled and fought for a time like swimmers encountering a powerful
+current. Then with a supreme effort they went on again. They dashed
+madly at the grove, whose foliage from the high light of the field was
+as inscrutable as a wall.
+
+Then suddenly each detail of the calm trees became apparent, and with a
+few more frantic leaps the men were in the cool gloom of the woods.
+There was a heavy odour as from burned paper. Wisps of grey smoke wound
+upward. The men halted and, grimy, perspiring, and puffing, they
+searched the recesses of the woods with eager, fierce glances. Figures
+could be seen flitting afar off. A dozen carbines rattled at them in an
+angry volley.
+
+During this pause the captain strode along the line, his face lit with
+a broad smile of contentment. "When he sends this crowd to do anything,
+I guess he'll find we do it pretty sharp," he said to the grinning
+lieutenant.
+
+"Say, they didn't stand that rush a minute, did they?" said the
+subaltern. Both officers were profoundly dusty in their uniforms, and
+their faces were soiled like those of two urchins.
+
+Out in the grass behind them were three tumbled and silent forms.
+
+Presently the line moved forward again. The men went from tree to tree
+like hunters stalking game. Some at the left of the line fired
+occasionally, and those at the right gazed curiously in that direction.
+The men still breathed heavily from their scramble across the field.
+
+Of a sudden a trooper halted and said: "Hello! there's a house!" Every
+one paused. The men turned to look at their leader.
+
+The captain stretched his neck and swung his head from side to side.
+"By George, it is a house!" he said.
+
+Through the wealth of leaves there vaguely loomed the form of a large
+white house. These troopers, brown-faced from many days of campaigning,
+each feature of them telling of their placid confidence and courage,
+were stopped abruptly by the appearance of this house. There was some
+subtle suggestion--some tale of an unknown thing--which watched them
+from they knew not what part of it.
+
+A rail fence girded a wide lawn of tangled grass. Seven pines stood
+along a drive-way which led from two distant posts of a vanished gate.
+The blue-clothed troopers moved forward until they stood at the fence
+peering over it.
+
+The captain put one hand on the top rail and seemed to be about to
+climb the fence, when suddenly he hesitated, and said in a low voice:
+"Watson, what do you think of it?"
+
+The lieutenant stared at the house. "Derned if I know!" he replied.
+
+The captain pondered. It happened that the whole company had turned a
+gaze of profound awe and doubt upon this edifice which confronted them.
+The men were very silent.
+
+At last the captain swore and said: "We are certainly a pack of fools.
+Derned old deserted house halting a company of Union cavalry, and
+making us gape like babies!"
+
+"Yes, but there's something--something----" insisted the subaltern in a
+half stammer.
+
+"Well, if there's 'something--something' in there, I'll get it out,"
+said the captain. "Send Sharpe clean around to the other side with
+about twelve men, so we will sure bag your 'something--something,' and
+I'll take a few of the boys and find out what's in the d----d old
+thing!"
+
+He chose the nearest eight men for his "storming party," as the
+lieutenant called it. After he had waited some minutes for the others
+to get into position, he said "Come ahead" to his eight men, and
+climbed the fence.
+
+The brighter light of the tangled lawn made him suddenly feel
+tremendously apparent, and he wondered if there could be some mystic
+thing in the house which was regarding this approach. His men trudged
+silently at his back. They stared at the windows and lost themselves in
+deep speculations as to the probability of there being, perhaps, eyes
+behind the blinds--malignant eyes, piercing eyes.
+
+Suddenly a corporal in the party gave vent to a startled exclamation,
+and half threw his carbine into position. The captain turned quickly,
+and the corporal said: "I saw an arm move the blinds--an arm with a
+grey sleeve!"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Jones, now," said the captain sharply.
+
+"I swear t'--" began the corporal, but the captain silenced him.
+
+When they arrived at the front of the house, the troopers paused, while
+the captain went softly up the front steps. He stood before the large
+front door and studied it. Some crickets chirped in the long grass, and
+the nearest pine could be heard in its endless sighs. One of the
+privates moved uneasily, and his foot crunched the gravel. Suddenly the
+captain swore angrily and kicked the door with a loud crash. It flew
+open.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The bright lights of the day flashed into the old house when the
+captain angrily kicked open the door. He was aware of a wide hallway,
+carpeted with matting and extending deep into the dwelling. There was
+also an old walnut hat-rack and a little marble-topped table with a
+vase and two books upon it. Farther back was a great, venerable
+fireplace containing dreary ashes.
+
+But directly in front of the captain was a young girl. The flying open
+of the door had obviously been an utter astonishment to her, and she
+remained transfixed there in the middle of the floor, staring at the
+captain with wide eyes.
+
+She was like a child caught at the time of a raid upon the cake. She
+wavered to and fro upon her feet, and held her hands behind her. There
+were two little points of terror in her eyes, as she gazed up at the
+young captain in dusty blue, with his reddish, bronze complexion, his
+yellow hair, his bright sabre held threateningly.
+
+These two remained motionless and silent, simply staring at each other
+for some moments.
+
+The captain felt his rage fade out of him and leave his mind limp. He
+had been violently angry, because this house had made him feel
+hesitant, wary. He did not like to be wary. He liked to feel confident,
+sure. So he had kicked the door open, and had been prepared, to march
+in like a soldier of wrath.
+
+But now he began, for one thing, to wonder if his uniform was so dusty
+and old in appearance. Moreover, he had a feeling that his face was
+covered with a compound of dust, grime, and perspiration. He took a
+step forward and said: "I didn't mean to frighten you." But his voice
+was coarse from his battle-howling. It seemed to him to have hempen
+fibres in it.
+
+The girl's breath came in little, quick gasps, and she looked at him as
+she would have looked at a serpent.
+
+"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said again.
+
+The girl, still with her hands behind her, began to back away.
+
+"Is there any one else in the house?" he went on, while slowly
+following her. "I don't wish to disturb you, but we had a fight with
+some rebel skirmishers in the woods, and I thought maybe some of them
+might have come in here. In fact, I was pretty sure of it. Are there
+any of them here?"
+
+The girl looked at him and said, "No!" He wondered why extreme
+agitation made the eyes of some women so limpid and bright.
+
+"Who is here besides yourself?"
+
+By this time his pursuit had driven her to the end of the hall, and she
+remained there with her back to the wall and her hands still behind
+her. When she answered this question, she did not look at him but down
+at the floor. She cleared her voice and then said: "There is no one
+here."
+
+"No one?"
+
+She lifted her eyes to him in that appeal that the human being must
+make even to falling trees, crashing boulders, the sea in a storm, and
+said, "No, no, there is no one here." He could plainly see her tremble.
+
+Of a sudden he bethought him that she continually kept her hands behind
+her. As he recalled her air when first discovered, he remembered she
+appeared precisely as a child detected at one of the crimes of
+childhood. Moreover, she had always backed away from him. He thought
+now that she was concealing something which was an evidence of the
+presence of the enemy in the house.
+
+"What are you holding behind you?" he said suddenly.
+
+She gave a little quick moan, as if some grim hand had throttled her.
+
+"What are you holding behind you?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--please. I am not holding anything behind me; indeed I'm
+not."
+
+"Very well. Hold your hands out in front of you, then."
+
+"Oh, indeed, I'm not holding anything behind me. Indeed I'm not."
+
+"Well," he began. Then he paused, and remained for a moment dubious.
+Finally, he laughed. "Well, I shall have my men search the house,
+anyhow. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I feel sure that there is some
+one here whom we want." He turned to the corporal, who with the other
+men was gaping quietly in at the door, and said: "Jones, go through the
+house."
+
+As for himself, he remained planted in front of the girl, for she
+evidently did not dare to move and allow him to see what she held so
+carefully behind her back. So she was his prisoner.
+
+The men rummaged around on the ground floor of the house. Sometimes the
+captain called to them, "Try that closet," "Is there any cellar?" But
+they found no one, and at last they went trooping toward the stairs
+which led to the second floor.
+
+But at this movement on the part of the men the girl uttered a cry--a
+cry of such fright and appeal that the men paused. "Oh, don't go up
+there! Please don't go up there!--ple-ease! There is no one there!
+Indeed--indeed there is not! Oh, ple-ease!"
+
+"Go on, Jones," said the captain calmly.
+
+The obedient corporal made a preliminary step, and the girl bounded
+toward the stairs with another cry.
+
+As she passed him, the captain caught sight of that which she had
+concealed behind her back, and which she had forgotten in this supreme
+moment. It was a pistol.
+
+She ran to the first step, and standing there, faced the men, one hand
+extended with perpendicular palm, and the other holding the pistol at
+her side. "Oh, please, don't go up there! Nobody is there--indeed,
+there is not! P-l-e-a-s-e!" Then suddenly she sank swiftly down upon
+the step, and, huddling forlornly, began to weep in the agony and with
+the convulsive tremors of an infant. The pistol fell from her fingers
+and rattled down to the floor.
+
+The astonished troopers looked at their astonished captain. There was a
+short silence.
+
+Finally, the captain stooped and picked up the pistol. It was a heavy
+weapon of the army pattern. He ascertained that it was empty.
+
+He leaned toward the shaking girl, and said gently: "Will you tell me
+what you were going to do with this pistol?"
+
+He had to repeat the question a number of times, but at last a muffled
+voice said, "Nothing."
+
+"Nothing!" He insisted quietly upon a further answer. At the tender
+tones of the captain's voice, the phlegmatic corporal turned and winked
+gravely at the man next to him.
+
+"Won't you tell me?"
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"Please tell me!"
+
+The silent privates were moving their feet uneasily and wondering how
+long they were to wait.
+
+The captain said: "Please, won't you tell me?"
+
+Then this girl's voice began in stricken tones half coherent, and amid
+violent sobbing: "It was grandpa's. He--he--he said he was going to
+shoot anybody who came in here--he didn't care if there were thousands
+of 'em. And--and I know he would, and I was afraid they'd kill him. And
+so--and--so I stole away his pistol--and I was going to hide it when
+you--you--you kicked open the door."
+
+The men straightened up and looked at each other. The girl began to
+weep again.
+
+The captain mopped his brow. He peered down at the girl. He mopped his
+brow again. Suddenly he said: "Ah, don't cry like that."
+
+He moved restlessly and looked down at his boots. He mopped his brow
+again.
+
+Then he gripped the corporal by the arm and dragged him some yards back
+from the others. "Jones," he said, in an intensely earnest voice, "will
+you tell me what in the devil I am going to do?"
+
+The corporal's countenance became illuminated with satisfaction at
+being thus requested to advise his superior officer. He adopted an air
+of great thought, and finally said: "Well, of course, the feller with
+the grey sleeve must be upstairs, and we must get past the girl and up
+there somehow. Suppose I take her by the arm and lead her--"
+
+"What!" interrupted the captain from between his clinched teeth. As he
+turned away from the corporal, he said fiercely over his shoulder: "You
+touch that girl and I'll split your skull!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The corporal looked after his captain with an expression of mingled
+amazement, grief, and philosophy. He seemed to be saying to himself
+that there unfortunately were times, after all, when one could not rely
+upon the most reliable of men. When he returned to the group he found
+the captain bending over the girl and saying: "Why is it that you don't
+want us to search upstairs?"
+
+The girl's head was buried in her crossed arms. Locks of her hair had
+escaped from their fastenings, and these fell upon her shoulder.
+
+"Won't you tell me?"
+
+The corporal here winked again at the man next to him.
+
+"Because," the girl moaned--"because--there isn't anybody up there."
+
+The captain at last said timidly: "Well, I'm afraid--I'm afraid we'll
+have to----"
+
+The girl sprang to her feet again, and implored him with her hands. She
+looked deep into his eyes with her glance, which was at this time like
+that of the fawn when it says to the hunter, "Have mercy upon me!"
+
+These two stood regarding each other. The captain's foot was on the
+bottom step, but he seemed to be shrinking. He wore an air of being
+deeply wretched and ashamed. There was a silence!
+
+Suddenly the corporal said in a quick, low tone: "Look out, captain!"
+
+All turned their eyes swiftly toward the head of the stairs. There had
+appeared there a youth in a grey uniform. He stood looking coolly down
+at them. No word was said by the troopers. The girl gave vent to a
+little wail of desolation, "O Harry!"
+
+He began slowly to descend the stairs. His right arm was in a white
+sling, and there were some fresh blood-stains upon the cloth. His face
+was rigid and deathly pale, but his eyes flashed like lights. The girl
+was again moaning in an utterly dreary fashion, as the youth came
+slowly down toward the silent men in blue.
+
+Six steps from the bottom of the flight he halted and said: "I reckon
+it's me you're looking for."
+
+The troopers had crowded forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervous
+attitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved.
+At the youth's question he merely nodded his head and said, "Yes."
+
+The young man in grey looked down at the girl, and then, in the same
+even tone which now, however, seemed to vibrate with suppressed fury,
+he said: "And is that any reason why you should insult my sister?"
+
+At this sentence, the girl intervened, desperately, between the young
+man in grey and the officer in blue. "Oh, don't, Harry, don't! He was
+good to me! He was good to me, Harry--indeed he was!"
+
+The youth came on in his quiet, erect fashion, until the girl could
+have touched either of the men with her hand, for the captain still
+remained with his foot upon the first step. She continually repeated:
+"O Harry! O Harry!"
+
+The youth in grey manoeuvred to glare into the captain's face, first
+over one shoulder of the girl and then over the other. In a voice that
+rang like metal, he said: "You are armed and unwounded, while I have no
+weapons and am wounded; but--"
+
+The captain had stepped back and sheathed his sabre. The eyes of these
+two men were gleaming fire, but otherwise the captain's countenance was
+imperturbable. He said: "You are mistaken. You have no reason to--"
+
+"You lie!"
+
+All save the captain and the youth in grey started in an electric
+movement. These two words crackled in the air like shattered glass.
+There was a breathless silence.
+
+The captain cleared his throat. His look at the youth contained a
+quality of singular and terrible ferocity, but he said in his stolid
+tone: "I don't suppose you mean what you say now."
+
+Upon his arm he had felt the pressure of some unconscious little
+fingers. The girl was leaning against the wall as if she no longer knew
+how to keep her balance, but those fingers--he held his arm very still.
+She murmured: "O Harry, don't! He was good to me--indeed he was!"
+
+The corporal had come forward until he in a measure confronted the
+youth in grey, for he saw those fingers upon the captain's arm, and he
+knew that sometimes very strong men were not able to move hand nor foot
+under such conditions.
+
+The youth had suddenly seemed to become weak. He breathed heavily and
+clung to the rail. He was glaring at the captain, and apparently
+summoning all his will power to combat his weakness. The corporal
+addressed him with profound straightforwardness: "Don't you be a derned
+fool!" The youth turned toward him so fiercely that the corporal threw
+up a knee and an elbow like a boy who expects to be cuffed.
+
+The girl pleaded with the captain. "You won't hurt him, will you? He
+don't know what he's saying. He's wounded, you know. Please don't mind
+him!"
+
+"I won't touch him," said the captain, with rather extraordinary
+earnestness; "don't you worry about him at all. I won't touch him!"
+
+Then he looked at her, and the girl suddenly withdrew her fingers from
+his arm.
+
+The corporal contemplated the top of the stairs, and remarked without
+surprise: "There's another of 'em coming!"
+
+An old man was clambering down the stairs with much speed. He waved a
+cane wildly. "Get out of my house, you thieves! Get out! I won't have
+you cross my threshold! Get out!" He mumbled and wagged his head in an
+old man's fury. It was plainly his intention to assault them.
+
+And so it occurred that a young girl became engaged in protecting a
+stalwart captain, fully armed, and with eight grim troopers at his
+back, from the attack of an old man with a walking-stick!
+
+A blush passed over the temples and brow of the captain, and he looked
+particularly savage and weary. Despite the girl's efforts, he suddenly
+faced the old man.
+
+"Look here," he said distinctly, "we came in because we had been
+fighting in the woods yonder, and we concluded that some of the enemy
+were in this house, especially when we saw a grey sleeve at the window.
+But this young man is wounded, and I have nothing to say to him. I will
+even take it for granted that there are no others like him upstairs. We
+will go away, leaving your d---d old house just as we found it! And we
+are no more thieves and rascals than you are!"
+
+The old man simply roared: "I haven't got a cow nor a pig nor a chicken
+on the place! Your soldiers have stolen everything they could carry
+away. They have torn down half my fences for firewood. This afternoon
+some of your accursed bullets even broke my window panes!"
+
+The girl had been faltering: "Grandpa! O grandpa!"
+
+The captain looked at the girl. She returned his glance from the shadow
+of the old man's shoulder. After studying her face a moment, he said:
+"Well, we will go now." He strode toward the door, and his men clanked
+docilely after him.
+
+At this time there was the sound of harsh cries and rushing footsteps
+from without. The door flew open, and a whirlwind composed of
+blue-coated troopers came in with a swoop. It was headed by the
+lieutenant. "Oh, here you are!" he cried, catching his breath. "We
+thought----Oh, look at the girl!"
+
+The captain said intensely: "Shut up, you fool!"
+
+The men settled to a halt with a clash and a bang. There could be heard
+the dulled sound of many hoofs outside of the house.
+
+"Did you order up the horses?" inquired the captain.
+
+"Yes. We thought----"
+
+"Well, then, let's get out of here," interrupted the captain morosely.
+
+The men began to filter out into the open air. The youth in grey had
+been hanging dismally to the railing of the stairway. He now was
+climbing slowly up to the second floor. The old man was addressing
+himself directly to the serene corporal.
+
+"Not a chicken on the place!" he cried.
+
+"Well, I didn't take your chickens, did I?"
+
+"No, maybe you didn't, but----"
+
+The captain crossed the hall and stood before the girl in rather a
+culprit's fashion. "You are not angry at me, are you?" he asked timidly.
+
+"No," she said. She hesitated a moment, and then suddenly held out her
+hand. "You were good to me--and I'm--much obliged."
+
+The captain took her hand, and then he blushed, for he found himself
+unable to formulate a sentence that applied in any way to the situation.
+
+She did not seem to heed that hand for a time.
+
+He loosened his grasp presently, for he was ashamed to hold it so long
+without saying anything clever. At last, with an air of charging an
+intrenched brigade, he contrived to say: "I would rather do anything
+than frighten or trouble you."
+
+His brow was warmly perspiring. He had a sense of being hideous in his
+dusty uniform and with his grimy face.
+
+She said, "Oh, I'm so glad it was you instead of somebody who might
+have--might have hurt brother Harry and grandpa!"
+
+He told her, "I wouldn't have hurt em for anything!"
+
+There was a little silence.
+
+"Well, good-bye!" he said at last.
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+He walked toward the door past the old man, who was scolding at the
+vanishing figure of the corporal. The captain looked back. She had
+remained there watching him.
+
+At the bugle's order, the troopers standing beside their horses swung
+briskly into the saddle. The lieutenant said to the first sergeant:
+
+"Williams, did they ever meet before?"
+
+"Hanged if I know!"
+
+"Well, say---"
+
+The captain saw a curtain move at one of the windows. He cantered from
+his position at the head of the column and steered his horse between
+two flower-beds.
+
+"Well, good-bye!"
+
+The squadron trampled slowly past.
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+They shook hands.
+
+He evidently had something enormously important to say to her, but it
+seems that he could not manage it. He struggled heroically. The bay
+charger, with his great mystically solemn eyes, looked around the
+corner of his shoulder at the girl.
+
+The captain studied a pine tree. The girl inspected the grass beneath
+the window. The captain said hoarsely: "I don't suppose--I don't
+suppose--I'll ever see you again!"
+
+She looked at him affrightedly and shrank back from the window. He
+seemed to have woefully expected a reception of this kind for his
+question. He gave her instantly a glance of appeal.
+
+She said: "Why, no, I don't suppose you will."
+
+"Never?"
+
+"Why, no, 'tain't possible. You--you are a--Yankee!"
+
+"Oh, I know it, but----" Eventually he continued: "Well, some day, you
+know, when there's no more fighting, we might----" He observed that she
+had again withdrawn suddenly into the shadow, so he said: "Well,
+good-bye!"
+
+When he held her fingers she bowed her head, and he saw a pink blush
+steal over the curves of her cheek and neck.
+
+"Am I never going to see you again?"
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Never?" he repeated.
+
+After a long time, he bent over to hear a faint reply: "Sometimes--when
+there are no troops in the neighbourhood--grandpa don't mind if I--walk
+over as far as that old oak tree yonder--in the afternoons."
+
+It appeared that the captain's grip was very strong, for she uttered an
+exclamation and looked at her fingers as if she expected to find them
+mere fragments. He rode away.
+
+The bay horse leaped a flower-bed. They were almost to the drive, when
+the girl uttered a panic-stricken cry.
+
+The captain wheeled his horse violently, and upon his return journey
+went straight through a flower-bed.
+
+The girl had clasped her hands. She beseeched him wildly with her eyes.
+"Oh, please, don't believe it! I never walk to the old oak tree. Indeed
+I don't! I never--never--never walk there."
+
+The bridle drooped on the bay charger's neck. The captain's figure
+seemed limp. With an expression of profound dejection and gloom he
+stared off at where the leaden sky met the dark green line of the
+woods. The long-impending rain began to fall with a mournful patter,
+drop and drop. There was a silence.
+
+At last a low voice said, "Well--I might--sometimes I
+might--perhaps--but only once in a great while--I might walk to the old
+tree--in the afternoons."
+
+
+
+
+THE VETERAN
+
+
+Out of the low window could be seen three hickory trees placed
+irregularly in a meadow that was resplendent in spring-time green.
+Farther away, the old, dismal belfry of the village church loomed over
+the pines. A horse, meditating in the shade of one of the hickories,
+lazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an oblong of vivid
+yellow on the floor of the grocery.
+
+"Could you see the whites of their eyes?" said the man, who was seated
+on a soap box.
+
+"Nothing of the kind," replied old Henry warmly. "Just a lot of
+flitting figures, and I let go at where they 'peared to be the
+thickest. Bang!"
+
+"Mr. Fleming," said the grocer--his deferential voice expressed somehow
+the old man's exact social weight--"Mr. Fleming, you never was
+frightened much in them battles, was you?"
+
+The veteran looked down and grinned. Observing his manner, the entire
+group tittered. "Well, I guess I was," he answered finally. "Pretty
+well scared, sometimes. Why, in my first battle I thought the sky was
+falling down. I thought the world was coming to an end. You bet I was
+scared."
+
+Every one laughed. Perhaps it seemed strange and rather wonderful to
+them that a man should admit the thing, and in the tone of their
+laughter there was probably more admiration than if old Fleming had
+declared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they knew that he
+had ranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his heroism
+was fixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but
+then it was understood to be somewhere just shy of a major-general's
+stars. So, when old Henry admitted that he had been frightened, there
+was a laugh.
