Part 8 (1/2)
”'T would be just right an' fittin',” remarked Mrs. Cole, ”if half the men in the world went about with a piece of pasteboard round their necks an' written on it, 'Pity the Blind!' Dinner's most ready, Tom,--an' I don't see how I'm goin' to tell him good-bye myself.”
An hour later, in his small bare room underneath the mossy roof, with the small square window through which the breezes blew, Allan stood and looked about him. Dinner was over. It had been something of a feast, with unusual dainties, and a bunch of lilacs upon the table. Sairy had on a Sunday ap.r.o.n. The three had not been silent either; they had talked a good deal, but without much thought of what was said. Perhaps it was because of this that the meal had seemed so vague, and that nothing had left a taste in the mouth. It was over, and Allan was making ready to depart.
On the floor, beside the chest of drawers, stood a small hair trunk. A neighbour with a road wagon had offered to take it, and Allan, too, down the mountain at three o'clock. In the spring of 1861, one out of every two Confederate privates had a trunk. One must preserve the decencies of life; one must make a good appearance in the field! Allan's was small and modest enough, G.o.d knows! but such as it was it had not occurred to him to doubt the propriety of taking it. It stood there neatly packed, the s.h.i.+rts that Sairy had been ironing laid atop. The young man, kneeling beside it, placed in this or that corner the last few articles of his outfit. All was simple, clean, and new--only the books that he was taking with him were old. They were his Bible, his Shakespeare, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and a Latin book or two beside. In a place to themselves were other treasures, a daguerreotype of his mother, a capacious huswife that Sairy had made and stocked for him, the little box of paper ”to write home on” that had been Tom's present, various trifles that the three had agreed might come in handy. Among these he now placed Christianna's gift. It was soft and full and bright--he had the same pleasure in handling it that he would have felt in touching a damask rose. He shut it in and rose from his knees.
He had on his uniform. They had been slow in coming--the uniforms--from Richmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence that had procured them at last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at all. So enormous was the press of business upon the authorities, so limited was the power of an almost purely agricultural, non-manufacturing world suddenly to clothe alike these thousands of volunteers, suddenly to arm them with something better than a fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, that the wonder is, not that they did so badly, but that they did so well.
Pending the arrival of the uniforms the men had drilled in strange array. With an attempt at similarity and a picturesque taste of their own, most of them wore linsey s.h.i.+rts and big black hats, tucked up on one side with a rosette of green ribbon. One man donned his grandfather's Continental blue and buff--on the breast was a dark stain, won at King's Mountain. Others drilled, and were now ready to march, as they came from the plough, the mill, or the forge. But Cleave's company, by virtue of Cleave himself, was fairly equipped. The uniforms had come, and there was a decent showing of modern arms. Billy Maydew's hunting-knife and spear would be changed on the morrow for a musket, though in Billy's case the musket would certainly be the old smoothbore, calibre sixty-nine.
Allan's own gun, left him by his father, rested against the wall. The young man, for all his quietude, his conscientious ways, his daily work with children, his love of flowers, and his dreams of books, inherited from frontiersmen--whose lives had depended upon watchfulness--quickness of wit, accuracy of eye, and steadiness of aim. He rarely missed his mark, and he read intuitively and easily the language of wood, sky, and road. On the bed lay his slouch hat, his haversack, knapsack, and canteen, cartridge-box and belt, and slung over the back of a chair was his roll of blanket. All was in readiness. Allan went over to the window. Below him were the flowers he had tended, then the great forests in their May freshness, cataracts of green, falling down, down to the valley. Over all hung the sky, divinely blue. A wind went rustling through the forest, joining its voice to the voice of Thunder Run. Allan knelt, touching with his forehead the window-sill. ”O Lord G.o.d,” he said, ”O Lord G.o.d, keep us all, North and South, and bring us through winding ways to Thy end at last.” As he rose he heard the wagon coming down the road. He turned, put the roll of blanket over one shoulder, and beneath the other arm a.s.sumed knapsack, haversack, and canteen, dragged the hair trunk out upon the landing, returned, took up his musket, looked once again about the small, familiar room, then left it and went downstairs.