+
+"The trouble was," said the old man, "I thought they were all shooting
+at me. Yes, sir, I thought every man in the other army was aiming at me
+in particular, and only me. And it seemed so darned unreasonable, you
+know. I wanted to explain to 'em what an almighty good fellow I was,
+because I thought then they might quit all trying to hit me. But I
+couldn't explain, and they kept on being unreasonable--blim!--blam!
+bang! So I run!"
+
+Two little triangles of wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes.
+Evidently he appreciated some comedy in this recital. Down near his
+feet, however, little Jim, his grandson, was visibly horror-stricken.
+His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes were wide with
+astonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent grandfather
+telling such a thing.
+
+"That was at Chancellorsville. Of course, afterward I got kind of used
+to it. A man does. Lots of men, though, seem to feel all right from the
+start. I did, as soon as I 'got on to it,' as they say now; but at
+first I was pretty well flustered. Now, there was young Jim Conklin,
+old Si Conklin's son--that used to keep the tannery--you none of you
+recollect him--well, he went into it from the start just as if he was
+born to it. But with me it was different. I had to get used to it."
+
+When little Jim walked with his grandfather he was in the habit of
+skipping along on the stone pavement, in front of the three stores and
+the hotel of the town, and betting that he could avoid the cracks. But
+upon this day he walked soberly, with his hand gripping two of his
+grandfather's fingers. Sometimes he kicked abstractedly at dandelions
+that curved over the walk. Any one could see that he was much troubled.
+
+"There's Sickles's colt over in the medder, Jimmie," said the old man.
+"Don't you wish you owned one like him?"
+
+"Um," said the boy, with a strange lack of interest. He continued his
+reflections. Then finally he ventured: "Grandpa--now--was that true
+what you was telling those men?"
+
+"What?" asked the grandfather. "What was I telling them?"
+
+"Oh, about your running."
+
+"Why, yes, that was true enough, Jimmie. It was my first fight, and
+there was an awful lot of noise, you know."
+
+Jimmie seemed dazed that this idol, of its own will, should so totter.
+His stout boyish idealism was injured.
+
+Presently the grandfather said: "Sickles's colt is going for a drink.
+Don't you wish you owned Sickles's colt, Jimmie?"
+
+The boy merely answered: "He ain't as nice as our'n." He lapsed then
+into another moody silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the hired men, a Swede, desired to drive to the county seat for
+purposes of his own. The old man loaned a horse and an unwashed buggy.
+It appeared later that one of the purposes of the Swede was to get
+drunk.
+
+After quelling some boisterous frolic of the farm hands and boys in the
+garret, the old man had that night gone peacefully to sleep, when he
+was aroused by clamouring at the kitchen door. He grabbed his trousers,
+and they waved out behind as he dashed forward. He could hear the voice
+of the Swede, screaming and blubbering. He pushed the wooden button,
+and, as the door flew open, the Swede, a maniac, stumbled inward,
+chattering, weeping, still screaming: "De barn fire! Fire! Fire! De
+barn fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!"
+
+There was a swift and indescribable change in the old man. His face
+ceased instantly to be a face; it became a mask, a grey thing, with
+horror written about the mouth and eyes. He hoarsely shouted at the
+foot of the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it seemed, there
+came down an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time the
+old lady had been standing in her night-clothes at the bedroom door,
+yelling: "What's th' matter? What's th' matter? What's th' matter?"
+
+When they dashed toward the barn it presented to their eyes its usual
+appearance, solemn, rather mystic in the black night. The Swede's
+lantern was overturned at a point some yards in front of the barn
+doors. It contained a wild little conflagration of its own, and even in
+their excitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary
+vibration of the thrifty part of their minds at sight of this
+overturned lantern. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a
+calamity.
+
+But the cattle in the barn were trampling, trampling, trampling, and
+above this noise could be heard a humming like the song of innumerable
+bees. The old man hurled aside the great doors, and a yellow flame
+leaped out at one corner and sped and wavered frantically up the old
+grey wall. It was glad, terrible, this single flame, like the wild
+banner of deadly and triumphant foes.
+
+The motley crowd from the garret had come with all the pails of the
+farm. They flung themselves upon the well. It was a leisurely old
+machine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in the habit of giving out
+water with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it, cursed it; but
+it continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the wheezy
+windlass had howled many protests at the mad-handed men.
+
+With his opened knife in his hand old Fleming himself had gone headlong
+into the barn, where the stifling smoke swirled with the air currents,
+and where could be heard in its fulness the terrible chorus of the
+flames, laden with tones of hate and death, a hymn of wonderful
+ferocity.
+
+He flung a blanket over an old mare's head, cut the halter close to the
+manger, led the mare to the door, and fairly kicked her out to safety.
+He returned with the same blanket, and rescued one of the work horses.
+He took five horses out, and then came out himself, with his clothes
+bravely on fire. He had no whiskers, and very little hair on his head.
+They soused five pailfuls of water on him. His eldest son made a clean
+miss with the sixth pailful, because the old man had turned and was
+running down the decline and around to the basement of the barn, where
+were the stanchions of the cows. Some one noticed at the time that he
+ran very lamely, as if one of the frenzied horses had smashed his hip.
+
+The cows, with their heads held in the heavy stanchions, had thrown
+themselves, strangled themselves, tangled themselves--done everything
+which the ingenuity of their exuberant fear could suggest to them.
+
+Here, as at the well, the same thing happened to every man save one.
+Their hands went mad. They became incapable of everything save the
+power to rush into dangerous situations.
+
+The old man released the cow nearest the door, and she, blind drunk
+with terror, crashed into the Swede. The Swede had been running to and
+fro babbling. He carried an empty milk-pail, to which he clung with an
+unconscious, fierce enthusiasm. He shrieked like one lost as he went
+under the cow's hoofs, and the milk-pail, rolling across the floor,
+made a flash of silver in the gloom.
+
+Old Fleming took a fork, beat off the cow, and dragged the paralysed
+Swede to the open air. When they had rescued all the cows save one,
+which had so fastened herself that she could not be moved an inch, they
+returned to the front of the barn, and stood sadly, breathing like men
+who had reached the final point of human effort.
+
+Many people had come running. Some one had even gone to the church, and
+now, from the distance, rang the tocsin note of the old bell. There was
+a long flare of crimson on the sky, which made remote people speculate
+as to the whereabouts of the fire.
+
+The long flames sang their drumming chorus in voices of the heaviest
+bass. The wind whirled clouds of smoke and cinders into the faces of
+the spectators. The form of the old barn was outlined in black amid
+these masses of orange-hued flames.
+
+And then came this Swede again, crying as one who is the weapon of the
+sinister fates: "De colts! De colts! You have forgot de colts!"
+
+Old Fleming staggered. It was true: they had forgotten the two colts in
+the box-stalls at the back of the barn. "Boys," he said, "I must try to
+get 'em out." They clamoured about him then, afraid for him, afraid of
+what they should see. Then they talked wildly each to each. "Why, it's
+sure death!" "He would never get out!" "Why, it's suicide for a man to
+go in there!" Old Fleming stared absent-mindedly at the open doors.
+"The poor little things!" he said. He rushed into the barn.
+
+When the roof fell in, a great funnel of smoke swarmed toward the sky,
+as if the old man's mighty spirit, released from its body--a little
+bottle--had swelled like the genie of fable. The smoke was tinted
+rose-hue from the flames, and perhaps the unutterable midnights of the
+universe will have no power to daunt the colour of this soul.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Regiment, by Stphen Crane
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Regiment, by Stephen Crane
+#4 in our series by Stephen Crane
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+Title: The Little Regiment
+
+Author: Stephen Crane
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6979]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 19, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE REGIMENT ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Eric Eldred,
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE REGIMENT
+
+AND OTHER EPISODES OF THE
+
+AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
+
+By
+
+STEPHEN CRANE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE LITTLE REGIMENT
+
+THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS
+
+A MYSTERY OF HEROISM
+
+AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN
+
+A GREY SLEEVE
+
+THE VETERAN
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE REGIMENT
+
+I
+
+
+The fog made the clothes of the men of the column in the roadway seem
+of a luminous quality. It imparted to the heavy infantry overcoats a new
+colour, a kind of blue which was so pale that a regiment might have been
+merely a long, low shadow in the mist. However, a muttering, one part
+grumble, three parts joke, hovered in the air above the thick ranks, and
+blended in an undertoned roar, which was the voice of the column.
+
+The town on the southern shore of the little river loomed spectrally, a
+faint etching upon the grey cloud-masses which were shifting with oily
+languor. A long row of guns upon the northern bank had been pitiless in
+their hatred, but a little battered belfry could be dimly seen still
+pointing with invincible resolution toward the heavens.
+
+The enclouded air vibrated with noises made by hidden colossal things.
+The infantry tramplings, the heavy rumbling of the artillery, made the
+earth speak of gigantic preparation. Guns on distant heights thundered
+from time to time with sudden, nervous roar, as if unable to endure in
+silence a knowledge of hostile troops massing, other guns going to
+position. These sounds, near and remote, defined an immense battle-
+ground, described the tremendous width of the stage of the prospective
+drama. The voices of the guns, slightly casual, unexcited in their
+challenges and warnings, could not destroy the unutterable eloquence of
+the word in the air, a meaning of impending struggle which made the
+breath halt at the lips.
+
+The column in the roadway was ankle-deep in mud. The men swore piously
+at the rain which drizzled upon them, compelling them to stand always
+very erect in fear of the drops that would sweep in under their coat-
+collars. The fog was as cold as wet cloths. The men stuffed their hands
+deep in their pockets, and huddled their muskets in their arms. The
+machinery of orders had rooted these soldiers deeply into the mud,
+precisely as almighty nature roots mullein stalks.
+
+They listened and speculated when a tumult of fighting came from the
+dim town across the river. When the noise lulled for a time they resumed
+their descriptions of the mud and graphically exaggerated the number of
+hours they had been kept waiting. The general commanding their division
+rode along the ranks, and they cheered admiringly, affectionately,
+crying out to him gleeful prophecies of the coming battle. Each man
+scanned him with a peculiarly keen personal interest, and afterward
+spoke of him with unquestioning devotion and confidence, narrating
+anecdotes which were mainly untrue.
+
+When the jokers lifted the shrill voices which invariably belonged to
+them, flinging witticisms at their comrades, a loud laugh would sweep
+from rank to rank, and soldiers who had not heard would lean forward and
+demand repetition. When were borne past them some wounded men with grey
+and blood-smeared faces, and eyes that rolled in that helpless
+beseeching for assistance from the sky which comes with supreme pain,
+the soldiers in the mud watched intently, and from time to time asked of
+the bearers an account of the affair. Frequently they bragged of their
+corps, their division, their brigade, their regiment. Anon they referred
+to the mud and the cold drizzle. Upon this threshold of a wild scene of
+death they, in short, defied the proportion of events with that
+splendour of heedlessness which belongs only to veterans.
+
+"Like a lot of wooden soldiers," swore Billie Dempster, moving his feet
+in the thick mass, and casting a vindictive glance indefinitely:
+"standing in the mud for a hundred years."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" murmured his brother Dan. The manner of his words
+implied that this fraternal voice near him was an indescribable bore.
+
+"Why should I shut up?" demanded Billie.
+
+"Because you're a fool," cried Dan, taking no time to debate it; "the
+biggest fool in the regiment."
+
+There was but one man between them, and he was habituated. These
+insults from brother to brother had swept across his chest, flown past
+his face, many times during two long campaigns. Upon this occasion he
+simply grinned first at one, then at the other.
+
+The way of these brothers was not an unknown topic in regimental
+gossip. They had enlisted simultaneously, with each sneering loudly at
+the other for doing it. They left their little town, and went forward
+with the flag, exchanging protestations of undying suspicion. In the
+camp life they so openly despised each other that, when entertaining
+quarrels were lacking, their companions often contrived situations
+calculated to bring forth display of this fraternal dislike.
+
+Both were large-limbed, strong young men, and often fought with friends
+in camp unless one was near to interfere with the other. This latter
+happened rather frequently, because Dan, preposterously willing for any
+manner of combat, had a very great horror of seeing Billie in a fight;
+and Billie, almost odiously ready himself, simply refused to see Dan
+stripped to his shirt and with his fists aloft. This sat queerly upon
+them, and made them the objects of plots.
+
+When Dan jumped through a ring of eager soldiers and dragged forth his
+raving brother by the arm, a thing often predicted would almost come to
+pass. When Billie performed the same office for Dan, the prediction
+would again miss fulfilment by an inch. But indeed they never fought
+together, although they were perpetually upon the verge.
+
+They expressed longing for such conflict. As a matter of truth, they
+had at one time made full arrangement for it, but even with the
+encouragement and interest of half of the regiment they somehow failed
+to achieve collision.
+
+If Dan became a victim of police duty, no jeering was so destructive to
+the feelings as Billie's comment. If Billie got a call to appear at the
+headquarters, none would so genially prophesy his complete undoing as
+Dan. Small misfortunes to one were, in truth, invariably greeted with
+hilarity by the other, who seemed to see in them great re-enforcement of
+his opinion.
+
+As soldiers, they expressed each for each a scorn intense and blasting.
+After a certain battle, Billie was promoted to corporal. When Dan was
+told of it, he seemed smitten dumb with astonishment and patriotic
+indignation. He stared in silence, while the dark blood rushed to
+Billie's forehead, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Dan at
+last found his tongue, and said: "Well, I'm durned!" If he had heard
+that an army mule had been appointed to the post of corps commander, his
+tone could not have had more derision in it. Afterward, he adopted a
+fervid insubordination, an almost religious reluctance to obey the new
+corporal's orders, which came near to developing the desired strife.
+
+It is here finally to be recorded also that Dan, most ferociously
+profane in speech, very rarely swore in the presence of his brother; and
+that Billie, whose oaths came from his lips with the grace of falling
+pebbles, was seldom known to express himself in this manner when near
+his brother Dan.
+
+At last the afternoon contained a suggestion of evening. Metallic cries
+rang suddenly from end to end of the column. They inspired at once a
+quick, business-like adjustment. The long thing stirred in the mud. The
+men had hushed, and were looking across the river. A moment later the
+shadowy mass of pale blue figures was moving steadily toward the stream.
+There could be heard from the town a clash of swift fighting and
+cheering. The noise of the shooting coming through the heavy air had its
+sharpness taken from it, and sounded in thuds.
+
+There was a halt upon the bank above the pontoons. When the column went
+winding down the incline, and streamed out upon the bridge, the fog had
+faded to a great degree, and in the clearer dusk the guns on a distant
+ridge were enabled to perceive the crossing. The long whirling outcries
+of the shells came into the air above the men. An occasional solid shot
+struck the surface of the river, and dashed into view a sudden vertical
+jet. The distance was subtly illuminated by the lightning from the deep-
+booming guns. One by one the batteries on the northern shore aroused,
+the innumerable guns bellowing in angry oration at the distant ridge.
+The rolling thunder crashed and reverberated as a wild surf sounds on a
+still night, and to this music the column marched across the pontoons.
+
+The waters of the grim river curled away in a smile from the ends of
+the great boats, and slid swiftly beneath the planking. The dark,
+riddled walls of the town upreared before the troops, and from a region
+hidden by these hammered and tumbled houses came incessantly the yells
+and firings of a prolonged and close skirmish.
+
+When Dan had called his brother a fool, his voice had been so decisive,
+so brightly assured, that many men had laughed, considering it to be
+great humour under the circumstances. The incident happened to rankle
+deep in Billie. It was not any strange thing that his brother had called
+him a fool. In fact, he often called him a fool with exactly the same
+amount of cheerful and prompt conviction, and before large audiences,
+too. Billie wondered in his own mind why he took such profound offence
+in this case; but, at any rate, as he slid down the bank and on to the
+bridge with his regiment, he was searching his knowledge for something
+that would pierce Dan's blithesome spirit. But he could contrive nothing
+at this time, and his impotency made the glance which he was once able
+to give his brother still more malignant.
+
+The guns far and near were roaring a fearful and grand introduction for
+this column which was marching upon the stage of death. Billie felt it,
+but only in a numb way. His heart was cased in that curious dissonant
+metal which covers a man's emotions at such times. The terrible voices
+from the hills told him that in this wide conflict his life was an
+insignificant fact, and that his death would be an insignificant fact.
+They portended the whirlwind to which he would be as necessary as a
+butterfly's waved wing. The solemnity, the sadness of it came near
+enough to make him wonder why he was neither solemn nor sad. When his
+mind vaguely adjusted events according to their importance to him, it
+appeared that the uppermost thing was the fact that upon the eve of
+battle, and before many comrades, his brother had called him a fool.
+
+Dan was in a particularly happy mood. "Hurray! Look at 'em shoot," he
+said, when the long witches' croon of the shells came into the air. It
+enraged Billie when he felt the little thorn in him, and saw at the same
+time that his brother had completely forgotten it.
+
+The column went from the bridge into more mud. At this southern end
+there was a chaos of hoarse directions and commands. Darkness was coming
+upon the earth, and regiments were being hurried up the slippery bank.
+As Billie floundered in the black mud, amid the swearing, sliding crowd,
+he suddenly resolved that, in the absence of other means of hurting Dan,
+he would avoid looking at him, refrain from speaking to him, pay
+absolutely no heed to his existence; and this done skilfully would, he
+imagined, soon reduce his brother to a poignant sensitiveness.
+
+At the top of the bank the column again halted and rearranged itself,
+as a man after a climb rearranges his clothing. Presently the great
+steel-backed brigade, an infinitely graceful thing in the rhythm and
+ease of its veteran movement, swung up a little narrow, slanting street.
+
+Evening had come so swiftly that the fighting on the remote borders of
+the town was indicated by thin flashes of flame. Some building was on
+fire, and its reflection upon the clouds was an oval of delicate pink.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+All demeanour of rural serenity had been wrenched violently from the
+little town by the guns and by the waves of men which had surged through
+it. The hand of war laid upon this village had in an instant changed it
+to a thing of remnants. It resembled the place of a monstrous shaking of
+the earth itself. The windows, now mere unsightly holes, made the
+tumbled and blackened dwellings seem skeletons. Doors lay splintered to
+fragments. Chimneys had flung their bricks everywhere. The artillery
+fire had not neglected the rows of gentle shade-trees which had lined
+the streets. Branches and heavy trunks cluttered the mud in driftwood
+tangles, while a few shattered forms had contrived to remain dejectedly,
+mournfully upright. They expressed an innocence, a helplessness, which
+perforce created a pity for their happening into this caldron of battle.
+Furthermore, there was under foot a vast collection of odd things
+reminiscent of the charge, the fight, the retreat. There were boxes and
+barrels filled with earth, behind which riflemen had lain snugly, and in
+these little trenches were the dead in blue with the dead in grey, the
+poses eloquent of the struggles for possession of the town, until the
+history of the whole conflict was written plainly in the streets.
+
+And yet the spirit of this little city, its quaint individuality,
+poised in the air above the ruins, defying the guns, the sweeping
+volleys; holding in contempt those avaricious blazes which had attacked
+many dwellings. The hard earthen sidewalks proclaimed the games that had
+been played there during long lazy days, in the careful, shadows of the
+trees. "General Merchandise," in faint letters upon a long board, had to
+be read with a slanted glance, for the sign dangled by one end; but the
+porch of the old store was a palpable legend of wide-hatted men, smoking.
+
+This subtle essence, this soul of the life that had been, brushed like
+invisible wings the thoughts of the men in the swift columns that came
+up from the river.
+
+In the darkness a loud and endless humming arose from the great blue
+crowds bivouacked in the streets. From time to time a sharp spatter of
+firing from far picket lines entered this bass chorus. The smell from
+the smouldering ruins floated on the cold night breeze.
+
+Dan, seated ruefully upon the doorstep of a shot-pierced house, was
+proclaiming the campaign badly managed. Orders had been issued
+forbidding camp-fires.
+
+Suddenly he ceased his oration, and scanning the group of his comrades,
+said: "Where's Billie? Do you know?"
+
+"Gone on picket."
+
+"Get out! Has he?" said Dan. "No business to go on picket. Why don't
+some of them other corporals take their turn?"
+
+A bearded private was smoking his pipe of confiscated tobacco, seated
+comfortably upon a horse-hair trunk which he had dragged from the house.
+He observed: "Was his turn."
+
+"No such thing," cried Dan. He and the man on the horse-hair trunk held
+discussion in which Dan stoutly maintained that if his brother had been
+sent on picket it was an injustice. He ceased his argument when another
+soldier, upon whose arms could faintly be seen the two stripes of a
+corporal, entered the circle. "Humph," said Dan, "where you been?"
+
+The corporal made no answer. Presently Dan said: "Billie, where you
+been?"
+
+His brother did not seem to hear these inquiries. He glanced at the
+house which towered above them, and remarked casually to the man on the
+horse-hair trunk: "Funny, ain't it? After the pelting this town got,
+you'd think there wouldn't be one brick left on another."
+
+"Oh," said Dan, glowering at his brother's back. "Getting mighty smart,
+ain't you?"
+
+The absence of camp-fires allowed the evening to make apparent its
+quality of faint silver light in which the blue clothes of the throng
+became black, and the faces became white expanses, void of expression.
+There was considerable excitement a short distance from the group around
+the doorstep. A soldier had chanced upon a hoop-skirt, and arrayed in it
+he was performing a dance amid the applause of his companions. Billie
+and a greater part of the men immediately poured over there to witness
+the exhibition.
+
+"What's the matter with Billie?" demanded Dan of the man upon the horse-
+hair trunk.
+
+"How do I know?" rejoined the other in mild resentment. He arose and
+walked away. When he returned he said briefly, in a weather-wise tone,
+that it would rain during the night.
+
+Dan took a seat upon one end of the horse-hair trunk. He was facing the
+crowd around the dancer, which in its hilarity swung this way and that
+way. At times he imagined that he could recognise his brother's face.
+
+He and the man on the other end of the trunk thoughtfully talked of the
+army's position. To their minds, infantry and artillery were in a most
+precarious jumble in the streets of the town; but they did not grow
+nervous over it, for they were used to having the army appear in a
+precarious jumble to their minds. They had learned to accept such
+puzzling situations as a consequence of their position in the ranks, and
+were now usually in possession of a simple but perfectly immovable faith
+that somebody understood the jumble. Even if they had been convinced
+that the army was a headless monster, they would merely have nodded with
+the veteran's singular cynicism. It was none of their business as
+soldiers. Their duty was to grab sleep and food when occasion permitted,
+and cheerfully fight wherever their feet were planted until more orders
+came. This was a task sufficiently absorbing.
+
+They spoke of other corps, and this talk being confidential, their
+voices dropped to tones of awe. "The Ninth"--"The First"--"The Fifth"--
+"The Sixth"--"The Third"--the simple numerals rang with eloquence, each
+having a meaning which was to float through many years as no intangible
+arithmetical mist, but as pregnant with individuality as the names of
+cities.
+
+Of their own corps they spoke with a deep veneration, an idolatry, a
+supreme confidence which apparently would not blanch to see it match
+against everything.
+
+It was as if their respect for other corps was due partly to a wonder
+that organisations not blessed with their own famous numeral could take
+such an interest in war. They could prove that their division was the
+best in the corps, and that their brigade was the best in the division.
+And their regiment--it was plain that no fortune of life was equal to
+the chance which caused a man to be born, so to speak, into this
+command, the keystone of the defending arch.
+
+At times Dan covered with insults the character of a vague, unnamed
+general to whose petulance and busy-body spirit he ascribed the order
+which made hot coffee impossible.
+
+Dan said that victory was certain in the coming battle. The other man
+seemed rather dubious. He remarked upon the fortified line of hills,
+which had impressed him even from the other side of the river. "Shucks,"
+said Dan. "Why, we----" He pictured a splendid overflowing of these
+hills by the sea of men in blue. During the period of this conversation
+Dan's glance searched the merry throng about the dancer. Above the
+babble of voices in the street a far-away thunder could sometimes be
+heard--evidently from the very edge of the horizon--the boom-boom of
+restless guns.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Ultimately the night deepened to the tone of black velvet. The outlines
+of the fireless camp were like the faint drawings upon ancient tapestry.
+The glint of a rifle, the, shine of a button, might have been of threads
+of silver and gold sewn upon the fabric of the night. There was little
+presented to the vision, but to a sense more subtle there was
+discernible in the atmosphere something like a pulse; a mystic beating
+which would have told a stranger of the presence of a giant thing--the
+slumbering mass of regiments and batteries.
+
+With tires forbidden, the floor of a dry old kitchen was thought to be
+a good exchange for the cold earth of December, even if a shell had
+exploded in it, and knocked it so out of shape that when a man lay
+curled in his blanket his last waking thought was likely to be of the
+wall that bellied out above him, as if strongly anxious to topple upon
+the score of soldiers.
+
+Billie looked at the bricks ever about to descend in a shower upon his
+face, listened to the industrious pickets plying their rifles on the
+border of the town, imagined some measure of the din of the coming
+battle, thought of Dan and Dan's chagrin, and rolling over in his
+blanket went to sleep with satisfaction.
+
+At an unknown hour he was aroused by the creaking of boards. Lifting
+himself upon his elbow, he saw a sergeant prowling among the sleeping
+forms. The sergeant carried a candle in an old brass candlestick. He
+would have resembled some old farmer on an unusual midnight tour if it
+were not for the significance of his gleaming buttons and striped sleeves.
+
+Billie blinked stupidly at the light until his mind returned from the
+journeys of slumber. The sergeant stooped among the unconscious
+soldiers, holding the candle close, and peering into each face.
+
+"Hello, Haines," said Billie. "Relief?"
+
+"Hello, Billie," said the sergeant. "Special duty."
+
+"Dan got to go?"
+
+"Jameson, Hunter, McCormack, D. Dempster. Yes. Where is he?"
+
+"Over there by the winder," said Billie, gesturing. "What is it for,
+Haines?"
+
+"You don't think I know, do you?" demanded the sergeant. He began to
+pipe sharply but cheerily at men upon the floor. "Come, Mac, get up
+here. Here's a special for you. Wake up, Jameson. Come along, Dannie, me
+boy."
+
+Each man at once took this call to duty as a personal affront. They
+pulled themselves out of their blankets, rubbed their eyes, and swore at
+whoever was responsible. "Them's orders," cried the sergeant. "Come! Get
+out of here." An undetailed head with dishevelled hair thrust out from a
+blanket, and a sleepy voice said: "Shut up, Haines, and go home."
+
+When the detail clanked out of the kitchen, all but one of the
+remaining men seemed to be again asleep. Billie, leaning on his elbow,
+was gazing into darkness. When the footsteps died to silence, he curled
+himself into his blanket.
+
+At the first cool lavender lights of daybreak he aroused again, and
+scanned his recumbent companions. Seeing a wakeful one he asked: "Is Dan
+back yet?"
+
+The man said: "Hain't seen 'im."
+
+Billie put both hands behind his head, and scowled into the air. "Can't
+see the use of these cussed details in the night-time," he muttered in
+his most unreasonable tones. "Darn nuisances. Why can't they----" He
+grumbled at length and graphically.
+
+When Dan entered with the squad, however, Billie was convincingly asleep.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The regiment trotted in double time along the street, and the colonel
+seemed to quarrel over the right of way with many artillery officers.
+Batteries were waiting in the mud, and the men of them, exasperated by
+the bustle of this ambitious infantry, shook their fists from saddle and
+caisson, exchanging all manner of taunts and jests. The slanted guns
+continued to look reflectively at the ground.
+
+On the outskirts of the crumbled town a fringe of blue figures were
+firing into the fog. The regiment swung out into skirmish lines, and the
+fringe of blue figures departed, turning their backs and going joyfully
+around the flank.
+
+The bullets began a low moan off toward a ridge which loomed faintly in
+the heavy mist. When the swift crescendo had reached its climax, the
+missiles zipped just overhead, as if piercing an invisible curtain. A
+battery on the hill was crashing with such tumult that it was as if the
+guns had quarrelled and had fallen pell-mell and snarling upon each
+other. The shells howled on their journey toward the town. From short-
+range distance there came a spatter of musketry, sweeping along an
+invisible line, and making faint sheets of orange light.
+
+Some in the new skirmish lines were beginning to fire at various
+shadows discerned in the vapour, forms of men suddenly revealed by some
+humour of the laggard masses of clouds. The crackle of musketry began to
+dominate the purring of the hostile bullets. Dan, in the front rank,
+held his rifle poised, and looked into the fog keenly, coldly, with the
+air of a sportsman. His nerves were so steady that it was as if they had
+been drawn from his body, leaving him merely a muscular machine; but his
+numb heart was somehow beating to the pealing march of the fight.
+
+The waving skirmish line went backward and forward, ran this way and
+that way. Men got lost in the fog, and men were found again. Once they
+got too close to the formidable ridge, and the thing burst out as if
+repulsing a general attack. Once another blue regiment was apprehended
+on the very edge of firing into them. Once a friendly battery began an
+elaborate and scientific process of extermination. Always as busy as
+brokers, the men slid here and there over the plain, fighting their
+foes, escaping from their friends, leaving a history of many movements
+in the wet yellow turf, cursing the atmosphere, blazing away every time
+they could identify the enemy.
+
+In one mystic changing of the fog as if the fingers of spirits were
+drawing aside these draperies, a small group of the grey skirmishers,
+silent, statuesque, were suddenly disclosed to Dan and those about him.
+So vivid and near were they that there was something uncanny in the
+revelation.
+
+There might have been a second of mutual staring. Then each rifle in
+each group was at the shoulder. As Dan's glance flashed along the barrel
+of his weapon, the figure of a man suddenly loomed as if the musket had
+been a telescope. The short black beard, the slouch hat, the pose of the
+man as he sighted to shoot, made a quick picture in Dan's mind. The same
+moment, it would seem, he pulled his own trigger, and the man, smitten,
+lurched forward, while his exploding rifle made a slanting crimson
+streak in the air, and the slouch hat fell before the body. The billows
+of the fog, governed by singular impulses, rolled between.
+
+"You got that feller sure enough," said a comrade to Dan. Dan looked at
+him absent-mindedly.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+When the next morning calmly displayed another fog, the men of the
+regiment exchanged eloquent comments; but they did not abuse it at
+length, because the streets of the town now contained enough galloping
+aides to make three troops of cavalry, and they knew that they had come
+to the verge of the great fight.
+
+Dan conversed with the man who had once possessed a horse-hair trunk;
+but they did not mention the line of hills which had furnished them in
+more careless moments with an agreeable topic. They avoided it now as
+condemned men do the subject of death, and yet the thought of it stayed
+in their eyes as they looked at each other and talked gravely of other
+things.
+
+The expectant regiment heaved a long sigh of relief when the sharp
+call: "Fall in," repeated indefinitely, arose in the streets. It was
+inevitable that a bloody battle was to be fought, and they wanted to get
+it off their minds. They were, however, doomed again to spend a long
+period planted firmly in the mud. They craned their necks, and wondered
+where some of the other regiments were going.
+
+At last the mists rolled carelessly away. Nature made at this time all
+provisions to enable foes to see each other, and immediately the roar of
+guns resounded from every hill. The endless cracking of the skirmishers
+swelled to rolling crashes of musketry. Shells screamed with panther-
+like noises at the houses. Dan looked at the man of the horse-hair
+trunk, and the man said: "Well, here she comes!"
+
+The tenor voices of younger officers and the deep and hoarse voices of
+the older ones rang in the streets. These cries pricked like spurs. The
+masses of men vibrated from the suddenness with which they were plunged
+into the situation of troops about to fight. That the orders were long-
+expected did not concern the emotion.
+
+Simultaneous movement was imparted to all these thick bodies of men and
+horses that lay in the town. Regiment after regiment swung rapidly into
+the streets that faced the sinister ridge.
+
+This exodus was theatrical. The little sober-hued village had been like
+the cloak which disguises the king of drama. It was now put aside, and
+an army, splendid thing of steel and blue, stood forth in the sunlight.
+
+Even the soldiers in the heavy columns drew deep breaths at the sight,
+more majestic than they had dreamed. The heights of the enemy's position
+were crowded with men who resembled people come to witness some mighty
+pageant. But as the column moved steadily to their positions, the guns,
+matter-of-fact warriors, doubled their number, and shells burst with red
+thrilling tumult on the crowded plain. One came into the ranks of the
+regiment, and after the smoke and the wrath of it had faded, leaving
+motionless figures, every one stormed according to the limits of his
+vocabulary, for veterans detest being killed when they are not busy.
+
+The regiment sometimes looked sideways at its brigade companions
+composed of men who had never been in battle; but no frozen blood could
+withstand the heat of the splendour of this army before the eyes on the
+plain, these lines so long that the flanks were little streaks, this
+mass of men of one intention. The recruits carried themselves
+heedlessly. At the rear was an idle battery, and three artillerymen in a
+foolish row on a caisson nudged each other and grinned at the recruits.
+"You'll catch it pretty soon," they called out. They were impersonally
+gleeful, as if they themselves were not also likely to catch it pretty
+soon. But with this picture of an army in their hearts, the new men
+perhaps felt the devotion which the drops may feel for the wave; they
+were of its power and glory; they smiled jauntily at the foolish row of
+gunners, and told them to go to blazes.
+
+The column trotted across some little bridges, and spread quickly into
+lines of battle. Before them was a bit of plain, and back of the plain
+was the ridge. There was no time left for considerations. The men were
+staring at the plain, mightily wondering how it would feel to be out
+there, when a brigade in advance yelled and charged. The hill was all
+grey smoke and fire-points.
+
+That fierce elation in the terrors of war, catching a man's heart and
+making it burn with such ardour that he becomes capable of dying,
+flashed in the faces of the men like coloured lights, and made them
+resemble leashed animals, eager, ferocious, daunting at nothing. The
+line was really in its first leap before the wild, hoarse crying of the
+orders.
+
+The greed for close quarters, which is the emotion of a bayonet charge,
+came then into the minds of the men and developed until it was a
+madness. The field, with its faded grass of a Southern winter, seemed to
+this fury miles in width.
+
+High, slow-moving masses of smoke, with an odour of burning cotton,
+engulfed the line until the men might have been swimmers. Before them
+the ridge, the shore of this grey sea, was outlined, crossed, and
+recrossed by sheets of flame. The howl of the battle arose to the noise
+of innumerable wind demons.
+
+The line, galloping, scrambling, plunging like a herd of wounded
+horses, went over a field that was sown with corpses, the records of
+other charges.
+
+Directly in front of the black-faced, whooping Dan, carousing in this
+onward sweep like a new kind of fiend, a wounded man appeared, raising
+his shattered body, and staring at this rush of men down upon him. It
+seemed to occur to him that he was to be trampled; he made a desperate,
+piteous effort to escape; then finally huddled in a waiting heap. Dan
+and the soldier near him widened the interval between them without
+looking down, without appearing to heed the wounded man. This little
+clump of blue seemed to reel past them as boulders reel past a train.
+
+Bursting through a smoke-wave, the scampering, unformed bunches came
+upon the wreck of the brigade that had preceded them, a floundering mass
+stopped afar from the hill by the swirling volleys.
+
+It was as if a necromancer had suddenly shown them a picture of the
+fate which awaited them; but the line with muscular spasm hurled itself
+over this wreckage and onward, until men were stumbling amid the relics
+of other assaults, the point where the fire from the ridge consumed.
+
+The men, panting, perspiring, with crazed faces, tried to push against
+it; but it was as if they had come to a wall. The wave halted, shuddered
+in an agony from the quick struggle of its two desires, then toppled,
+and broke into a fragmentary thing which has no name.
+
+Veterans could now at last be distinguished from recruits. The new
+regiments were instantly gone, lost, scattered, as if they never had
+been. But the sweeping failure of the charge, the battle, could not make
+the veterans forget their business. With a last throe, the band of
+maniacs drew itself up and blazed a volley at the hill, insignificant to
+those iron entrenchments, but nevertheless expressing that singular
+final despair which enables men coolly to defy the walls of a city of
+death.
+
+After this episode the men renamed their command. They called it the
+Little Regiment.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+"I seen Dan shoot a feller yesterday. Yes, sir. I'm sure it was him
+that done it. And maybe he thinks about that feller now, and wonders if
+he tumbled down just about the same way. Them things come up in a man's
+mind."
+
+Bivouac fires upon the sidewalks, in the streets, in the yards, threw
+high their wavering reflections, which examined, like slim, red fingers,
+the dingy, scarred walls and the piles of tumbled brick. The droning of
+voices again arose from great blue crowds.
+
+The odour of frying bacon, the fragrance from countless little coffee-
+pails floated among the ruins. The rifles, stacked in the shadows,
+emitted flashes of steely light. Wherever a flag lay horizontally from
+one stack to another was the bed of an eagle which had led men into the
+mystic smoke.
+
+The men about a particular fire were engaged in holding in check their
+jovial spirits. They moved whispering around the blaze, although they
+looked at it with a certain fine contentment, like labourers after a
+day's hard work.
+
+There was one who sat apart. They did not address him save in tones
+suddenly changed. They did not regard him directly, but always in little
+sidelong glances.
+
+At last a soldier from a distant fire came into this circle of light.
+He studied for a time the man who sat apart. Then he hesitatingly
+stepped closer, and said: "Got any news, Dan?"
+
+"No," said Dan.
+
+The new-comer shifted his feet. He looked at the fire, at the sky, at
+the other men, at Dan. His face expressed a curious despair; his tongue
+was plainly in rebellion. Finally, however, he contrived to say: "Well,
+there's some chance yet, Dan. Lots of the wounded are still lying out
+there, you know. There's some chance yet."
+
+"Yes," said Dan.
+
+The soldier shifted his feet again, and looked miserably into the air.
+After another struggle he said: "Well, there's some chance yet, Dan." He
+moved hastily away.
+
+One of the men of the squad, perhaps encouraged by this example, now
+approached the still figure. "No news yet, hey?" he said, after coughing
+behind his hand.
+
+"No," said Dan.
+
+"Well," said the man, "I've been thinking of how he was fretting about
+you the night you went on special duty. You recollect? Well, sir, I was
+surprised. He couldn't say enough about it. I swan, I don't believe he
+slep' a wink after you left, but just lay awake cussing special duty and
+worrying. I was surprised. But there he lay cussing. He----"
+
+Dan made a curious sound, as if a stone had wedged in his throat. He
+said: "Shut up, will you?"
+
+Afterward the men would not allow this moody contemplation of the fire
+to be interrupted.
+
+"Oh, let him alone, can't you?"
+
+"Come away from there, Casey!"
+
+"Say, can't you leave him be?"
+
+They moved with reverence about the immovable figure, with its
+countenance of mask-like invulnerability.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+After the red round eye of the sun had stared long at the little plain
+and its burden, darkness, a sable mercy, came heavily upon it, and the
+wan hands of the dead were no longer seen in strange frozen gestures.
+
+The heights in front of the plain shone with tiny camp-fires, and from
+the town in the rear, small shimmerings ascended from the blazes of the
+bivouac. The plain was a black expanse upon which, from time to time,
+dots of light, lanterns, floated slowly here and there. These fields
+were long steeped in grim mystery.
+
+Suddenly, upon one dark spot, there was a resurrection. A strange thing
+had been groaning there, prostrate. Then it suddenly dragged itself to a
+sitting posture, and became a man.
+
+The man stared stupidly for a moment at the lights on the hill, then
+turned and contemplated the faint colouring over the town. For some
+moments he remained thus, staring with dull eyes, his face unemotional,
+wooden.
+
+Finally he looked around him at the corpses dimly to be seen. No change
+flashed into his face upon viewing these men. They seemed to suggest
+merely that his information concerning himself was not too complete. He
+ran his fingers over his arms and chest, bearing always the air of an
+idiot upon a bench at an almshouse door.
+
+Finding no wound in his arms nor in his chest, he raised his hand to
+his head, and the fingers came away with some dark liquid upon them.
+Holding these fingers close to his eyes, he scanned them in the same
+stupid fashion, while his body gently swayed.
+
+The soldier rolled his eyes again toward the town. When he arose, his
+clothing peeled from the frozen ground like wet paper. Hearing the sound
+of it, he seemed to see reason for deliberation. He paused and looked at
+the ground, then at his trousers, then at the ground.
+
+Finally he went slowly off toward the faint reflection, holding his
+hands palm outward before him, and walking in the manner of a blind man.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The immovable Dan again sat unaddressed in the midst of comrades, who
+did not joke aloud. The dampness of the usual morning fog seemed to make
+the little camp-fires furious.
+
+Suddenly a cry arose in the streets, a shout of amazement and delight.
+The men making breakfast at the fire looked up quickly. They broke forth
+in clamorous exclamation: "Well! Of all things! Dan! Dan! Look who's
+coming! Oh, Dan!"
+
+Dan the silent raised his eyes and saw a man, with a bandage of the
+size of a helmet about his head, receiving a furious demonstration from
+the company. He was shaking hands, and explaining, and haranguing to a
+high degree.
+
+Dan started. His face of bronze flushed to his temples. He seemed about
+to leap from the ground, but then suddenly he sank back, and resumed his
+impassive gazing.
+
+The men were in a flurry. They looked from one to the other. "Dan!
+Look! See who's coming!" some cried again. "Dan! Look!"
+
+He scowled at last, and moved his shoulders sullenly. "Well, don't I
+know it?"
+
+But they could not be convinced that his eyes were in service. "Dan,
+why can't you look! See who's coming!"
+
+He made a gesture then of irritation and rage. "Curse it! Don't I know
+it?"
+
+The man with a bandage of the size of a helmet moved forward, always
+shaking hands and explaining. At times his glance wandered to Dan, who
+saw with his eyes riveted.
+
+After a series of shiftings, it occurred naturally that the man with
+the bandage was very near to the man who saw the flames. He paused, and
+there was a little silence. Finally he said: "Hello, Dan."
+
+"Hello, Billie."
+
+
+
+
+THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS
+
+I
+
+
+The girl was in the front room on the second floor, peering through the
+blinds. It was the "best room." There was a very new rag carpet on the
+floor. The edges of it had been dyed with alternate stripes of red and
+green. Upon the wooden mantel there were two little puffy figures in
+clay--a shepherd and a shepherdess probably. A triangle of pink and
+white wool hung carefully over the edge of this shelf. Upon the bureau
+there was nothing at all save a spread newspaper, with edges folded to
+make it into a mat. The quilts and sheets had been removed from the bed
+and were stacked upon a chair. The pillows and the great feather
+mattress were muffled and tumbled until they resembled great dumplings.
+The picture of a man terribly leaden in complexion hung in an oval frame
+on one white wall and steadily confronted the bureau.
+
+From between the slats of the blinds she had a view of the road as it
+wended across the meadow to the woods, and again where it reappeared
+crossing the hill, half a mile away. It lay yellow and warm in the
+summer sunshine. From the long grasses of the meadow came the rhythmic
+click of the insects. Occasional frogs in the hidden brook made a
+peculiar chug-chug sound, as if somebody throttled them. The leaves of
+the wood swung in gentle winds. Through the dark-green branches of the
+pines that grew in the front yard could be seen the mountains, far to
+the south-east, and inexpressibly blue.
+
+Mary's eyes were fastened upon the little streak of road that appeared
+on the distant hill. Her face was flushed with excitement, and the hand
+which stretched in a strained pose on the sill trembled because of the
+nervous shaking of the wrist. The pines whisked their green needles with
+a soft, hissing sound against the house.
+
+At last the girl turned from the window and went to the head of the
+stairs. "Well, I just know they're coming, anyhow," she cried
+argumentatively to the depths.
+
+A voice from below called to her angrily: "They ain't. We've never seen
+one yet. They never come into this neighbourhood. You just come down
+here and 'tend to your work insteader watching for soldiers."
+
+"Well, ma, I just know they're coming."
+
+A voice retorted with the shrillness and mechanical violence of
+occasional housewives. The girl swished her skirts defiantly and
+returned to the window.
+
+Upon the yellow streak of road that lay across the hillside there now
+was a handful of black dots--horsemen. A cloud of dust floated away. The
+girl flew to the head of the stairs and whirled down into the kitchen.
+
+"They're coming! They're coming!"
+
+It was as if she had cried "Fire!" Her mother had been peeling potatoes
+while seated comfortably at the table. She sprang to her feet. "No--it
+can't be--how you know it's them--where?" The stubby knife fell from her
+hand, and two or three curls of potato skin dropped from her apron to
+the floor.
+
+The girl turned and dashed upstairs. Her mother followed, gasping for
+breath, and yet contriving to fill the air with questions, reproach, and
+remonstrance. The girl was already at the window, eagerly pointing.
+"There! There! See 'em! See 'em!"
+
+Rushing to the window, the mother scanned for an instant the road on
+the hill. She crouched back with a groan. "It's them, sure as the world!
+It's them!" She waved her hands in despairing gestures.
+
+The black dots vanished into the wood. The girl at the window was
+quivering and her eyes were shining like water when the sun flashes.
+"Hush! They're in the woods! They'll be here directly." She bent down
+and intently watched the green archway whence the road emerged. "Hush!
+I hear 'em coming," she swiftly whispered to her mother, for the elder
+woman had dropped dolefully upon the mattress and was sobbing. And,
+indeed, the girl could hear the quick, dull trample of horses. She
+stepped aside with sudden apprehension, but she bent her head forward in
+order to still scan the road.
+
+"Here they are!"
+
+There was something very theatrical in the sudden appearance of these
+men to the eyes of the girl. It was as if a scene had been shifted. The
+forest suddenly disclosed them--a dozen brown-faced troopers in blue--
+galloping.
+
+"Oh, look!" breathed the girl. Her mouth was puckered into an
+expression of strange fascination, as if she had expected to see the
+troopers change into demons and gloat at her. She was at last looking
+upon those curious beings who rode down from the North--those men of
+legend and colossal tale--they who were possessed of such marvellous
+hallucinations.
+
+The little troop rode in silence. At its head was a youthful fellow
+with some dim yellow stripes upon his arm. In his right hand he held his
+carbine, slanting upward, with the stock resting upon his knee. He was
+absorbed in a scrutiny of the country before him.
+
+At the heels of the sergeant the rest of the squad rode in thin column,
+with creak of leather and tinkle of steel and tin. The girl scanned the
+faces of the horsemen, seeming astonished vaguely to find them of the
+type she knew.
+
+The lad at the head of the troop comprehended the house and its
+environments in two glances. He did not check the long, swinging stride
+of his horse. The troopers glanced for a moment like casual tourists,
+and then returned to their study of the region in front. The heavy
+thudding of the hoofs became a small noise. The dust, hanging in sheets,
+slowly sank.
+
+The sobs of the woman on the bed took form in words which, while strong
+in their note of calamity, yet expressed a querulous mental reaching for
+some near thing to blame. "And it'll be lucky fer us if we ain't both
+butchered in our sleep--plundering and running off horses--old Santo's
+gone--you see if he ain't--plundering--"
+
+"But, ma," said the girl, perplexed and terrified in the same moment,
+"they've gone."
+
+"Oh, but they'll come back!" cried the mother, without pausing her
+wail. "They'll come back--trust them for that--running off horses. O
+John, John! why did you, why did you?" She suddenly lifted herself and
+sat rigid, staring at her daughter. "Mary," she said in tragic whisper,
+"the kitchen door isn't locked!" Already she was bended forward to
+listen, her mouth agape, her eyes fixed upon her daughter.
+
+"Mother," faltered the girl.
+
+Her mother again whispered, "The kitchen door isn't locked."
+
+Motionless and mute they stared into each other's eyes.
+
+At last the girl quavered, "We better--we better go and lock it." The
+mother nodded. Hanging arm in arm they stole across the floor toward the
+head of the stairs. A board of the floor creaked. They halted and
+exchanged a look of dumb agony.
+
+At last they reached the head of the stairs. From the kitchen came the
+bass humming of the kettle and frequent sputterings and cracklings from
+the fire. These sounds were sinister. The mother and the girl stood
+incapable of movement. "There's somebody down there!" whispered the
+elder woman.
+
+Finally, the girl made a gesture of resolution. She twisted her arm
+from her mother's hands and went two steps downward. She addressed the
+kitchen: "Who's there?" Her tone was intended to be dauntless. It rang
+so dramatically in the silence that a sudden new panic seized them as if
+the suspected presence in the kitchen had cried out to them. But the
+girl ventured again: "Is there anybody there?" No reply was made save by
+the kettle and the fire.
+
+With a stealthy tread the girl continued her journey. As she neared the
+last step the fire crackled explosively and the girl screamed. But the
+mystic presence had not swept around the corner to grab her, so she
+dropped to a seat on the step and laughed. "It was--was only the--the
+fire," she said, stammering hysterically.
+
+Then she arose with sudden fortitude and cried: "Why, there isn't
+anybody there! I know there isn't." She marched down into the kitchen.
+In her face was dread, as if she half expected to confront something,
+but the room was empty. She cried joyously: "There's nobody here! Come on
+down, ma." She ran to the kitchen door and locked it.
+
+The mother came down to the kitchen. "Oh, dear, what a fright I've had!
+It's given me the sick headache. I know it has."
+
+"Oh, ma," said the girl.
+
+"I know it has--I know it. Oh, if your father was only here! He'd
+settle those Yankees mighty quick--he'd settle 'em! Two poor helpless
+women--"
+
+"Why, ma, what makes you act so? The Yankees haven't--"
+
+"Oh, they'll be back--they'll be back. Two poor helpless women! Your
+father and your uncle Asa and Bill off galavanting around and fighting
+when they ought to be protecting their home! That's the kind of men they
+are. Didn't I say to your father just before he left--"
+
+"Ma," said the girl, coming suddenly from the window, "the barn door is
+open. I wonder if they took old Santo?"
+
+"Oh, of course they have--of course--Mary, I don't see what we are
+going to do--I don't see what we are going to do."
+
+The girl said, "Ma, I'm going to see if they took old Santo."
+
+"Mary," cried the mother, "don't you dare!"
+
+"But think of poor old Sant, ma."
+
+"Never you mind old Santo. We're lucky to be safe ourselves, I tell
+you. Never mind old Santo. Don't you dare to go out there, Mary--Mary!"
+
+The girl had unlocked the door and stepped out upon the porch. The
+mother cried in despair, "Mary!"
+
+"Why, there isn't anybody out here," the girl called in response. She
+stood for a moment with a curious smile upon her face as of gleeful
+satisfaction at her daring.
+
+The breeze was waving the boughs of the apple trees. A rooster with an
+air importantly courteous was conducting three hens upon a foraging
+tour. On the hillside at the rear of the grey old barn the red leaves of
+a creeper flamed amid the summer foliage. High in the sky clouds rolled
+toward the north. The girl swung impulsively from the little stoop and
+ran toward the barn.
+
+The great door was open, and the carved peg which usually performed the
+office of a catch lay on the ground. The girl could not see into the
+barn because of the heavy shadows. She paused in a listening attitude
+and heard a horse munching placidly. She gave a cry of delight and
+sprang across the threshold. Then she suddenly shrank back and gasped.
+She had confronted three men in grey seated upon the floor with their
+legs stretched out and their backs against Santo's manger. Their dust-
+covered countenances were expanded in grins.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+As Mary sprang backward and screamed, one of the calm men in grey,
+still grinning, announced, "I knowed you'd holler." Sitting there
+comfortably the three surveyed her with amusement.
+
+Mary caught her breath, throwing her hand up to her throat. "Oh!" she
+said, "you--you frightened me!"
+
+"We're sorry, lady, but couldn't help it no way," cheerfully responded
+another. "I knowed you'd holler when I seen you coming yere, but I
+raikoned we couldn't help it no way. We hain't a-troubling this yere
+barn, I don't guess. We been doing some mighty tall sleeping yere. We
+done woke when them Yanks loped past."
+
+"Where did you come from? Did--did you escape from the--the Yankees?"
+The girl still stammered and trembled.
+
+The three soldiers laughed. "No, m'm. No, m'm. They never cotch us. We
+was in a muss down the road yere about two mile. And Bill yere they gin
+it to him in the arm, kehplunk. And they pasted me thar, too. Curious,
+And Sim yere, he didn't get nothing, but they chased us all quite a
+little piece, and we done lose track of our boys."
+
+"Was it--was it those who passed here just now? Did they chase you?"
+
+The men in grey laughed again. "What--them? No, indeedee! There was a
+mighty big swarm of Yanks and a mighty big swarm of our boys, too. What--
+that little passel? No, m'm."
+
+She became calm enough to scan them more attentively. They were much
+begrimed and very dusty. Their grey clothes were tattered. Splashed mud
+had dried upon them in reddish spots. It appeared, too, that the men had
+not shaved in many days. In the hats there was a singular diversity. One
+soldier wore the little blue cap of the Northern infantry, with corps
+emblem and regimental number; one wore a great slouch hat with a wide
+hole in the crown; and the other wore no hat at all. The left sleeve of
+one man and the right sleeve of another had been slit, and the arms were
+neatly bandaged with clean cloths. "These hain't no more than two little
+cuts," explained one. "We stopped up yere to Mis' Leavitts--she said her
+name was--and she bind them for us. Bill yere, he had the thirst come on
+him. And the fever too. We----"
+
+"Did you ever see my father in the army?" asked Mary. "John Hinckson--
+his name is."
+
+The three soldiers grinned again, but they replied kindly: "No, m'm.
+No, m'm, we hain't never. What is he--in the cavalry?"
+
+"No," said the girl. "He and my uncle Asa and my cousin--his name is
+Bill Parker--they are all with Longstreet--they call him."
+
+"Oh," said the soldiers. "Longstreet? Oh, they're a good smart ways
+from yere. 'Way off up nawtheast. There hain't nothing but cavalry down
+yere. They're in the infantry, probably."
+
+"We haven't heard anything from them for days and days," said Mary.
+
+"Oh, they're all right in the infantry," said one man, to be consoling.
+"The infantry don't do much fighting. They go bellering out in a big
+swarm and only a few of 'em get hurt. But if they was in the cavalry--
+the cavalry--"
+
+Mary interrupted him without intention. "Are you hungry?" she asked.
+
+The soldiers looked at each other, struck by some sudden and singular
+shame. They hung their heads. "No, m'm," replied one at last.
+
+Santo, in his stall, was tranquilly chewing and chewing. Sometimes he
+looked benevolently over at them. He was an old horse, and there was
+something about his eyes and his forelock which created the impression
+that he wore spectacles. Mary went and patted his nose. "Well, if you
+are hungry, I can get you something," she told the men. "Or you might
+come to the house."
+
+"We wouldn't dast go to the house," said one. "That passel of Yanks was
+only a scouting crowd, most like. Just an advance. More coming, likely."
+
+"Well, I can bring you something," cried the girl eagerly. "Won't you
+let me bring you something?"
+
+"Well," said a soldier with embarrassment, "we hain't had much. If you
+could bring us a little snack--like--just a snack--we'd--"
+
+Without waiting for him to cease, the girl turned toward the door. But
+before she had reached it she stopped abruptly. "Listen!" she whispered.
+Her form was bent forward, her head turned and lowered, her hand
+extended toward the men, in a command for silence.
+
+They could faintly hear the thudding of many hoofs, the clank of arms,
+and frequent calling voices.
+
+"By cracky, it's the Yanks!" The soldiers scrambled to their feet and
+came toward the door. "I knowed that first crowd was only an advance."
+
+The girl and the three men peered from the shadows of the barn. The
+view of the road was intersected by tree trunks and a little henhouse.
+However, they could see many horsemen streaming down the road. The
+horsemen were in blue. "Oh, hide--hide--hide!" cried the girl, with a
+sob in her voice.
+
+"Wait a minute," whispered a grey soldier excitedly. "Maybe they're
+going along by. No, by thunder, they hain't! They're halting. Scoot,
+boys!"
+
+They made a noiseless dash into the dark end of the barn. The girl,
+standing by the door, heard them break forth an instant later in
+clamorous whispers. "Where'll we hide? Where'll we hide? There hain't a
+place to hide!" The girl turned and glanced wildly about the barn. It
+seemed true. The stock of hay had grown low under Santo's endless
+munching, and from occasional levyings by passing troopers in grey. The
+poles of the mow were barely covered, save in one corner where there was
+a little bunch.
+
+The girl espied the great feed-box. She ran to it and lifted the lid.
+"Here! here!" she called. "Get in here."
+
+They had been tearing noiselessly around the rear part of the barn. At
+her low call they came and plunged at the box. They did not all get in
+at the same moment without a good deal of a tangle. The wounded men
+gasped and muttered, but they at last were flopped down on the layer of
+feed which covered the bottom. Swiftly and softly the girl lowered the
+lid and then turned like a flash toward the door.
+
+No one appeared there, so she went close to survey the situation. The
+troopers had dismounted, and stood in silence by their horses.
+
+A grey-bearded man, whose red cheeks and nose shone vividly above the
+whiskers, was strolling about with two or three others. They wore double-
+breasted coats, and faded yellow sashes were wound under their black
+leather sword-belts. The grey-bearded soldier was apparently giving
+orders, pointing here and there.
+
+Mary tiptoed to the feed-box. "They've all got off their horses," she
+said to it. A finger projected from a knot-hole near the top, and said
+to her very plainly, "Come closer." She obeyed, and then a muffled voice
+could be heard: "Scoot for the house, lady, and if we don't see you
+again, why, much obliged for what you done."
+
+"Good-bye," she said to the feed-box.
+
+She made two attempts to walk dauntlessly from the barn, but each time
+she faltered and failed just before she reached the point where she
+could have been seen by the blue-coated troopers. At last, however, she
+made a sort of a rush forward and went out into the bright sunshine.
+
+The group of men in double-breasted coats wheeled in her direction at
+the instant. The grey-bearded officer forgot to lower his arm which had
+been stretched forth in giving an order.
+
+She felt that her feet were touching the ground in a most unnatural
+manner. Her bearing, she believed, was suddenly grown awkward and
+ungainly. Upon her face she thought that this sentence was plainly
+written: "There are three men hidden in the feed-box."
+
+The grey-bearded soldier came toward her. She stopped; she seemed about
+to run away. But the soldier doffed his little blue cap and looked
+amiable. "You live here, I presume?" he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"Well, we are obliged to camp here for the night, and as we've got two
+wounded men with us I don't suppose you'd mind if we put them in the
+barn."
+
+"In--in the barn?"
+
+He became aware that she was agitated. He smiled assuringly. "You
+needn't be frightened. We won't hurt anything around here. You'll all be
+safe enough."
+
+The girl balanced on one foot and swung the other to and fro in the
+grass. She was looking down at it. "But--but I don't think ma would like
+it if--if you took the barn."
+
+The old officer laughed. "Wouldn't she?" said he. "That's so. Maybe she
+wouldn't." He reflected for a time and then decided cheerfully: "Well,
+we will have to go ask her, anyhow. Where is she? In the house?"
+
+"Yes," replied the girl, "she's in the house. She--she'll be scared to
+death when she sees you!"
+
+"Well, you go and ask her then," said the soldier, always wearing a
+benign smile. "You go ask her and then come and tell me."
+
+When the girl pushed open the door and entered the kitchen, she found
+it empty. "Ma!" she called softly. There was no answer. The kettle still
+was humming its low song. The knife and the curl of potato-skin lay on
+the floor.
+
+She went to her mother's room and entered timidly. The new, lonely
+aspect of the house shook her nerves. Upon the bed was a confusion of
+coverings. "Ma!" called the girl, quaking in fear that her mother was
+not there to reply. But there was a sudden turmoil of the quilts, and
+her mother's head was thrust forth. "Mary!" she cried, in what seemed to
+be a supreme astonishment, "I thought--I thought----"
+
+"Oh, ma," blurted the girl, "there's over a thousand Yankees in the
+yard, and I've hidden three of our men in the feed-box!"
+
+The elder woman, however, upon the appearance of her daughter had begun
+to thrash hysterically about on the bed and wail.
+
+"Ma!" the girl exclaimed, "and now they want to use the barn--and our
+men in the feed-box! What shall I do, ma? What shall I do?"
+
+Her mother did not seem to hear, so absorbed was she in her grievous
+flounderings and tears. "Ma!" appealed the girl. "Ma!"
+
+For a moment Mary stood silently debating, her lips apart, her eyes
+fixed. Then she went to the kitchen window and peeked.
+
+The old officer and the others were staring up the road. She went to
+another window in order to get a proper view of the road, and saw that
+they were gazing at a small body of horsemen approaching at a trot and
+raising much dust. Presently she recognised them as the squad that had
+passed the house earlier, for the young man with the dim yellow chevron
+still rode at their head. An unarmed horseman in grey was receiving
+their close attention.
+
+As they came very near to the house she darted to the first window
+again. The grey-bearded officer was smiling a fine broad smile of
+satisfaction. "So you got him?" he called out. The young sergeant sprang
+from his horse and his brown hand moved in a salute. The girl could not
+hear his reply. She saw the unarmed horseman in grey stroking a very
+black moustache and looking about him coolly and with an interested air.
+He appeared so indifferent that she did not understand he was a prisoner
+until she heard the grey-beard call out: "Well, put him in the barn.
+He'll be safe there, I guess." A party of troopers moved with the
+prisoner toward the barn.
+
+The girl made a sudden gesture of horror, remembering the three men in
+the feed-box.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The busy troopers in blue scurried about the long lines of stamping
+horses. Men crooked their backs and perspired in order to rub with
+cloths or bunches of grass these slim equine legs, upon whose splendid
+machinery they depended so greatly. The lips of the horses were still
+wet and frothy from the steel bars which had wrenched at their mouths
+all day. Over their backs and about their noses sped the talk of the men.
+
+"Moind where yer plug is steppin', Finerty! Keep 'im aff me!"
+
+"An ould elephant! He shtrides like a school-house."
+
+"Bill's little mar'--she was plum beat when she come in with Crawford's
+crowd."
+
+"Crawford's the hardest-ridin' cavalryman in the army. An' he don't use
+up a horse, neither--much. They stay fresh when the others are most
+a-droppin'."
+
+"Finerty, will yeh moind that cow a yours?"
+
+Amid a bustle of gossip and banter, the horses retained their air of
+solemn rumination, twisting their lower jaws from side to side and
+sometimes rubbing noses dreamfully.
+
+Over in front of the barn three troopers sat talking comfortably. Their
+carbines were leaned against the wall. At their side and outlined in the
+black of the open door stood a sentry, his weapon resting in the hollow
+of his arm. Four horses, saddled and accoutred, were conferring with
+their heads close together. The four bridle-reins were flung over a post.
+
+Upon the calm green of the land, typical in every way of peace, the
+hues of war brought thither by the troops shone strangely. Mary, gazing
+curiously, did not feel that she was contemplating a familiar scene. It
+was no longer the home acres. The new blue, steel, and faded yellow
+thoroughly dominated the old green and brown. She could hear the voices
+of the men, and it seemed from their tone that they had camped there for
+years. Everything with them was usual. They had taken possession of the
+landscape in such a way that even the old marks appeared strange and
+formidable to the girl.
+
+Mary had intended to go and tell the commander in blue that her mother
+did not wish his men to use the barn at all, but she paused when she
+heard him speak to the sergeant. She thought she perceived then that it
+mattered little to him what her mother wished, and that an objection by
+her or by anybody would be futile. She saw the soldiers conduct the
+prisoner in grey into the barn, and for a long time she watched the
+three chatting guards and the pondering sentry. Upon her mind in
+desolate weight was the recollection of the three men in the feed-box.
+
+It seemed to her that in a case of this description it was her duty to
+be a heroine. In all the stories she had read when at boarding-school in
+Pennsylvania, the girl characters, confronted with such difficulties,
+invariably did hair-breadth things. True, they were usually bent upon
+rescuing and recovering their lovers, and neither the calm man in grey,
+nor any of the three in the feed-box, was lover of hers, but then a real
+heroine would not pause over this minor question. Plainly a heroine
+would take measures to rescue the four men. If she did not at least make
+the attempt, she would be false to those carefully constructed ideals
+which were the accumulation of years of dreaming.
+
+But the situation puzzled her. There was the barn with only one door,
+and with four armed troopers in front of this door, one of them with his
+back to the rest of the world, engaged, no doubt, in a steadfast
+contemplation of the calm man, and incidentally, of the feed-box. She
+knew, too, that even if she should open the kitchen door, three heads,
+and perhaps four, would turn casually in her direction. Their ears were
+real ears.
+
+Heroines, she knew, conducted these matters with infinite precision and
+despatch. They severed the hero's bonds, cried a dramatic sentence, and
+stood between him and his enemies until he had run far enough away. She
+saw well, however, that even should she achieve all things up to the
+point where she might take glorious stand between the escaping and the
+pursuers, those grim troopers in blue would not pause. They would run
+around her, make a circuit. One by one she saw the gorgeous contrivances
+and expedients of fiction fall before the plain, homely difficulties of
+this situation. They were of no service. Sadly, ruefully, she thought of
+the calm man and of the contents of the feed-box.
+
+The sum of her invention was that she could sally forth to the
+commander of the blue cavalry, and confessing to him that there were
+three of her friends and his enemies secreted in the feed-box, pray him
+to let them depart unmolested. But she was beginning to believe the old
+greybeard to be a bear. It was hardly probable that he would give this
+plan his support. It was more probable that he and some of his men would
+at once descend upon the feed-box and confiscate her three friends. The
+difficulty with her idea was that she could not learn its value without
+trying it, and then in case of failure it would be too late for remedies
+and other plans. She reflected that war made men very unreasonable.
+
+All that she could do was to stand at the window and mournfully regard
+the barn. She admitted this to herself with a sense of deep humiliation.
+She was not, then, made of that fine stuff, that mental satin, which
+enabled some other beings to be of such mighty service to the
+distressed. She was defeated by a barn with one door, by four men with
+eight eyes and eight ears--trivialities that would not impede the real
+heroine.
+
+The vivid white light of broad day began slowly to fade. Tones of grey
+came upon the fields, and the shadows were of lead. In this more sombre
+atmosphere the fires built by the troops down in the far end of the
+orchard grew more brilliant, becoming spots of crimson colour in the
+dark grove.
+
+The girl heard a fretting voice from her mother's room. "Mary!" She
+hastily obeyed the call. She perceived that she had quite forgotten her
+mother's existence in this time of excitement.
+
+The elder woman still lay upon the bed. Her face was flushed and
+perspiration stood amid new wrinkles upon her forehead. Weaving wild
+glances from side to side, she began to whimper. "Oh, I'm just sick--I'm
+just sick! Have those men gone yet? Have they gone?"
+
+The girl smoothed a pillow carefully for her mother's head. "No, ma.
+They're here yet. But they haven't hurt anything--it doesn't seem. Will
+I get you something to eat?"
+
+Her mother gestured her away with the impatience of the ill. "No--no--
+just don't bother me. My head is splitting, and you know very well that
+nothing can be done for me when I get one of these spells. It's trouble--
+that's what makes them. When are those men going? Look here, don't you
+go 'way. You stick close to the house now."
+
+"I'll stay right here," said the girl. She sat in the gloom and
+listened to her mother's incessant moaning. When she attempted to move,
+her mother cried out at her. When she desired to ask if she might try to
+alleviate the pain, she was interrupted shortly. Somehow her sitting in
+passive silence within hearing of this illness seemed to contribute to
+her mother's relief. She assumed a posture of submission. Sometimes her
+mother projected questions concerning the local condition, and although
+she laboured to be graphic and at the same time soothing, unalarming,
+her form of reply was always displeasing to the sick woman, and brought
+forth ejaculations of angry impatience.
+
+Eventually the woman slept in the manner of one worn from terrible
+labour. The girl went slowly and softly to the kitchen. When she looked
+from the window, she saw the four soldiers still at the barn door. In
+the west, the sky was yellow. Some tree-trunks intersecting it appeared
+black as streaks of ink. Soldiers hovered in blue clouds about the
+bright splendour of the fires in the orchard. There were glimmers of
+steel.
+
+The girl sat in the new gloom of the kitchen and watched. The soldiers
+lit a lantern and hung it in the barn. Its rays made the form of the
+sentry seem gigantic. Horses whinnied from the orchard. There was a low
+hum of human voices. Sometimes small detachments of troopers rode past
+the front of the house. The girl heard the abrupt calls of sentries. She
+fetched some food and ate it from her hand, standing by the window. She
+was so afraid that something would occur that she barely left her post
+for an instant.
+
+A picture of the interior of the barn hung vividly in her mind. She
+recalled the knot-holes in the boards at the rear, but she admitted that
+the prisoners could not escape through them. She remembered some
+inadequacies of the roof, but these also counted for nothing. When
+confronting the problem, she felt her ambitions, her ideals tumbling
+headlong like cottages of straw.
+
+Once she felt that she had decided to reconnoitre at any rate. It was
+night; the lantern at the barn and the camp fires made everything
+without their circle into masses of heavy mystic blackness. She took two
+steps toward the door. But there she paused. Innumerable possibilities
+of danger had assailed her mind. She returned to the window and stood
+wavering. At last, she went swiftly to the door, opened it, and slid
+noiselessly into the darkness.
+
+For a moment she regarded the shadows. Down in the orchard the camp
+fires of the troops appeared precisely like a great painting, all in
+reds upon a black cloth. The voices of the troopers still hummed. The
+girl started slowly off in the opposite direction. Her eyes were fixed
+in a stare; she studied the darkness in front for a moment, before she
+ventured upon a forward step. Unconsciously, her throat was arranged for
+a sudden shrill scream. High in the tree-branches she could hear the
+voice of the wind, a melody of the night, low and sad, the plaint of an
+endless, incommunicable sorrow. Her own distress, the plight of the men
+in grey--these near matters as well as all she had known or imagined of
+grief--everything was expressed in this soft mourning of the wind in the
+trees. At first she felt like weeping. This sound told her of human
+impotency and doom. Then later the trees and the wind breathed strength
+to her, sang of sacrifice, of dauntless effort, of hard carven faces
+that did not blanch when Duty came at midnight or at noon.
+
+She turned often to scan the shadowy figures that moved from time to
+time in the light at the barn door. Once she trod upon a stick, and it
+flopped, crackling in the intolerable manner of all sticks. At this
+noise, however, the guards at the barn made no sign. Finally, she was
+where she could see the knot-holes in the rear of the structure gleaming
+like pieces of metal from the effect of the light within. Scarcely
+breathing in her excitement she glided close and applied an eye to a
+knot-hole. She had barely achieved one glance at the interior before she
+sprang back shuddering.
+
+For the unconscious and cheerful sentry at the door was swearing away
+in flaming sentences, heaping one gorgeous oath upon another, making a
+conflagration of his description of his troop-horse. "Why," he was
+declaring to the calm prisoner in grey, "you ain't got a horse in your
+hull ---- army that can run forty rod with that there little mar'!"
+
+As in the outer darkness Mary cautiously returned to the knot-hole, the
+three guards in front suddenly called in low tones: "S-s-s-h!" "Quit,
+Pete; here comes the lieutenant." The sentry had apparently been about
+to resume his declamation, but at these warnings he suddenly posed in a
+soldierly manner.
+
+A tall and lean officer with a smooth face entered the barn. The sentry
+saluted primly. The officer flashed a comprehensive glance about him.
+"Everything all right?"
+
+"All right, sir."
+
+This officer had eyes like the points of stilettos. The lines from his
+nose to the corners of his mouth were deep, and gave him a slightly
+disagreeable aspect, but somewhere in his face there was a quality of
+singular thoughtfulness, as of the absorbed student dealing in
+generalities, which was utterly in opposition to the rapacious keenness
+of the eyes which saw everything.
+
+Suddenly he lifted a long finger and pointed. "What's that?"
+
+"That? That's a feed-box, I suppose."
+
+"What's in it?"
+
+"I don't know. I--"
+
+"You ought to know," said the officer sharply. He walked over to the
+feed-box and flung up the lid. With a sweeping gesture he reached down
+and scooped a handful of feed. "You ought to know what's in everything
+when you have prisoners in your care," he added, scowling.
+
+During the time of this incident, the girl had nearly swooned. Her
+hands searched weakly over the boards for something to which to cling.
+With the pallor of the dying she had watched the downward sweep of the
+officer's arm, which after all had only brought forth a handful of feed.
+The result was a stupefaction of her mind. She was astonished out of her
+senses at this spectacle of three large men metamorphosed into a handful
+of feed.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+It is perhaps a singular thing that this absence of the three men from
+the feed-box at the time of the sharp lieutenant's investigation should
+terrify the girl more than it should joy her. That for which she had
+prayed had come to pass. Apparently the escape of these men in the face
+of every improbability had been granted her, but her dominating emotion
+was fright. The feed-box was a mystic and terrible machine, like some
+dark magician's trap. She felt it almost possible that she should see
+the three weird man floating spectrally away through the air. She
+glanced with swift apprehension behind her, and when the dazzle from the
+lantern's light had left her eyes, saw only the dim hillside stretched
+in solemn silence.
+
+The interior of the barn possessed for her another fascination because
+it was now uncanny. It contained that extraordinary feed-box. When she
+peeped again at the knot-hole, the calm, grey prisoner was seated upon
+the feed-box, thumping it with his dangling, careless heels as if it
+were in nowise his conception of a remarkable feed-box. The sentry also
+stood facing it. His carbine he held in the hollow of his arm. His legs
+were spread apart, and he mused. From without came the low mumble of the
+three other troopers. The sharp lieutenant had vanished.
+
+The trembling yellow light of the lantern caused the figures of the men
+to cast monstrous wavering shadows. There were spaces of gloom which
+shrouded ordinary things in impressive garb. The roof presented an
+inscrutable blackness, save where small rifts in the shingles glowed
+phosphorescently. Frequently old Santo put down a thunderous hoof. The
+heels of the prisoner made a sound like the booming of a wild kind of
+drum. When the men moved their heads, their eyes shone with ghoulish
+whiteness, and their complexions were always waxen and unreal. And there
+was that profoundly strange feed-box, imperturbable with its burden of
+fantastic mystery.
+
+Suddenly from down near her feet the girl heard a crunching sound, a
+sort of a nibbling, as if some silent and very discreet terrier was at
+work upon the turf. She faltered back; here was no doubt another
+grotesque detail of this most unnatural episode. She did not run,
+because physically she was in the power of these events. Her feet
+chained her to the ground in submission to this march of terror after
+terror. As she stared at the spot from which this sound seemed to come,
+there floated through her mind a vague, sweet vision--a vision of her
+safe little room, in which at this hour she usually was sleeping.
+
+The scratching continued faintly and with frequent pauses, as if the
+terrier was then listening. When the girl first removed her eyes from
+the knot-hole the scene appeared of one velvet blackness; then gradually
+objects loomed with a dim lustre. She could see now where the tops of
+the trees joined the sky and the form of the barn was before her dyed in
+heavy purple. She was ever about to shriek, but no sound came from her
+constricted throat. She gazed at the ground with the expression of
+countenance of one who watches the sinister-moving grass where a serpent
+approaches.
+
+Dimly she saw a piece of sod wrenched free and drawn under the great
+foundation-beam of the barn. Once she imagined that she saw human hands,
+not outlined at all, but sufficient, in colour, form, or movement to
+make subtle suggestion.
+
+Then suddenly a thought that illuminated the entire situation flashed
+in her mind like a light. The three men, late of the feed-box, were
+beneath the floor of the barn and were now scraping their way under this
+beam. She did not consider for a moment how they could come there. They
+were marvellous creatures. The supernatural was to be expected of them.
+She no longer trembled, for she was possessed upon this instant of the
+most unchangeable species of conviction. The evidence before her
+amounted to no evidence at all, but nevertheless her opinion grew in an
+instant from an irresponsible acorn to a rooted and immovable tree. It
+was as if she was on a jury.
+
+She stooped down hastily and scanned the ground. There she indeed saw a
+pair of hands hauling at the dirt where the sod had been displaced.
+Softly, in a whisper like a breath, she said, "Hey!"
+
+The dim hands were drawn hastily under the barn. The girl reflected for
+a moment. Then she stooped and whispered: "Hey! It's me!"
+
+After a time there was a resumption of the digging. The ghostly hands
+began once more their cautious mining. She waited. In hollow
+reverberations from the interior of the barn came the frequent sounds of
+old Santo's lazy movements. The sentry conversed with the prisoner.
+
+At last the girl saw a head thrust slowly from under the beam. She
+perceived the face of one of the miraculous soldiers from the feed-box.
+A pair of eyes glintered and wavered, then finally settled upon her, a
+pale statue of a girl. The eyes became lit with a kind of humorous
+greeting. An arm gestured at her.
+
+Stooping, she breathed, "All right." The man drew himself silently back
+under the beam. A moment later the pair of hands resumed their cautious
+task. Ultimately the head and arms of the man were thrust strangely from
+the earth. He was lying on his back. The girl thought of the dirt in his
+hair. Wriggling slowly and pushing at the beam above him he forced his
+way out of the curious little passage. He twisted his body and raised
+himself upon his hands. He grinned at the girl and drew his feet
+carefully from under the beam. When he at last stood erect beside her,
+he at once began mechanically to brush the dirt from his clothes with
+his hands. In the barn the sentry and his prisoner were evidently
+engaged in an argument.
+
+The girl and the first miraculous soldier signalled warily. It seemed
+that they feared that their arms would make noises in passing through
+the air. Their lips moved, conveying dim meanings.
+
+In this sign-language the girl described the situation in the barn.
+With guarded motions, she told him of the importance of absolute
+stillness. He nodded, and then in the same manner he told her of his two
+companions under the barn floor. He informed her again of their wounded
+state, and wagged his head to express his despair. He contorted his
+face, to tell how sore were their arms; and jabbed the air mournfully,
+to express their remote geographical position.
+
+This signalling was interrupted by the sound of a body being dragged or
+dragging itself with slow, swishing sound under the barn. The sound was
+too loud for safety. They rushed to the hole and began to semaphore
+until a shaggy head appeared with rolling eyes and quick grin.
+
+With frantic downward motions of their arms they suppressed this grin
+and with it the swishing noise. In dramatic pantomime they informed this
+head of the terrible consequences of so much noise. The head nodded, and
+painfully, but with extreme care, the second man pushed and pulled
+himself from the hole.
+
+In a faint whisper the first man said, "Where's Sim?"
+
+The second man made low reply: "He's right here." He motioned
+reassuringly toward the hole.
+
+When the third head appeared, a soft smile of glee came upon each face,
+and the mute group exchanged expressive glances.
+
+When they all stood together, free from this tragic barn, they breathed
+a long sigh that was contemporaneous with another smile and another
+exchange of glances.
+
+One of the men tiptoed to a knot-hole and peered into the barn. The
+sentry was at that moment speaking. "Yes, we know 'em all. There isn't a
+house in this region that we don't know who is in it most of the time.
+We collar 'em once in a while--like we did you. Now, that house out
+yonder, we----"
+
+The man suddenly left the knot-hole and returned to the others. Upon
+his face, dimly discerned, there was an indication that he had made an
+astonishing discovery. The others questioned him with their eyes, but he
+simply waved an arm to express his inability to speak at that spot. He
+led them back toward the hill, prowling carefully. At a safe distance
+from the barn he halted, and as they grouped eagerly about him, he
+exploded in an intense undertone: "Why, that--that's Cap'n Sawyer they
+got in yonder."
+
+"Cap'n Sawyer!" incredulously whispered the other men.
+
+But the girl had something to ask. "How did you get out of that feed-
+box?" He smiled. "Well, when you put us in there, we was just in a
+minute when we allowed it wasn't a mighty safe place, and we allowed
+we'd get out. And we did. We skedaddled 'round and 'round until it
+'peared like we was going to get cotched, and then we flung ourselves
+down in the cow-stalls where it's low-like--just dirt floor--and then we
+just naturally went a-whooping under the barn floor when the Yanks come.
+And we didn't know Cap'n Sawyer by his voice nohow. We heard 'im
+discoursing, and we allowed it was a mighty pert man, but we didn't know
+that it was him. No, m'm."
+
+These three men, so recently from a situation of peril, seemed suddenly
+to have dropped all thought of it. They stood with sad faces looking at
+the barn. They seemed to be making no plans at all to reach a place of
+more complete safety. They were halted and stupefied by some unknown
+calamity.
+
+"How do you raikon they cotch him, Sim?" one whispered mournfully.
+
+"I don't know," replied another in the same tone.
+
+Another with a low snarl expressed in two words his opinion of the
+methods of Fate: "Oh, hell!"
+
+The three men started then as if simultaneously stung, and gazed at the
+young girl who stood silently near them. The man who had sworn began to
+make agitated apology: "Pardon, miss! 'Pon my soul, I clean forgot you
+was by. 'Deed, and I wouldn't swear like that if I had knowed. 'Deed, I
+wouldn't."
+
+The girl did not seem to hear him. She was staring at the barn.
+Suddenly she turned and whispered, "Who is he?"
+
+"He's Cap'n Sawyer, m'm," they told her sorrowfully. "He's our own
+cap'n. He's been in command of us yere since a long time. He's got folks
+about yere. Raikon they cotch him while he was a-visiting."
+
+She was still for a time, and then, awed, she said: "Will they--will
+they hang him?"
+
+"No, m'm. Oh no, m'm. Don't raikon no such thing. No, m'm."
+
+The group became absorbed in a contemplation of the barn. For a time no
+one moved nor spoke. At last the girl was aroused by slight sounds, and
+turning, she perceived that the three men who had so recently escaped
+from the barn were now advancing toward it.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The girl, waiting in the darkness, expected to hear the sudden crash
+and uproar of a fight as soon as the three creeping men should reach the
+barn. She reflected in an agony upon the swift disaster that would
+befall any enterprise so desperate. She had an impulse to beg them to
+come away. The grass rustled in silken movements as she sped toward the
+barn.
+
+When she arrived, however, she gazed about her bewildered. The men were
+gone. She searched with her eyes, trying to detect some moving thing,
+but she could see nothing.
+
+Left alone again, she began to be afraid of the night. The great
+stretches of darkness could hide crawling dangers. From sheer desire to
+see a human, she was obliged to peep again at the knot-hole. The sentry
+had apparently wearied of talking. Instead, he was reflecting. The
+prisoner still sat on the feed-box, moodily staring at the floor. The
+girl felt in one way that she was looking at a ghastly group in wax. She
+started when the old horse put down an echoing hoof. She wished the men
+would speak; their silence re-enforced the strange aspect. They might
+have been two dead men.
+
+The girl felt impelled to look at the corner of the interior where were
+the cow-stalls. There was no light there save the appearance of peculiar
+grey haze which marked the track of the dimming rays of the lantern. All
+else was sombre shadow. At last she saw something move there. It might
+have been as small as a rat, or it might have been a part of something
+as large as a man. At any rate, it proclaimed that something in that
+spot was alive. At one time she saw it plainly, and at other times it
+vanished, because her fixture of gaze caused her occasionally to greatly
+tangle and blur those peculiar shadows and faint lights. At last,
+however, she perceived a human head. It was monstrously dishevelled and
+wild. It moved slowly forward until its glance could fall upon the
+prisoner and then upon the sentry. The wandering rays caused the eyes to
+glitter like silver. The girl's heart pounded so that she put her hand
+over it.
+
+The sentry and the prisoner remained immovably waxen, and over in the
+gloom the head thrust from the floor watched them with its silver eyes.
+
+Finally, the prisoner slipped from the feed-box, and raising his arms,
+yawned at great length. "Oh, well," he remarked, "you boys will get a
+good licking if you fool around here much longer. That's some
+satisfaction, anyhow, even if you did bag me. You'll get a good
+walloping." He reflected for a moment, and decided: "I'm sort of willing
+to be captured if you fellows only get a d----d good licking for being
+so smart."
+
+The sentry looked up and smiled a superior smile. "Licking, hey?
+Nixey!" He winked exasperatingly at the prisoner. "You fellows are not
+fast enough, my boy. Why didn't you lick us at ----? and at ----? and at
+----?" He named some of the great battles.
+
+To this the captive officer blurted in angry astonishment: "Why, we did!"
+
+The sentry winked again in profound irony. "Yes, I know you did. Of
+course. You whipped us, didn't you? Fine kind of whipping that was! Why,
+we----"
+
+He suddenly ceased, smitten mute by a sound that broke the stillness of
+the night. It was the sharp crack of a distant shot that made wild
+echoes among the hills. It was instantly followed by the hoarse cry of a
+human voice, a far-away yell of warning, singing of surprise, peril,
+fear of death. A moment later there was a distant, fierce spattering of
+shots. The sentry and the prisoner stood facing each other, their lips
+apart, listening.
+
+The orchard at that instant awoke to sudden tumult. There were the thud
+and scramble and scamper of feet, the mellow, swift clash of arms, men's
+voices in question, oath, command, hurried and unhurried, resolute and
+frantic. A horse sped along the road at a raging gallop. A loud voice
+shouted, "What is it, Ferguson?" Another voice yelled something
+incoherent. There was a sharp, discordant chorus of command. An
+uproarious volley suddenly rang from the orchard. The prisoner in grey
+moved from his intent, listening attitude. Instantly the eyes of the
+sentry blazed, and he said with a new and terrible sternness: "Stand
+where you are!"
+
+The prisoner trembled in his excitement. Expressions of delight and
+triumph bubbled to his lips. "A surprise, by Gawd! Now--now, you'll see!"
+
+The sentry stolidly swung his carbine to his shoulder. He sighted
+carefully along the barrel until it pointed at the prisoner's head,
+about at his nose. "Well, I've got you, anyhow. Remember that! Don't
+move!"
+
+The prisoner could not keep his arms from nervously gesturing. "I
+won't; but----"
+
+"And shut your mouth!"
+
+The three comrades of the sentry flung themselves into view. "Pete--
+devil of a row!--can you----"
+
+"I've got him," said the sentry calmly and without moving. It was as if
+the barrel of the carbine rested on piers of stone. The three comrades
+turned and plunged into the darkness.
+
+In the orchard it seemed as if two gigantic animals were engaged in a
+mad, floundering encounter, snarling, howling in a whirling chaos of
+noise and motion. In the barn the prisoner and his guard faced each
+other in silence.
+
+As for the girl at the knot-hole, the sky had fallen at the beginning
+of this clamour. She would not have been astonished to see the stars
+swinging from their abodes, and the vegetation, the barn, all blow away.
+It was the end of everything, the grand universal murder. When two of
+the three miraculous soldiers who formed the original feed-box corps
+emerged in detail from the hole under the beam, and slid away into the
+darkness, she did no more than glance at them.
+
+Suddenly she recollected the head with silver eyes. She started forward
+and again applied her eyes to the knot-hole. Even with the din
+resounding from the orchard, from up the road and down the road, from
+the heavens and from the deep earth, the central fascination was this
+mystic head. There, to her, was the dark god of the tragedy.
+
+The prisoner in grey at this moment burst into a laugh that was no more
+than a hysterical gurgle. "Well, you can't hold that gun out for ever!
+Pretty soon you'll have to lower it."
+
+The sentry's voice sounded slightly muffled, for his cheek was pressed
+against the weapon. "I won't be tired for some time yet."
+
+The girl saw the head slowly rise, the eyes fixed upon the sentry's
+face. A tall, black figure slunk across the cow-stalls and vanished back
+of old Santo's quarters. She knew what was to come to pass. She knew
+this grim thing was upon a terrible mission, and that it would reappear
+again at the head of the little passage between Santo's stall and the
+wall, almost at the sentry's elbow; and yet when she saw a faint
+indication as of a form crouching there, a scream from an utterly new
+alarm almost escaped her.
+
+The sentry's arms, after all, were not of granite. He moved restively.
+At last he spoke in his even, unchanging tone: "Well, I guess you'll
+have to climb into that feed-box. Step back and lift the lid."
+
+"Why, you don't mean----"
+
+"Step back!"
+
+The girl felt a cry of warning arising to her lips as she gazed at this
+sentry. She noted every detail of his facial expression. She saw,
+moreover, his mass of brown hair bunching disgracefully about his ears,
+his clear eyes lit now with a hard, cold light, his forehead puckered in
+a mighty scowl, the ring upon the third finger of the left hand. "Oh,
+they won't kill him! Surely they won't kill him!" The noise of the fight
+in the orchard was the loud music, the thunder and lightning, the
+rioting of the tempest which people love during the critical scene of a
+tragedy.
+
+When the prisoner moved back in reluctant obedience, he faced for an
+instant the entrance of the little passage, and what he saw there must
+have been written swiftly, graphically in his eyes. And the sentry read
+it and knew then that he was upon the threshold of his death. In a
+fraction of time, certain information went from the grim thing in the
+passage to the prisoner, and from the prisoner to the sentry. But at
+that instant the black formidable figure arose, towered, and made its
+leap. A new shadow flashed across the floor when the blow was struck.
+
+As for the girl at the knot-hole, when she returned to sense she found
+herself standing with clenched hands and screaming with her might.
+
+As if her reason had again departed from her, she ran around the barn,
+in at the door, and flung herself sobbing beside the body of the soldier
+in blue.
+
+The uproar of the fight became at last coherent, inasmuch as one party
+was giving shouts of supreme exultation. The firing no longer sounded in
+crashes; it was now expressed in spiteful crackles, the last words of
+the combat, spoken with feminine vindictiveness.
+
+Presently there was a thud of flying feet. A grimy, panting, red-faced
+mob of troopers in blue plunged into the barn, became instantly frozen
+to attitudes of amazement and rage, and then roared in one great chorus:
+"He's gone!"
+
+The girl who knelt beside the body upon the floor turned toward them
+her lamenting eyes and cried: "He's not dead, is he? He can't be dead?"
+
+They thronged forward. The sharp lieutenant who had been so particular
+about the feed-box knelt by the side of the girl, and laid his head
+against the chest of the prostrate soldier. "Why, no," he said, rising
+and looking at the man. "He's all right. Some of you boys throw some
+water on him."
+
+"Are you sure?" demanded the girl feverishly.
+
+"Of course! He'll be better after awhile."
+
+"Oh!" said she softly, and then looked down at the sentry. She started
+to arise, and the lieutenant reached down and hoisted rather awkwardly
+at her arm.
+
+"Don't you worry about him. He's all right."
+
+She turned her face with its curving lips and shining eyes once more
+toward the unconscious soldier upon the floor. The troopers made a lane
+to the door, the lieutenant bowed, the girl vanished.
+
+"Queer," said a young officer. "Girl very clearly worst kind of rebel,
+and yet she falls to weeping and wailing like mad over one of her
+enemies. Be around in the morning with all sorts of doctoring--you see
+if she ain't. Queer."
+
+The sharp lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. After reflection he
+shrugged his shoulders again. He said: "War changes many things; but it
+doesn't change everything, thank God!"
+
+
+
+
+A MYSTERY OF HEROISM
+
+
+The dark uniforms of the men were so coated with dust from the
+incessant wrestling of the two armies that the regiment almost seemed a
+part of the clay bank which shielded them from the shells. On the top of
+the hill a battery was arguing in tremendous roars with some other guns,
+and to the eye of the infantry, the artillerymen, the guns, the
+caissons, the horses, were distinctly outlined upon the blue sky. When a
+piece was fired, a red streak as round as a log flashed low in the
+heavens, like a monstrous bolt of lightning. The men of the battery wore
+white duck trousers, which somehow emphasised their legs: and when they
+ran and crowded in little groups at the bidding of the shouting
+officers, it was more impressive than usual to the infantry.
+
+Fred Collins, of A Company, was saying: "Thunder, I wisht I had a
+drink. Ain't there any water round here?" Then, somebody yelled: "There
+goes th' bugler!"
+
+As the eyes of half the regiment swept in one machine-like movement,
+there was an instant's picture of a horse in a great convulsive leap of
+a death-wound and a rider leaning back with a crooked arm and spread
+fingers before his face. On the ground was the crimson terror of an
+exploding shell, with fibres of flame that seemed like lances. A
+glittering bugle swung clear of the rider's back as fell headlong the
+horse and the man. In the air was an odour as from a conflagration.
+
+Sometimes they of the infantry looked down at a fair little meadow
+which spread at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently in
+a breeze. Beyond it was the grey form of a house half torn to pieces by
+shells and by the busy axes of soldiers who had pursued firewood. The
+line of an old fence was now dimly marked by long weeds and by an
+occasional post. A shell had blown the well-house to fragments. Little
+lines of grey smoke ribboning upward from some embers indicated the
+place where had stood the barn.
+
+From beyond a curtain of green woods there came the sound of some
+stupendous scuffle, as if two animals of the size of islands were
+fighting. At a distance there were occasional appearances of swift-
+moving men, horses, batteries, flags, and, with the crashing of infantry
+volleys were heard, often, wild and frenzied cheers. In the midst of it
+all Smith and Ferguson, two privates of A Company, were engaged in a
+heated discussion, which involved the greatest questions of the national
+existence.
+
+The battery on the hill presently engaged in a frightful duel. The
+white legs of the gunners scampered this way and that way, and the
+officers redoubled their shouts. The guns, with their demeanours of
+stolidity and courage, were typical of something infinitely self-
+possessed in this clamour of death that swirled around the hill.
+
+One of a "swing" team was suddenly smitten quivering to the ground, and
+his maddened brethren dragged his torn body in their struggle to escape
+from this turmoil and danger. A young soldier astride one of the leaders
+swore and fumed in his saddle, and furiously jerked at the bridle. An
+officer screamed out an order so violently that his voice broke and
+ended the sentence in a falsetto shriek.
+
+The leading company of the infantry regiment was somewhat exposed, and
+the colonel ordered it moved more fully under the shelter of the hill.
+There was the clank of steel against steel.
+
+A lieutenant of the battery rode down and passed them, holding his
+right arm carefully in his left hand. And it was as if this arm was not
+at all a part of him, but belonged to another man. His sober and
+reflective charger went slowly. The officer's face was grimy and
+perspiring, and his uniform was tousled as if he had been in direct
+grapple with an enemy. He smiled grimly when the men stared at him. He
+turned his horse toward the meadow.
+
+Collins, of A Company, said: "I wisht I had a drink. I bet there's
+water in that there ol' well yonder!"
+
+"Yes; but how you goin' to git it?"
+
+For the little meadow which intervened was now suffering a terrible
+onslaught of shells. Its green and beautiful calm had vanished utterly.
+Brown earth was being flung in monstrous handfuls. And there was a
+massacre of the young blades of grass. They were being torn, burned,
+obliterated. Some curious fortune of the battle had made this gentle
+little meadow the object of the red hate of the shells, and each one as
+it exploded seemed like an imprecation in the face of a maiden.
+
+The wounded officer who was riding across this expanse said to himself:
+"Why, they couldn't shoot any harder if the whole army was massed here!"
+
+A shell struck the grey ruins of the house, and as, after the roar, the
+shattered wall fell in fragments, there was a noise which resembled the
+flapping of shutters during a wild gale of winter. Indeed, the infantry
+paused in the shelter of the bank appeared as men standing upon a shore
+contemplating a madness of the sea. The angel of calamity had under its
+glance the battery upon the hill. Fewer white-legged men laboured about
+the guns. A shell had smitten one of the pieces, and after the flare,
+the smoke, the dust, the wrath of this blow were gone, it was possible
+to see white lugs stretched horizontally upon the ground. And at that
+interval to the rear, where it is the business of battery horses to
+stand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag their
+guns out of the destruction, or into it, or wheresoever these
+incomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur--in this line of
+passive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not let
+them forget the iron laws of man's control of them--in this rank of
+brute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From the
+ruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, the men of the infantry could see
+one animal raising its stricken body with its fore legs, and turning its
+nose with mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky.
+
+Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. "Well, if yeh want a
+drink so bad, why don't yeh go git it?"
+
+"Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't shut up!"
+
+A lieutenant of artillery floundered his horse straight down the hill
+with as little concern as if it were level ground. As he galloped past
+the colonel of the infantry, he threw up his hand in swift salute.
+"We've got to get out of that," he roared angrily. He was a black-
+bearded officer, and his eyes, which resembled beads, sparkled like
+those of an insane man. His jumping horse sped along the column of
+infantry.
+
+The fat major, standing carelessly with his sword held horizontally
+behind him and with his legs far apart, looked after the receding
+horseman and laughed. "He wants to get back with orders pretty quick, or
+there'll be no batt'ry left," he observed.
+
+The wise young captain of the second company hazarded to the lieutenant-
+colonel that the enemy's infantry would probably soon attack the hill,
+and the lieutenant-colonel snubbed him.
+
+A private in one of the rear companies looked out over the meadow, and
+then turned to a companion and said, "Look there, Jim!" It was the
+wounded officer from the battery, who some time before had started to
+ride across the meadow, supporting his right arm carefully with his left
+hand. This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when no one
+perceived him, and he could now be seen lying face downward with a
+stirruped foot stretched across the body of his dead horse. A leg of the
+charger extended slantingly upward precisely as stiff as a stake. Around
+this motionless pair the shells still howled.
+
+There was a quarrel in A Company. Collins was shaking his fist in the
+faces of some laughing comrades. "Dern yeh! I ain't afraid t' go. If yeh
+say much, I will go!"
+
+"Of course, yeh will! You'll run through that there medder, won't yeh?"
+
+Collins said, in a terrible voice: "You see now!" At this ominous
+threat his comrades broke into renewed jeers.
+
+Collins gave them a dark scowl, and went to find his captain. The
+latter was conversing with the colonel of the regiment.
+
+"Captain," said Collins, saluting and standing at attention--in those
+days all trousers bagged at the knees--"Captain, I wan't t' get
+permission to go git some water from that there well over yonder!"
+
+The colonel and the captain swung about simultaneously and stared
+across the meadow. The captain laughed. "You must be pretty thirsty,
+Collins?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I am."
+
+"Well--ah," said the captain. After a moment, he asked, "Can't you wait?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The colonel was watching Collins's face. "Look here, my lad," he said,
+in a pious sort of a voice--"Look here, my lad"--Collins was not a lad--
+"don't you think that's taking pretty big risks for a little drink of
+water."
+
+"I dunno," said Collins uncomfortably. Some of the resentment toward
+his companions, which perhaps had forced him into this affair, was
+beginning to fade. "I dunno wether 'tis."
+
+The colonel and the captain contemplated him for a time.
+
+"Well," said the captain finally.
+
+"Well," said the colonel, "if you want to go, why, go."
+
+Collins saluted. "Much obliged t' yeh."
+
+As he moved away the colonel called after him. "Take some of the other
+boys' canteens with you an' hurry back now."
+
+"Yes, sir, I will."
+
+The colonel and the captain looked at each other then, for it had
+suddenly occurred that they could not for the life of them tell whether
+Collins wanted to go or whether he did not.
+
+They turned to regard Collins, and as they perceived him surrounded by
+gesticulating comrades, the colonel said: "Well, by thunder! I guess
+he's going."
+
+Collins appeared as a man dreaming. In the midst of the questions, the
+advice, the warnings, all the excited talk of his company mates, he
+maintained a curious silence.
+
+They were very busy in preparing him for his ordeal. When they
+inspected him carefully, it was somewhat like the examination that
+grooms give a horse before a race; and they were amazed, staggered by
+the whole affair. Their astonishment found vent in strange repetitions.
+
+"Are yeh sure a-goin'?" they demanded again and again.
+
+"Certainly I am," cried Collins at last furiously.
+
+He strode sullenly away from them. He was swinging five or six canteens
+by their cords. It seemed that his cap would not remain firmly on his
+head, and often he reached and pulled it down over his brow.
+
+There was a general movement in the compact column. The long animal-like
+thing moved slightly. Its four hundred eyes were turned upon the figure
+of Collins.
+
+"Well, sir, if that ain't th' derndest thing! I never thought Fred
+Collins had the blood in him for that kind of business."
+
+"What's he goin' to do, anyhow?"
+
+"He's goin' to that well there after water."
+
+"We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness."
+
+"Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it."
+
+"Say, he must be a desperate cuss."
+
+When Collins faced the meadow and walked away from the regiment, he was
+vaguely conscious that a chasm, the deep valley of all prides, was
+suddenly between him and his comrades. It was provisional, but the
+provision was that he return as a victor. He had blindly been led by
+quaint emotions, and laid himself under an obligation to walk squarely
+up to the face of death.
+
+But he was not sure that he wished to make a retraction, even if he
+could do so without shame. As a matter of truth, he was sure of very
+little. He was mainly surprised.
+
+It seemed to him supernaturally strange that he had allowed his mind to
+manoeuvre his body into such a situation. He understood that it might be
+called dramatically great.
+
+However, he had no full appreciation of anything, excepting that he was
+actually conscious of being dazed. He could feel his dulled mid groping
+after the form and colour of this incident. He wondered why he did not
+feel some keen agony of fear cutting his sense like a knife. He wondered
+at this, because human expression had said loudly for centuries that men
+should feel afraid of certain things, and that all men who did not feel
+this fear were phenomena--heroes.
+
+He was, then, a hero. He suffered that disappointment which we would
+all have if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deeds
+which we most admire in history and legend. This, then, was a hero.
+After all, heroes were not much.
+
+No, it could not be true. He was not a hero. Heroes had no shames in
+their lives, and, as for him, he remembered borrowing fifteen dollars
+from a friend and promising to pay it back the next day, and then
+avoiding that friend for ten months. When at home his mother had aroused
+him for the early labour of his life on the farm, it had often been his
+fashion to be irritable, childish, diabolical; and his mother had died
+since he had come to the war.
+
+He saw that, in this matter of the well, the canteens, the shells, he
+was an intruder in the land of fine deeds.
+
+He was now about thirty paces from his comrades. The regiment had just
+turned its many faces toward him.
+
+From the forest of terrific noises there suddenly emerged a little
+uneven line of men. They fired fiercely and rapidly at distant foliage
+on which appeared little puffs of white smoke. The spatter of skirmish
+firing was added to the thunder of the guns on the hill. The little line
+of men ran forward. A colour-sergeant fell flat with his flag as if he
+had slipped on ice. There was hoarse cheering from this distant field.
+
+Collins suddenly felt that two demon fingers were pressed into his
+ears. He could see nothing but flying arrows, flaming red. He lurched
+from the shock of this explosion, but he made a mad rush for the house,
+which he viewed as a man submerged to the neck in a boiling surf might
+view the shore. In the air, little pieces of shell howled and the
+earthquake explosions drove him insane with the menace of their roar. As
+he ran the canteens knocked together with a rhythmical tinkling.
+
+As he neared the house, each detail of the scene became vivid to him.
+He was aware of some bricks of the vanished chimney lying on the sod.
+There was a door which hung by one hinge.
+
+Rifle bullets called forth by the insistent skirmishers came from the
+far-off bank of foliage. They mingled with the shells and the pieces of
+shells until the air was torn in all directions by hootings, yells,
+howls. The sky was full of fiends who directed all their wild rage at
+his head.
+
+When he came to the well, he flung himself face downward and peered
+into its darkness. There were furtive silver glintings some feet from
+the surface. He grabbed one of the canteens, and, unfastening its cap,
+swung it down by the cord. The water flowed slowly in with an indolent
+gurgle.
+
+And now as he lay with his face turned away he was suddenly smitten
+with the terror. It came upon his heart like the grasp of claws. All the
+power faded from his muscles. For an instant he was no more than a dead
+man.
+
+The canteen filled with a maddening slowness, in the manner of all
+bottles. Presently he recovered his strength and addressed a screaming
+oath to it. He leaned over until it seemed as if he intended to try to
+push water into it with his hands. His eyes as he gazed down into the
+well shone like two pieces of metal, and in their expression was a great
+appeal and a great curse. The stupid water derided him.
+
+There was the blaring thunder of a shell. Crimson light shone through
+the swift-boiling smoke, and made a pink reflection on part of the wall
+of the well. Collins jerked out his arm and canteen with the same motion
+that a man would use in withdrawing his head from a furnace.
+
+He scrambled erect and glared and hesitated. On the ground near him lay
+the old well bucket, with a length of rusty chain. He lowered it swiftly
+into the well. The bucket struck the water and then, turning lazily
+over, sank. When, with hand reaching tremblingly over hand, he hauled it
+out, it knocked often against the walls of the well and spilled some of
+its contents.
+
+In running with a filled bucket, a man can adopt but one kind of gait.
+So through this terrible field, over which screamed practical angels of
+death, Collins ran in the manner of a farmer chased out of a dairy by a
+bull.
+
+His face went staring white with anticipation--anticipation of a blow
+that would whirl him around and down. He would fall as he had seen other
+men fall, the life knocked out of them so suddenly that their knees were
+no more quick to touch the ground than their heads. He saw the long blue
+line of the regiment, but his comrades were standing looking at him from
+the edge of an impossible star. He was aware of some deep wheel-ruts and
+hoof-prints in the sod beneath his feet.
+
+The artillery officer who had fallen in this meadow had been making
+groans in the teeth of the tempest of sound. These futile cries,
+wrenched from him by his agony, were heard only by shells, bullets. When
+wild-eyed Collins came running, this officer raised himself. His face
+contorted and blanched from pain, he was about to utter some great
+beseeching cry. But suddenly his face straightened and he called:
+
+"Say, young man, give me a drink of water, will you?"
+
+Collins had no room amid his emotions for surprise. He was mad from the
+threats of destruction.
+
+"I can't!" he screamed, and in his reply was a full description of his
+quaking apprehension. His cap was gone and his hair was riotous. His
+clothes made it appear that he had been dragged over the ground by the
+heels. He ran on.
+
+The officer's head sank down, and one elbow crooked. His foot in its
+brass-bound stirrup still stretched over the body of his horse, and the
+other leg was under the steed.
+
+But Collins turned. He came dashing back. His face had now turned grey,
+and in his eyes was all terror. "Here it is! here it is!"
+
+The officer was as a man gone in drink. His arm bent like a twig. His
+head drooped as if his neck were of willow. He was sinking to the
+ground, to lie face downward.
+
+Collins grabbed him by the shoulder. "Here it is. Here's your drink.
+Turn over. Turn over, man, for God's sake!"
+
+With Collins hauling at his shoulder, the officer twisted his body and
+fell with his face turned toward that region where lived the unspeakable
+noises of the swirling missiles. There was the faintest shadow of a
+smile on his lips as he looked at Collins. He gave a sigh, a little
+primitive breath like that from a child.
+
+Collins tried to hold the bucket steadily, but his shaking hands caused
+the water to splash all over the face of the dying man. Then he jerked
+it away and ran on.
+
+The regiment gave him a welcoming roar. The grimed faces were wrinkled
+in laughter.
+
+His captain waved the bucket away. "Give it to the men!"
+
+The two genial, skylarking young lieutenants were the first to gain
+possession of it. They played over it in their fashion.
+
+When one tried to drink the other teasingly knocked his elbow. "Don't,
+Billie! You'll make me spill it," said the one. The other laughed.
+
+Suddenly there was an oath, the thud of wood on the ground, and a swift
+murmur of astonishment among the ranks. The two lieutenants glared at
+each other. The bucket lay on the ground empty.
+
+
+
+
+AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN
+
+I
+
+
+When the able-bodied citizens of the village formed a company and
+marched away to the war, Major Tom Boldin assumed in a manner the burden
+of the village cares. Everybody ran to him when they felt obliged to
+discuss their affairs. The sorrows of the town were dragged before him.
+His little bench at the sunny side of Migglesville tavern became a sort
+of an open court where people came to speak resentfully of their
+grievances. He accepted his position and struggled manfully under the
+load. It behoved him, as a man who had seen the sky red over the quaint,
+low cities of Mexico, and the compact Northern bayonets gleaming on the
+narrow roads.
+
+One warm summer day the major sat asleep on his little bench. There was
+a lull in the tempest of discussion which usually enveloped him. His
+cane, by use of which he could make the most tremendous and impressive
+gestures, reposed beside him. His hat lay upon the bench, and his old
+bald head had swung far forward until his nose actually touched the
+first button of his waistcoat.
+
+The sparrows wrangled desperately in the road, defying perspiration.
+Once a team went jangling and creaking past, raising a yellow blur of
+dust before the soft tones of the field and sky. In the long grass of
+the meadow across the road the insects chirped and clacked eternally.
+
+Suddenly a frouzy-headed boy appeared in the roadway, his bare feet
+pattering rapidly. He was extremely excited. He gave a shrill whoop as
+he discovered the sleeping major and rushed toward him. He created a
+terrific panic among some chickens who had been scratching intently near
+the major's feet. They clamoured in an insanity of fear, and rushed
+hither and thither seeking a way of escape, whereas in reality all ways
+lay plainly open to them.
+
+This tumult caused the major to arouse with a sudden little jump of
+amazement and apprehension. He rubbed his eyes and gazed about him.
+Meanwhile, some clever chicken had discovered a passage to safety, and
+led the flock into the garden, where they squawked in sustained alarm.
+
+Panting from his run and choked with terror, the little boy stood
+before the major, struggling with a tale that was ever upon the tip of
+his tongue.
+
+"Major--now--major----"
+
+The old man, roused from a delicious slumber, glared impatiently at the
+little boy. "Come, come! What's th' matter with yeh?" he demanded.
+"What's th' matter? Don't stand there shaking! Speak up!"
+
+"Lots is th' matter!" the little boy shouted valiantly, with a courage
+born of the importance of his tale. "My ma's chickens 'uz all stole, an'--
+now--he's over in th' woods!"
+
+"Who is? Who is over in the woods? Go ahead!"
+
+"Now--th' rebel is!"
+
+"What?" roared the major.
+
+"Th' rebel!" cried the little boy, with the last of his breath.
+
+The major pounced from his bench in tempestuous excitement. He seized
+the little boy by the collar and gave him a great jerk. "Where? Are yeh
+sure? Who saw 'im? How long ago? Where is he now? Did you see 'im?"
+
+The little boy, frightened at the major's fury, began to sob. After a
+moment he managed to stammer: "He--now--he's in the woods. I saw 'im. He
+looks uglier'n anythin'."
+
+The major released his hold upon the boy, and pausing for a time,
+indulged in a glorious dream. Then he said: "By thunder! we'll ketch th'
+cuss. You wait here," he told the boy, "and don't say a word t' anybody.
+Do you hear?"
+
+The boy, still weeping, nodded, and the major hurriedly entered the
+inn. He took down from its pegs an awkward smooth-bore rifle and
+carefully examined the enormous percussion cap that was fitted over the
+nipple. Mistrusting the cap, he removed it and replaced it with a new
+one. He scrutinised the gun keenly, as if he could judge in this manner
+of the condition of the load. All his movements were deliberate and
+deadly.
+
+When he arrived upon the porch of the tavern he beheld the yard filled
+with people. Peter Witheby, sooty-faced and grinning, was in the van. He
+looked at the major. "Well?" he said.
+
+"Well?" returned the major, bridling.
+
+"Well, what's 'che got?" said old Peter.
+
+"'Got?' Got a rebel over in th' woods!" roared the major.
+
+At this sentence the women and boys, who had gathered eagerly about
+him, gave vent to startled cries. The women had come from adjacent
+houses, but the little boys represented the entire village. They had
+miraculously heard the first whisper of rumour, and they performed
+wonders in getting to the spot. They clustered around the important
+figure of the major and gazed in silent awe. The women, however, burst
+forth. At the word "rebel," which represented to them all terrible
+things, they deluged the major with questions which were obviously
+unanswerable.
+
+He shook them off with violent impatience. Meanwhile Peter Witheby was
+trying to force exasperating interrogations through the tumult to the
+major's ears. "What? No! Yes! How d' I know?" the maddened veteran
+snarled as he struggled with his friends. "No! Yes! What? How in thunder
+d' I know?" Upon the steps of the tavern the landlady sat, weeping
+forlornly.
+
+At last the major burst through the crowd, and went to the roadway.
+There, as they all streamed after him, he turned and faced them. "Now,
+look a' here, I don't know any more about this than you do," he told
+them forcibly. "All that I know is that there's a rebel over in Smith's
+woods, an' all I know is that I'm agoin' after 'im."
+
+"But hol' on a minnet," said old Peter. "How do yeh know he's a rebel?"
+
+"I know he is!" cried the major. "Don't yeh think I know what a rebel
+is?"
+
+Then, with a gesture of disdain at the babbling crowd, he marched
+determinedly away, his rifle held in the hollow of his arm. At this
+heroic moment a new clamour arose, half admiration, half dismay. Old
+Peter hobbled after the major, continually repeating, "Hol' on a minnet."
+
+The little boy who had given the alarm was the centre of a throng of
+lads who gazed with envy and awe, discovering in him a new quality. He
+held forth to them eloquently. The women stared after the figure of the
+major and old Peter, his pursuer. Jerozel Bronson, a half-witted lad who
+comprehended nothing save an occasional genial word, leaned against the
+fence and grinned like a skull. The major and the pursuer passed out of
+view around the turn in the road where the great maples lazily shook the
+dust that lay on their leaves.
+
+For a moment the little group of women listened intently as if they
+expected to hear a sudden shot and cries from the distance. They looked
+at each other, their lips a little way apart. The trees sighed softly in
+the heat of the summer sun. The insects in the meadow continued their
+monotonous humming, and, somewhere, a hen had been stricken with fear
+and was cackling loudly.
+
+Finally, Mrs. Goodwin said: "Well, I'm goin' up to th' turn a' th'
+road, anyhow." Mrs. Willets and Mrs. Joe Peterson, her particular
+friends, cried out at this temerity, but she said: "Well, I'm goin',
+anyhow."
+
+She called Bronson. "Come on, Jerozel. You're a man, an' if he should
+chase us, why, you mus' pitch inteh 'im. Hey?"
+
+Bronson always obeyed everybody. He grinned an assent, and went with
+her down the road.
+
+A little boy attempted to follow them, but a shrill scream from his
+mother made him halt.
+
+The remaining women stood motionless, their eyes fixed upon Mrs.
+Goodwin and Jerozel. Then at last one gave a laugh of triumph at her
+conquest of caution and fear, and cried: "Well, I'm goin' too!"
+
+Another instantly said, "So am I." There began a general movement. Some
+of the little boys had already ventured a hundred feet away from the
+main body, and at this unanimous advance they spread out ahead in little
+groups. Some recounted terrible stories of rebel ferocity. Their eyes
+were large with excitement. The whole thing, with its possible dangers,
+had for them a delicious element. Johnnie Peterson, who could whip any
+boy present, explained what he would do in case the enemy should happen
+to pounce out at him.
+
+The familiar scene suddenly assumed a new aspect. The field of corn,
+which met the road upon the left, was no longer a mere field of corn. It
+was a darkly mystic place whose recesses could contain all manner of
+dangers. The long green leaves, waving in the breeze, rustled from the
+passing of men. In the song of the insects there were now omens, threats.
+
+There was a warning in the enamel blue of the sky, in the stretch of
+yellow road, in the very atmosphere. Above the tops of the corn loomed
+the distant foliage of Smith's woods, curtaining the silent action of a
+tragedy whose horrors they imagined.
+
+The women and the little boys came to a halt, overwhelmed by the
+impressiveness of the landscape. They waited silently.
+
+Mrs. Goodwin suddenly said: "I'm goin' back." The others, who all
+wished to return, cried at once disdainfully:
+
+"Well, go back, if yeh want to!"
+
+A cricket at the roadside exploded suddenly in his shrill song, and a
+woman, who had been standing near, shrieked in startled terror. An
+electric movement went through the group of women. They jumped and gave
+vent to sudden screams. With the fears still upon their agitated faces,
+they turned to berate the one who had shrieked. "My! what a goose you
+are, Sallie! Why, it took my breath away. Goodness sakes, don't holler
+like that again!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"Hol' on a minnet!" Peter Witheby was crying to the major, as the
+latter, full of the importance and dignity of his position as protector
+of Migglesville, paced forward swiftly. The veteran already felt upon
+his brow a wreath formed of the flowers of gratitude, and as he strode
+he was absorbed in planning a calm and self-contained manner of wearing
+it. "Hol' on a minnet!" piped old Peter in the rear.
+
+At last the major, aroused from his dream of triumph, turned about
+wrathfully. "Well, what?"
+
+"Now, look a' here," said Peter. "What 'che goin' t' do?"
+
+The major, with a gesture of supreme exasperation, wheeled again and
+went on. When he arrived at the cornfield he halted and waited for
+Peter. He had suddenly felt that indefinable menace in the landscape.
+
+"Well?" demanded Peter, panting.
+
+The major's eyes wavered a trifle. "Well," he repeated--"well, I'm
+goin' in there an' bring out that there rebel."
+
+They both paused and studied the gently swaying masses of corn, and
+behind them the looming woods, sinister with possible secrets.
+
+"Well," said old Peter.
+
+The major moved uneasily and put his hand to his brow. Peter waited in
+obvious expectation.
+
+The major crossed through the grass at the roadside and climbed the
+fence. He put both legs over the topmost rail and then sat perched
+there, facing the woods. Once he turned his head and asked, "What?"
+
+"I hain't said anythin'," answered Peter.
+
+The major clambered down from the fence and went slowly into the corn,
+his gun held in readiness. Peter stood in the road.
+
+Presently the major returned and said, in a cautious whisper: "If yeh
+hear anythin', you come a-runnin', will yeh?"
+
+"Well, I hain't got no gun nor nuthin'," said Peter, in the same low
+tone; "what good 'ud I do?"
+
+"Well, yeh might come along with me an' watch," said the major. "Four
+eyes is better'n two."
+
+"If I had a gun--" began Peter.
+
+"Oh, yeh don't need no gun," interrupted the major, waving his hand:
+"All I'm afraid of is that I won't find 'im. My eyes ain't so good as
+they was."
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Come along," whispered the major. "Yeh hain't afraid, are yeh?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Well, come along, then. What's th' matter with yeh?"
+
+Peter climbed the fence. He paused on the top rail and took a prolonged
+stare at the inscrutable woods. When he joined the major in the
+cornfield he said, with a touch of anger:
+
+"Well, you got the gun. Remember that. If he comes for me, I hain't got
+a blame thing!"
+
+"Shucks!" answered the major. "He ain't agoin' t' come for yeh."
+
+The two then began a wary journey through the corn. One by one the long
+aisles between the rows appeared. As they glanced along each of them it
+seemed as if some gruesome thing had just previously vacated it. Old
+Peter halted once and whispered: "Say, look a' here; supposin'--
+supposin'--"
+
+"Supposin' what?" demanded the major.
+
+"Supposin'--" said Peter. "Well, remember you got th' gun, an' I hain't
+got anythin'."
+
+"Thunder!" said the major.
+
+When they got to where the stalks were very short because of the shade
+cast by the trees of the wood, they halted again. The leaves were gently
+swishing in the breeze. Before them stretched the mystic green wall of
+the forest, and there seemed to be in it eyes which followed each of
+their movements.
+
+Peter at last said, "I don't believe there's anybody in there."
+
+"Yes, there is, too," said the major. "I'll bet anythin' he's in there."
+
+"How d' yeh know?" asked Peter. "I'll bet he ain't within a mile o'
+here."
+
+The major suddenly ejaculated, "Listen!"
+
+They bent forward, scarce breathing, their mouths agape, their eyes
+glinting. Finally, the major turned his head. "Did yeh hear that?" he
+said hoarsely.
+
+"No," said Peter in a low voice. "What was it?"
+
+The major listened for a moment. Then he turned again. "I thought I
+heerd somebody holler!" he explained cautiously.
+
+They both bent forward and listened once more. Peter, in the intentness
+of his attitude, lost his balance, and was obliged to lift his foot
+hastily and with noise. "S-s-sh!" hissed the major.
+
+After a minute Peter spoke quite loudly: "Oh, shucks! I don't believe
+yeh heerd anythin'."
+
+The major made a frantic downward gesture with his hand. "Shet up, will
+yeh!" he said in an angry undertone.
+
+Peter became silent for a moment, but presently he said again: "Oh, yeh
+didn't hear anythin'."
+
+The major turned to glare at his companion in despair and wrath.
+
+"What's th' matter with yeh? Can't yeh shet up?"
+
+"Oh, this here ain't no use. If you're goin' in after 'im, why don't
+yeh go in after 'im?"
+
+"Well, gimme time, can't yeh?" said the major in a growl. And, as if to
+add more to this reproach, he climbed the fence that compassed the
+woods, looking resentfully back at his companion.
+
+"Well," said Peter, when the major paused.
+
+The major stepped down upon the thick carpet of brown leaves that
+stretched under the trees. He turned then to whisper: "You wait here,
+will yeh?" His face was red with determination.
+
+"Well, hol' on a minnet!" said Peter. "You--I--we'd better--"
+
+"No," said the major. "You wait here."
+
+He went stealthily into the thickets. Peter watched him until he grew
+to be a vague, slow-moving shadow. From time to time he could hear the
+leaves crackle and twigs snap under the major's awkward tread. Peter,
+intent, breathless, waited for the peal of sudden tragedy. Finally, the
+woods grew silent in a solemn and impressive hush that caused Peter to
+feel the thumping of his heart. He began to look about him to make sure
+that nothing should spring upon him from the sombre shadows. He
+scrutinised this cool gloom before him, and at times he thought he could
+perceive the moving of swift silent shapes. He concluded that he had
+better go back and try to muster some assistance to the major.
+
+As Peter came through the corn, the women in the road caught sight of
+the glittering figure and screamed. Many of them began to run. The
+little boys, with all their valour, scurried away in clouds. Mrs. Joe
+Peterson, however, cast a glance over her shoulders as she, with her
+skirts gathered up, was running as best she could. She instantly stopped
+and, in tones of deepest scorn, called out to the others, "Why, it's
+on'y Pete Witheby!" They came faltering back then, those who had been
+naturally swiftest in the race avoiding the eyes of those whose limbs
+had enabled them to flee a short distance.
+
+Peter came rapidly, appreciating the glances of vivid interest in the
+eyes of the women. To their lightning-like questions, which hit all
+sides of the episode, he opposed a new tranquillity, gained from his
+sudden ascent in importance. He made no answer to their clamour. When he
+had reached the top of the fence he called out commandingly: "Here you,
+Johnnie, you and George, run an' git my gun! It's hangin' on th' pegs
+over th' bench in th' shop."
+
+At this terrible sentence, a shuddering cry broke from the women. The
+boys named sped down the road, accompanied by a retinue of envious
+companions.
+
+Peter swung his legs over the rail and faced the woods again. He
+twisted his head once to say: "Keep still, can't yeh? Quit scufflin'
+aroun'!" They could see by his manner that this was a supreme moment.
+The group became motionless and still. Later, Peter turned to say,
+"S-s-sh!" to a restless boy, and the air with which he said it smote
+them all with awe.
+
+The little boys who had gone after the gun came pattering along
+hurriedly, the weapon borne in the midst of them. Each was anxious to
+share in the honour. The one who had been delegated to bring it was
+bullying and directing his comrades.
+
+Peter said, "S-s-sh!" He took the gun and poised it in readiness to
+sweep the cornfield. He scowled at the boys and whispered angrily: "Why
+didn't yeh bring th' powder-horn an' th' thing with th' bullets in? I
+told yeh t' bring 'em. I'll send somebody else next time."
+
+"Yeh didn't tell us!" cried the two boys shrilly.
+
+"S-s-sh! Quit yeh noise," said Peter, with a violent gesture.
+
+However, this reproof enabled other boys to recover that peace of mind
+which they had lost when seeing their friends loaded with honours.
+
+The women had cautiously approached the fence, and, from time to time,
+whispered feverish questions; but Peter repulsed them savagely, with an
+air of being infinitely bothered by their interference in his intent
+watch. They were forced to listen again in silence to the weird and
+prophetic chanting of the insects and the mystic silken rustling of the
+corn.
+
+At last the thud of hurrying feet in the soft soil of the field came to
+their ears. A dark form sped toward them. A wave of a mighty fear swept
+over the group, and the screams of the women came hoarsely from their
+choked throats. Peter swung madly from his perch, and turned to use the
+fence as a rampart.
+
+But it was the major. His face was inflamed and his eyes were glaring.
+He clutched his rifle by the middle and swung it wildly. He was bounding
+at a great speed for his fat, short body.
+
+"It's all right! it's all right!" he began to yell some distance away.
+"It's all right! It's on'y ol' Milt' Jacoby!"
+
+When he arrived at the top of the fence he paused, and mopped his brow.
+
+"What?" they thundered, in an agony of sudden, unreasoning
+disappointment.
+
+Mrs. Joe Peterson, who was a distant connection of Milton Jacoby,
+thought to forestall any damage to her social position by saying at once
+disdainfully, "Drunk, I s'pose!"
+
+"Yep," said the major, still on the fence, and mopping his brow. "Drunk
+as a fool. Thunder! I was surprised. I--I--thought it was a rebel, sure."
+
+The thoughts of all these women wavered for a time. They were at a loss
+for precise expression of their emotion. At last, however, they hurled
+this superior sentence at the major:
+
+"Well, yeh might have known."
+
+
+
+
+A GREY SLEEVE
+
+I
+
+
+"It looks as if it might rain this afternoon," remarked the lieutenant
+of artillery.
+
+"So it does," the infantry captain assented. He glanced casually at the
+sky. When his eyes had lowered to the green-shadowed landscape before
+him, he said fretfully: "I wish those fellows out yonder would quit
+pelting at us. They've been at it since noon."
+
+At the edge of a grove of maples, across wide fields, there
+occasionally appeared little puffs of smoke of a dull hue in this gloom
+of sky which expressed an impending rain. The long wave of blue and
+steel in the field moved uneasily at the eternal barking of the far-away
+sharpshooters, and the men, leaning upon their rifles, stared at the
+grove of maples. Once a private turned to borrow some tobacco from a
+comrade in the rear rank, but, with his hand still stretched out, he
+continued to twist his head and glance at the distant trees. He was
+afraid the enemy would shoot him at a time when he was not looking.
+
+Suddenly the artillery officer said: "See what's coming!"
+
+Along the rear of the brigade of infantry a column of cavalry was
+sweeping at a hard gallop. A lieutenant, riding some yards to the right
+of the column, bawled furiously at the four troopers just at the rear of
+the colours. They had lost distance and made a little gap, but at the
+shouts of the lieutenant they urged their horses forward. The bugler,
+careering along behind the captain of the troop, fought and tugged like
+a wrestler to keep his frantic animal from bolting far ahead of the
+column.
+
+On the springy turf the innumerable hoofs thundered in a swift storm of
+sound. In the brown faces of the troopers their eyes were set like bits
+of flashing steel.
+
+The long line of the infantry regiments standing at ease underwent a
+sudden movement at the rush of the passing squadron. The foot soldiers
+turned their heads to gaze at the torrent of horses and men.
+
+The yellow folds of the flag fluttered back in silken, shuddering
+waves, as if it were a reluctant thing. Occasionally a giant spring of a
+charger would rear the firm and sturdy figure of a soldier suddenly head
+and shoulders above his comrades. Over the noise of the scudding hoofs
+could be heard the creaking of leather trappings, the jingle and clank
+of steel, and the tense, low-toned commands or appeals of the men to
+their horses; and the horses were mad with the headlong sweep of this
+movement. Powerful under jaws bent back and straightened, so that the
+bits were clamped as rigidly as vices upon the teeth, and glistening
+necks arched in desperate resistance to the hands at the bridles.
+Swinging their heads in rage at the granite laws of their lives, which
+compelled even their angers and their ardours to chosen directions and
+chosen faces, their flight was as a flight of harnessed demons.
+
+The captain's bay kept its pace at the head of the squadron with the
+lithe bounds of a thoroughbred, and this horse was proud as a chief at
+the roaring trample of his fellows behind him. The captain's glance was
+calmly upon the grove of maples whence the sharpshooters of the enemy
+had been picking at the blue line. He seemed to be reflecting. He
+stolidly rose and fell with the plunges of his horse in all the
+indifference of a deacon's figure seated plumply in church. And it
+occurred to many of the watching infantry to wonder why this officer
+could remain imperturbable and reflective when his squadron was
+thundering and swarming behind him like the rushing of a flood.
+
+The column swung in a sabre-curve toward a break in a fence, and dashed
+into a roadway. Once a little plank bridge was encountered, and the
+sound of the hoofs upon it was like the long roll of many drums. An old
+captain in the infantry turned to his first lieutenant and made a
+remark, which was a compound of bitter disparagement of cavalry in
+general and soldierly admiration of this particular troop.
+
+Suddenly the bugle sounded, and the column halted with a jolting
+upheaval amid sharp, brief cries. A moment later the men had tumbled
+from their horses, and, carbines in hand, were running in a swarm toward
+the grove of maples. In the road one of every four of the troopers was
+standing with braced legs, and pulling and hauling at the bridles of
+four frenzied horses.
+
+The captain was running awkwardly in his boots. He held his sabre low,
+so that the point often threatened to catch in the turf. His yellow hair
+ruffled out from under his faded cap. "Go in hard now!" he roared, in a
+voice of hoarse fury. His face was violently red.
+
+The troopers threw themselves upon the grove like wolves upon a great
+animal. Along the whole front of woods there was the dry crackling of
+musketry, with bitter, swift flashes and smoke that writhed like stung
+phantoms. The troopers yelled shrilly and spanged bullets low into the
+foliage.
+
+For a moment, when near the woods, the line almost halted. The men
+struggled and fought for a time like swimmers encountering a powerful
+current. Then with a supreme effort they went on again. They dashed
+madly at the grove, whose foliage from the high light of the field was
+as inscrutable as a wall.
+
+Then suddenly each detail of the calm trees became apparent, and with a
+few more frantic leaps the men were in the cool gloom of the woods.
+There was a heavy odour as from burned paper. Wisps of grey smoke wound
+upward. The men halted and, grimy, perspiring, and puffing, they
+searched the recesses of the woods with eager, fierce glances. Figures
+could be seen flitting afar off. A dozen carbines rattled at them in an
+angry volley.
+
+During this pause the captain strode along the line, his face lit with
+a broad smile of contentment. "When he sends this crowd to do anything,
+I guess he'll find we do it pretty sharp," he said to the grinning
+lieutenant.
+
+"Say, they didn't stand that rush a minute, did they?" said the
+subaltern. Both officers were profoundly dusty in their uniforms, and
+their faces were soiled like those of two urchins.
+
+Out in the grass behind them were three tumbled and silent forms.
+
+Presently the line moved forward again. The men went from tree to tree
+like hunters stalking game. Some at the left of the line fired
+occasionally, and those at the right gazed curiously in that direction.
+The men still breathed heavily from their scramble across the field.
+
+Of a sudden a trooper halted and said: "Hello! there's a house!" Every
+one paused. The men turned to look at their leader.
+
+The captain stretched his neck and swung his head from side to side.
+"By George, it is a house!" he said.
+
+Through the wealth of leaves there vaguely loomed the form of a large
+white house. These troopers, brown-faced from many days of campaigning,
+each feature of them telling of their placid confidence and courage,
+were stopped abruptly by the appearance of this house. There was some
+subtle suggestion--some tale of an unknown thing--which watched them
+from they knew not what part of it.
+
+A rail fence girded a wide lawn of tangled grass. Seven pines stood
+along a drive-way which led from two distant posts of a vanished gate.
+The blue-clothed troopers moved forward until they stood at the fence
+peering over it.
+
+The captain put one hand on the top rail and seemed to be about to
+climb the fence, when suddenly he hesitated, and said in a low voice:
+"Watson, what do you think of it?"
+
+The lieutenant stared at the house. "Derned if I know!" he replied.
+
+The captain pondered. It happened that the whole company had turned a
+gaze of profound awe and doubt upon this edifice which confronted them.
+The men were very silent.
+
+At last the captain swore and said: "We are certainly a pack of fools.
+Derned old deserted house halting a company of Union cavalry, and making
+us gape like babies!"
+
+"Yes, but there's something--something----" insisted the subaltern in a
+half stammer.
+
+"Well, if there's 'something--something' in there, I'll get it out,"
+said the captain. "Send Sharpe clean around to the other side with about
+twelve men, so we will sure bag your 'something--something,' and I'll
+take a few of the boys and find out what's in the d----d old thing!"
+
+He chose the nearest eight men for his "storming party," as the
+lieutenant called it. After he had waited some minutes for the others to
+get into position, he said "Come ahead" to his eight men, and climbed
+the fence.
+
+The brighter light of the tangled lawn made him suddenly feel
+tremendously apparent, and he wondered if there could be some mystic
+thing in the house which was regarding this approach. His men trudged
+silently at his back. They stared at the windows and lost themselves in
+deep speculations as to the probability of there being, perhaps, eyes
+behind the blinds--malignant eyes, piercing eyes.
+
+Suddenly a corporal in the party gave vent to a startled exclamation,
+and half threw his carbine into position. The captain turned quickly,
+and the corporal said: "I saw an arm move the blinds--an arm with a grey
+sleeve!"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Jones, now," said the captain sharply.
+
+"I swear t'--" began the corporal, but the captain silenced him.
+
+When they arrived at the front of the house, the troopers paused, while
+the captain went softly up the front steps. He stood before the large
+front door and studied it. Some crickets chirped in the long grass, and
+the nearest pine could be heard in its endless sighs. One of the
+privates moved uneasily, and his foot crunched the gravel. Suddenly the
+captain swore angrily and kicked the door with a loud crash. It flew open.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The bright lights of the day flashed into the old house when the
+captain angrily kicked open the door. He was aware of a wide hallway,
+carpeted with matting and extending deep into the dwelling. There was
+also an old walnut hat-rack and a little marble-topped table with a vase
+and two books upon it. Farther back was a great, venerable fireplace
+containing dreary ashes.
+
+But directly in front of the captain was a young girl. The flying open
+of the door had obviously been an utter astonishment to her, and she
+remained transfixed there in the middle of the floor, staring at the
+captain with wide eyes.
+
+She was like a child caught at the time of a raid upon the cake. She
+wavered to and fro upon her feet, and held her hands behind her. There
+were two little points of terror in her eyes, as she gazed up at the
+young captain in dusty blue, with his reddish, bronze complexion, his
+yellow hair, his bright sabre held threateningly.
+
+These two remained motionless and silent, simply staring at each other
+for some moments.
+
+The captain felt his rage fade out of him and leave his mind limp. He
+had been violently angry, because this house had made him feel hesitant,
+wary. He did not like to be wary. He liked to feel confident, sure. So
+he had kicked the door open, and had been prepared, to march in like a
+soldier of wrath.
+
+But now he began, for one thing, to wonder if his uniform was so dusty
+and old in appearance. Moreover, he had a feeling that his face was
+covered with a compound of dust, grime, and perspiration. He took a step
+forward and said: "I didn't mean to frighten you." But his voice was
+coarse from his battle-howling. It seemed to him to have hempen fibres
+in it.
+
+The girl's breath came in little, quick gasps, and she looked at him as
+she would have looked at a serpent.
+
+"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said again.
+
+The girl, still with her hands behind her, began to back away.
+
+"Is there any one else in the house?" he went on, while slowly
+following her. "I don't wish to disturb you, but we had a fight with
+some rebel skirmishers in the woods, and I thought maybe some of them
+might have come in here. In fact, I was pretty sure of it. Are there any
+of them here?"
+
+The girl looked at him and said, "No!" He wondered why extreme
+agitation made the eyes of some women so limpid and bright.
+
+"Who is here besides yourself?"
+
+By this time his pursuit had driven her to the end of the hall, and she
+remained there with her back to the wall and her hands still behind her.
+When she answered this question, she did not look at him but down at the
+floor. She cleared her voice and then said: "There is no one here."
+
+"No one?"
+
+She lifted her eyes to him in that appeal that the human being must
+make even to falling trees, crashing boulders, the sea in a storm, and
+said, "No, no, there is no one here." He could plainly see her tremble.
+
+Of a sudden he bethought him that she continually kept her hands behind
+her. As he recalled her air when first discovered, he remembered she
+appeared precisely as a child detected at one of the crimes of
+childhood. Moreover, she had always backed away from him. He thought now
+that she was concealing something which was an evidence of the presence
+of the enemy in the house.
+
+"What are you holding behind you?" he said suddenly.
+
+She gave a little quick moan, as if some grim hand had throttled her.
+
+"What are you holding behind you?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--please. I am not holding anything behind me; indeed I'm
+not."
+
+"Very well. Hold your hands out in front of you, then."
+
+"Oh, indeed, I'm not holding anything behind me. Indeed I'm not."
+
+"Well," he began. Then he paused, and remained for a moment dubious.
+Finally, he laughed. "Well, I shall have my men search the house,
+anyhow. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I feel sure that there is some one
+here whom we want." He turned to the corporal, who with the other men
+was gaping quietly in at the door, and said: "Jones, go through the
+house."
+
+As for himself, he remained planted in front of the girl, for she
+evidently did not dare to move and allow him to see what she held so
+carefully behind her back. So she was his prisoner.
+
+The men rummaged around on the ground floor of the house. Sometimes the
+captain called to them, "Try that closet," "Is there any cellar?" But
+they found no one, and at last they went trooping toward the stairs
+which led to the second floor.
+
+But at this movement on the part of the men the girl uttered a cry--a
+cry of such fright and appeal that the men paused. "Oh, don't go up
+there! Please don't go up there!--ple-ease! There is no one there!
+Indeed--indeed there is not! Oh, ple-ease!"
+
+"Go on, Jones," said the captain calmly.
+
+The obedient corporal made a preliminary step, and the girl bounded
+toward the stairs with another cry.
+
+As she passed him, the captain caught sight of that which she had
+concealed behind her back, and which she had forgotten in this supreme
+moment. It was a pistol.
+
+She ran to the first step, and standing there, faced the men, one hand
+extended with perpendicular palm, and the other holding the pistol at
+her side. "Oh, please, don't go up there! Nobody is there--indeed, there
+is not! P-l-e-a-s-e!" Then suddenly she sank swiftly down upon the step,
+and, huddling forlornly, began to weep in the agony and with the
+convulsive tremors of an infant. The pistol fell from her fingers and
+rattled down to the floor.
+
+The astonished troopers looked at their astonished captain. There was a
+short silence.
+
+Finally, the captain stooped and picked up the pistol. It was a heavy
+weapon of the army pattern. He ascertained that it was empty.
+
+He leaned toward the shaking girl, and said gently: "Will you tell me
+what you were going to do with this pistol?"
+
+He had to repeat the question a number of times, but at last a muffled
+voice said, "Nothing."
+
+"Nothing!" He insisted quietly upon a further answer. At the tender
+tones of the captain's voice, the phlegmatic corporal turned and winked
+gravely at the man next to him.
+
+"Won't you tell me?"
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"Please tell me!"
+
+The silent privates were moving their feet uneasily and wondering how
+long they were to wait.
+
+The captain said: "Please, won't you tell me?"
+
+Then this girl's voice began in stricken tones half coherent, and amid
+violent sobbing: "It was grandpa's. He--he--he said he was going to
+shoot anybody who came in here--he didn't care if there were thousands
+of 'em. And--and I know he would, and I was afraid they'd kill him. And
+so--and--so I stole away his pistol--and I was going to hide it when
+you--you--you kicked open the door."
+
+The men straightened up and looked at each other. The girl began to
+weep again.
+
+The captain mopped his brow. He peered down at the girl. He mopped his
+brow again. Suddenly he said: "Ah, don't cry like that."
+
+He moved restlessly and looked down at his boots. He mopped his brow
+again.
+
+Then he gripped the corporal by the arm and dragged him some yards back
+from the others. "Jones," he said, in an intensely earnest voice, "will
+you tell me what in the devil I am going to do?"
+
+The corporal's countenance became illuminated with satisfaction at
+being thus requested to advise his superior officer. He adopted an air
+of great thought, and finally said: "Well, of course, the feller with
+the grey sleeve must be upstairs, and we must get past the girl and up
+there somehow. Suppose I take her by the arm and lead her--"
+
+"What!" interrupted the captain from between his clinched teeth. As he
+turned away from the corporal, he said fiercely over his shoulder: "You
+touch that girl and I'll split your skull!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The corporal looked after his captain with an expression of mingled
+amazement, grief, and philosophy. He seemed to be saying to himself that
+there unfortunately were times, after all, when one could not rely upon
+the most reliable of men. When he returned to the group he found the
+captain bending over the girl and saying: "Why is it that you don't want
+us to search upstairs?"
+
+The girl's head was buried in her crossed arms. Locks of her hair had
+escaped from their fastenings, and these fell upon her shoulder.
+
+"Won't you tell me?"
+
+The corporal here winked again at the man next to him.
+
+"Because," the girl moaned--"because--there isn't anybody up there."
+
+The captain at last said timidly: "Well, I'm afraid--I'm afraid we'll
+have to----"
+
+The girl sprang to her feet again, and implored him with her hands. She
+looked deep into his eyes with her glance, which was at this time like
+that of the fawn when it says to the hunter, "Have mercy upon me!"
+
+These two stood regarding each other. The captain's foot was on the
+bottom step, but he seemed to be shrinking. He wore an air of being
+deeply wretched and ashamed. There was a silence!
+
+Suddenly the corporal said in a quick, low tone: "Look out, captain!"
+
+All turned their eyes swiftly toward the head of the stairs. There had
+appeared there a youth in a grey uniform. He stood looking coolly down
+at them. No word was said by the troopers. The girl gave vent to a
+little wail of desolation, "O Harry!"
+
+He began slowly to descend the stairs. His right arm was in a white
+sling, and there were some fresh blood-stains upon the cloth. His face
+was rigid and deathly pale, but his eyes flashed like lights. The girl
+was again moaning in an utterly dreary fashion, as the youth came slowly
+down toward the silent men in blue.
+
+Six steps from the bottom of the flight he halted and said: "I reckon
+it's me you're looking for."
+
+The troopers had crowded forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervous
+attitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved. At
+the youth's question he merely nodded his head and said, "Yes."
+
+The young man in grey looked down at the girl, and then, in the same
+even tone which now, however, seemed to vibrate with suppressed fury, he
+said: "And is that any reason why you should insult my sister?"
+
+At this sentence, the girl intervened, desperately, between the young
+man in grey and the officer in blue. "Oh, don't, Harry, don't! He was
+good to me! He was good to me, Harry--indeed he was!"
+
+The youth came on in his quiet, erect fashion, until the girl could
+have touched either of the men with her hand, for the captain still
+remained with his foot upon the first step. She continually repeated:
+"O Harry! O Harry!"
+
+The youth in grey manoeuvred to glare into the captain's face, first
+over one shoulder of the girl and then over the other. In a voice that
+rang like metal, he said: "You are armed and unwounded, while I have no
+weapons and am wounded; but--"
+
+The captain had stepped back and sheathed his sabre. The eyes of these
+two men were gleaming fire, but otherwise the captain's countenance was
+imperturbable. He said: "You are mistaken. You have no reason to--"
+
+"You lie!"
+
+All save the captain and the youth in grey started in an electric
+movement. These two words crackled in the air like shattered glass.
+There was a breathless silence.
+
+The captain cleared his throat. His look at the youth contained a
+quality of singular and terrible ferocity, but he said in his stolid
+tone: "I don't suppose you mean what you say now."
+
+Upon his arm he had felt the pressure of some unconscious little
+fingers. The girl was leaning against the wall as if she no longer knew
+how to keep her balance, but those fingers--he held his arm very still.
+She murmured: "O Harry, don't! He was good to me--indeed he was!"
+
+The corporal had come forward until he in a measure confronted the
+youth in grey, for he saw those fingers upon the captain's arm, and he
+knew that sometimes very strong men were not able to move hand nor foot
+under such conditions.
+
+The youth had suddenly seemed to become weak. He breathed heavily and
+clung to the rail. He was glaring at the captain, and apparently
+summoning all his will power to combat his weakness. The corporal
+addressed him with profound straightforwardness: "Don't you be a derned
+fool!" The youth turned toward him so fiercely that the corporal threw
+up a knee and an elbow like a boy who expects to be cuffed.
+
+The girl pleaded with the captain. "You won't hurt him, will you? He
+don't know what he's saying. He's wounded, you know. Please don't mind
+him!"
+
+"I won't touch him," said the captain, with rather extraordinary
+earnestness; "don't you worry about him at all. I won't touch him!"
+
+Then he looked at her, and the girl suddenly withdrew her fingers from
+his arm.
+
+The corporal contemplated the top of the stairs, and remarked without
+surprise: "There's another of 'em coming!"
+
+An old man was clambering down the stairs with much speed. He waved a
+cane wildly. "Get out of my house, you thieves! Get out! I won't have
+you cross my threshold! Get out!" He mumbled and wagged his head in an
+old man's fury. It was plainly his intention to assault them.
+
+And so it occurred that a young girl became engaged in protecting a
+stalwart captain, fully armed, and with eight grim troopers at his back,
+from the attack of an old man with a walking-stick!
+
+A blush passed over the temples and brow of the captain, and he looked
+particularly savage and weary. Despite the girl's efforts, he suddenly
+faced the old man.
+
+"Look here," he said distinctly, "we came in because we had been
+fighting in the woods yonder, and we concluded that some of the enemy
+were in this house, especially when we saw a grey sleeve at the window.
+But this young man is wounded, and I have nothing to say to him. I will
+even take it for granted that there are no others like him upstairs. We
+will go away, leaving your d---d old house just as we found it! And we
+are no more thieves and rascals than you are!"
+
+The old man simply roared: "I haven't got a cow nor a pig nor a chicken
+on the place! Your soldiers have stolen everything they could carry
+away. They have torn down half my fences for firewood. This afternoon
+some of your accursed bullets even broke my window panes!"
+
+The girl had been faltering: "Grandpa! O grandpa!"
+
+The captain looked at the girl. She returned his glance from the shadow
+of the old man's shoulder. After studying her face a moment, he said:
+"Well, we will go now." He strode toward the door, and his men clanked
+docilely after him.
+
+At this time there was the sound of harsh cries and rushing footsteps
+from without. The door flew open, and a whirlwind composed of blue-
+coated troopers came in with a swoop. It was headed by the lieutenant.
+"Oh, here you are!" he cried, catching his breath. "We thought----Oh,
+look at the girl!"
+
+The captain said intensely: "Shut up, you fool!"
+
+The men settled to a halt with a clash and a bang. There could be heard
+the dulled sound of many hoofs outside of the house.
+
+"Did you order up the horses?" inquired the captain.
+
+"Yes. We thought----"
+
+"Well, then, let's get out of here," interrupted the captain morosely.
+
+The men began to filter out into the open air. The youth in grey had
+been hanging dismally to the railing of the stairway. He now was
+climbing slowly up to the second floor. The old man was addressing
+himself directly to the serene corporal.
+
+"Not a chicken on the place!" he cried.
+
+"Well, I didn't take your chickens, did I?"
+
+"No, maybe you didn't, but----"
+
+The captain crossed the hall and stood before the girl in rather a
+culprit's fashion. "You are not angry at me, are you?" he asked timidly.
+
+"No," she said. She hesitated a moment, and then suddenly held out her
+hand. "You were good to me--and I'm--much obliged."
+
+The captain took her hand, and then he blushed, for he found himself
+unable to formulate a sentence that applied in any way to the situation.
+
+She did not seem to heed that hand for a time.
+
+He loosened his grasp presently, for he was ashamed to hold it so long
+without saying anything clever. At last, with an air of charging an
+intrenched brigade, he contrived to say: "I would rather do anything
+than frighten or trouble you."
+
+His brow was warmly perspiring. He had a sense of being hideous in his
+dusty uniform and with his grimy face.
+
+She said, "Oh, I'm so glad it was you instead of somebody who might
+have--might have hurt brother Harry and grandpa!"
+
+He told her, "I wouldn't have hurt em for anything!"
+
+There was a little silence.
+
+"Well, good-bye!" he said at last.
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+He walked toward the door past the old man, who was scolding at the
+vanishing figure of the corporal. The captain looked back. She had
+remained there watching him.
+
+At the bugle's order, the troopers standing beside their horses swung
+briskly into the saddle. The lieutenant said to the first sergeant:
+
+"Williams, did they ever meet before?"
+
+"Hanged if I know!"
+
+"Well, say---"
+
+The captain saw a curtain move at one of the windows. He cantered from
+his position at the head of the column and steered his horse between two
+flower-beds.
+
+"Well, good-bye!"
+
+The squadron trampled slowly past.
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+They shook hands.
+
+He evidently had something enormously important to say to her, but it
+seems that he could not manage it. He struggled heroically. The bay
+charger, with his great mystically solemn eyes, looked around the corner
+of his shoulder at the girl.
+
+The captain studied a pine tree. The girl inspected the grass beneath
+the window. The captain said hoarsely: "I don't suppose--I don't suppose--
+I'll ever see you again!"
+
+She looked at him affrightedly and shrank back from the window. He
+seemed to have woefully expected a reception of this kind for his
+question. He gave her instantly a glance of appeal.
+
+She said: "Why, no, I don't suppose you will."
+
+"Never?"
+
+"Why, no, 'tain't possible. You--you are a--Yankee!"
+
+"Oh, I know it, but----" Eventually he continued: "Well, some day, you
+know, when there's no more fighting, we might----" He observed that she
+had again withdrawn suddenly into the shadow, so he said: "Well, good-
+bye!"
+
+When he held her fingers she bowed her head, and he saw a pink blush
+steal over the curves of her cheek and neck.
+
+"Am I never going to see you again?"
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Never?" he repeated.
+
+After a long time, he bent over to hear a faint reply: "Sometimes--when
+there are no troops in the neighbourhood--grandpa don't mind if I--walk
+over as far as that old oak tree yonder--in the afternoons."
+
+It appeared that the captain's grip was very strong, for she uttered an
+exclamation and looked at her fingers as if she expected to find them
+mere fragments. He rode away.
+
+The bay horse leaped a flower-bed. They were almost to the drive, when
+the girl uttered a panic-stricken cry.
+
+The captain wheeled his horse violently, and upon his return journey
+went straight through a flower-bed.
+
+The girl had clasped her hands. She beseeched him wildly with her eyes.
+"Oh, please, don't believe it! I never walk to the old oak tree. Indeed
+I don't! I never--never--never walk there."
+
+The bridle drooped on the bay charger's neck. The captain's figure
+seemed limp. With an expression of profound dejection and gloom he
+stared off at where the leaden sky met the dark green line of the woods.
+The long-impending rain began to fall with a mournful patter, drop and
+drop. There was a silence.
+
+At last a low voice said, "Well--I might--sometimes I might--perhaps--
+but only once in a great while--I might walk to the old tree--in the
+afternoons."
+
+
+
+
+THE VETERAN
+
+
+Out of the low window could be seen three hickory trees placed
+irregularly in a meadow that was resplendent in spring-time green.
+Farther away, the old, dismal belfry of the village church loomed over
+the pines. A horse, meditating in the shade of one of the hickories,
+lazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an oblong of vivid
+yellow on the floor of the grocery.
+
+"Could you see the whites of their eyes?" said the man, who was seated
+on a soap box.
+
+"Nothing of the kind," replied old Henry warmly. "Just a lot of
+flitting figures, and I let go at where they 'peared to be the thickest.
+Bang!"
+
+"Mr. Fleming," said the grocer--his deferential voice expressed somehow
+the old man's exact social weight--"Mr. Fleming, you never was
+frightened much in them battles, was you?"
+
+The veteran looked down and grinned. Observing his manner, the entire
+group tittered. "Well, I guess I was," he answered finally. "Pretty well
+scared, sometimes. Why, in my first battle I thought the sky was falling
+down. I thought the world was coming to an end. You bet I was scared."
+
+Every one laughed. Perhaps it seemed strange and rather wonderful to
+them that a man should admit the thing, and in the tone of their
+laughter there was probably more admiration than if old Fleming had
+declared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they knew that he had
+ranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his heroism was
+fixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but then
+it was understood to be somewhere just shy of a major-general's stars.
+So, when old Henry admitted that he had been frightened, there was a
+laugh.
+
+"The trouble was," said the old man, "I thought they were all shooting
+at me. Yes, sir, I thought every man in the other army was aiming at me
+in particular, and only me. And it seemed so darned unreasonable, you
+know. I wanted to explain to 'em what an almighty good fellow I was,
+because I thought then they might quit all trying to hit me. But I
+couldn't explain, and they kept on being unreasonable--blim!--blam!
+bang! So I run!"
+
+Two little triangles of wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes.
+Evidently he appreciated some comedy in this recital. Down near his
+feet, however, little Jim, his grandson, was visibly horror-stricken.
+His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes were wide with
+astonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent grandfather
+telling such a thing.
+
+"That was at Chancellorsville. Of course, afterward I got kind of used
+to it. A man does. Lots of men, though, seem to feel all right from the
+start. I did, as soon as I 'got on to it,' as they say now; but at first
+I was pretty well flustered. Now, there was young Jim Conklin, old Si
+Conklin's son--that used to keep the tannery--you none of you recollect
+him--well, he went into it from the start just as if he was born to it.
+But with me it was different. I had to get used to it."
+
+When little Jim walked with his grandfather he was in the habit of
+skipping along on the stone pavement, in front of the three stores and
+the hotel of the town, and betting that he could avoid the cracks. But
+upon this day he walked soberly, with his hand gripping two of his
+grandfather's fingers. Sometimes he kicked abstractedly at dandelions
+that curved over the walk. Any one could see that he was much troubled.
+
+"There's Sickles's colt over in the medder, Jimmie," said the old man.
+"Don't you wish you owned one like him?"
+
+"Um," said the boy, with a strange lack of interest. He continued his
+reflections. Then finally he ventured: "Grandpa--now--was that true what
+you was telling those men?"
+
+"What?" asked the grandfather. "What was I telling them?"
+
+"Oh, about your running."
+
+"Why, yes, that was true enough, Jimmie. It was my first fight, and
+there was an awful lot of noise, you know."
+
+Jimmie seemed dazed that this idol, of its own will, should so totter.
+His stout boyish idealism was injured.
+
+Presently the grandfather said: "Sickles's colt is going for a drink.
+Don't you wish you owned Sickles's colt, Jimmie?"
+
+The boy merely answered: "He ain't as nice as our'n." He lapsed then
+into another moody silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the hired men, a Swede, desired to drive to the county seat for
+purposes of his own. The old man loaned a horse and an unwashed buggy.
+It appeared later that one of the purposes of the Swede was to get drunk.
+
+After quelling some boisterous frolic of the farm hands and boys in the
+garret, the old man had that night gone peacefully to sleep, when he was
+aroused by clamouring at the kitchen door. He grabbed his trousers, and
+they waved out behind as he dashed forward. He could hear the voice of
+the Swede, screaming and blubbering. He pushed the wooden button, and,
+as the door flew open, the Swede, a maniac, stumbled inward, chattering,
+weeping, still screaming: "De barn fire! Fire! Fire! De barn fire! Fire!
+Fire! Fire!"
+
+There was a swift and indescribable change in the old man. His face
+ceased instantly to be a face; it became a mask, a grey thing, with
+horror written about the mouth and eyes. He hoarsely shouted at the foot
+of the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it seemed, there came
+down an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time the old lady
+had been standing in her night-clothes at the bedroom door, yelling:
+"What's th' matter? What's th' matter? What's th' matter?"
+
+When they dashed toward the barn it presented to their eyes its usual
+appearance, solemn, rather mystic in the black night. The Swede's
+lantern was overturned at a point some yards in front of the barn doors.
+It contained a wild little conflagration of its own, and even in their
+excitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary vibration of
+the thrifty part of their minds at sight of this overturned lantern.
+Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a calamity.
+
+But the cattle in the barn were trampling, trampling, trampling, and
+above this noise could be heard a humming like the song of innumerable
+bees. The old man hurled aside the great doors, and a yellow flame
+leaped out at one corner and sped and wavered frantically up the old
+grey wall. It was glad, terrible, this single flame, like the wild
+banner of deadly and triumphant foes.
+
+The motley crowd from the garret had come with all the pails of the
+farm. They flung themselves upon the well. It was a leisurely old
+machine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in the habit of giving out
+water with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it, cursed it; but
+it continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the wheezy
+windlass had howled many protests at the mad-handed men.
+
+With his opened knife in his hand old Fleming himself had gone headlong
+into the barn, where the stifling smoke swirled with the air currents,
+and where could be heard in its fulness the terrible chorus of the
+flames, laden with tones of hate and death, a hymn of wonderful ferocity.
+
+He flung a blanket over an old mare's head, cut the halter close to the
+manger, led the mare to the door, and fairly kicked her out to safety.
+He returned with the same blanket, and rescued one of the work horses.
+He took five horses out, and then came out himself, with his clothes
+bravely on fire. He had no whiskers, and very little hair on his head.
+They soused five pailfuls of water on him. His eldest son made a clean
+miss with the sixth pailful, because the old man had turned and was
+running down the decline and around to the basement of the barn, where
+were the stanchions of the cows. Some one noticed at the time that he
+ran very lamely, as if one of the frenzied horses had smashed his hip.
+
+The cows, with their heads held in the heavy stanchions, had thrown
+themselves, strangled themselves, tangled themselves--done everything
+which the ingenuity of their exuberant fear could suggest to them.
+
+Here, as at the well, the same thing happened to every man save one.
+Their hands went mad. They became incapable of everything save the power
+to rush into dangerous situations.
+
+The old man released the cow nearest the door, and she, blind drunk
+with terror, crashed into the Swede. The Swede had been running to and
+fro babbling. He carried an empty milk-pail, to which he clung with an
+unconscious, fierce enthusiasm. He shrieked like one lost as he went
+under the cow's hoofs, and the milk-pail, rolling across the floor, made
+a flash of silver in the gloom.
+
+Old Fleming took a fork, beat off the cow, and dragged the paralysed
+Swede to the open air. When they had rescued all the cows save one,
+which had so fastened herself that she could not be moved an inch, they
+returned to the front of the barn, and stood sadly, breathing like men
+who had reached the final point of human effort.
+
+Many people had come running. Some one had even gone to the church, and
+now, from the distance, rang the tocsin note of the old bell. There was
+a long flare of crimson on the sky, which made remote people speculate
+as to the whereabouts of the fire.
+
+The long flames sang their drumming chorus in voices of the heaviest
+bass. The wind whirled clouds of smoke and cinders into the faces of the
+spectators. The form of the old barn was outlined in black amid these
+masses of orange-hued flames.
+
+And then came this Swede again, crying as one who is the weapon of the
+sinister fates: "De colts! De colts! You have forgot de colts!"
+
+Old Fleming staggered. It was true: they had forgotten the two colts in
+the box-stalls at the back of the barn. "Boys," he said, "I must try to
+get 'em out." They clamoured about him then, afraid for him, afraid of
+what they should see. Then they talked wildly each to each. "Why, it's
+sure death!" "He would never get out!" "Why, it's suicide for a man to
+go in there!" Old Fleming stared absent-mindedly at the open doors. "The
+poor little things!" he said. He rushed into the barn.
+
+When the roof fell in, a great funnel of smoke swarmed toward the sky,
+as if the old man's mighty spirit, released from its body--a little
+bottle--had swelled like the genie of fable. The smoke was tinted rose-
+hue from the flames, and perhaps the unutterable midnights of the
+universe will have no power to daunt the colour of this soul.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Regiment, by Stephen Crane
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE REGIMENT ***
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