Sairy and Tom were upon the porch, the owner of the wagon with them.
”I'll tote down yo' trunk,” said the latter, and presently emerged from the house with that article upon his shoulder. ”I reckon I'll volunteer myself, just as soon 's harvest's over,” he remarked genially. ”But, gos.h.!.+ you-all'll be back by then, telling how you did it!” He went down the path whistling, and tossed the trunk into the wagon.
”I hate good-byes,” said Allan. ”I wish I had stolen away last night.”
”Don't ye get killed!” answered Sairy sharply. ”That's what I'm afraid of. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!”
”G.o.d bless you,” said Tom. ”You've been like a son to us these five years. Don't you forget to write.”
”I won't,” answered Allan. ”I'll write you long letters. And I won't get killed, Aunt Sairy. I'll take the best of care.” He took the old woman in his arms. ”You two have been just as good as a father and mother to me. Thank you for it. I'll never forget. Good-bye.”
Toward five o'clock the wagon rolled into the village whence certain of the Botetourt companies were to march away. It was built beside the river--two long, parallel streets, one upon the water level, the other much higher, with intersecting lanes. There were brick and frame houses, modest enough; there were three small, white-spired churches, many locust and ailanthus trees, a covered bridge thrown across the river to a village upon the farther side and, surrounding all, a n.o.ble frame of mountains. There was, in those days, no railroad.
Cleave's hundred men, having the town at large for their friend, stood in no lack of quarters. Some had volunteered from this place or its neighbourhood, others had kinsmen and a.s.sociates, not one was so forlorn as to be without a host. The village was in a high fever of hospitality; had the companies marching from Botetourt been so many brigades, it would still have done its utmost. From the Potomac to the Dan, from the Eastern Sh.o.r.e to the Alleghenies the flame of patriotism burned high and clear. There were skulkers, there were braggarts, there were knaves and fools in Virginia as elsewhere, but by comparison they were not many, and theirs was not the voice that was heard to-day. The ma.s.s of the people were very honest, stubbornly convinced, showing to the end a most heroic and devoted ardour. This village was not behindhand. All her young men were going; she had her company, too. She welcomed Cleave's men, gathered for the momentarily expected order to the front, and lavished upon them, as on two other companies within her bounds, every hospitable care.
The wagon driver deposited Allan Gold and his trunk before the porch of the old, red brick hotel, shook hands with a mighty grip, and rattled on toward the lower end of town. The host came out to greet the young man, two negro boys laid hold of his trunk, a pa.s.sing volunteer in b.u.t.ternut, with a musket as long as Natty b.u.mpo's, hailed him, and a cl.u.s.ter of elderly men sitting with tilted chairs in the shade of a locust tree rose and gave him welcome. ”It's Allan Gold from Thunder Run, isn't it?
Good-day, sir, good-day! Can't have too many from Thunder Run; good giant stuff! Have you somewhere to stay to-night? If not, any one of us will be happy to look after you.--Mr. Harris, let us have juleps all round--”
”Thank you very kindly, sir,” said Allan, ”but I must go find my captain.”
”I saw him,” remarked a gray-haired gentleman, ”just now down the street. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball and the drivers just how to do it--and he says he isn't going to show them but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn.”
”I was thar too,” put in an old farmer. ”'They're mighty heavy wagons,'
I says, says I. 'Three times too heavy,' he says, says he. 'This company's got the largest part of its provisions for the whole war right here and now,' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks,' says I. 'More than would be needed for the White Sulphur,' he says, says he. 'This time two years we'll march lighter,' says he--”
There were exclamations. ”Two years! Thunderation!--This war'll be over before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for one year--and even that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's daft!”
”I dunno,” quoth the other. ”If fighting's like farming it's all-fired slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll march lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the old warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and he says thar's going to be a parade presently.”
An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken colours, the bands playing ”Dixie,” the quick orders, the more or less practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger over all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of great events--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and young boy who could reach the meadow were there, watching in the golden light, half wild with enthusiasm!
Wish I was in de land ob cotton, Old times dar am not forgotten Look away! look away! Dixie Land.
At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were cl.u.s.tered a number of women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures therein. They had not held them back; never in the times of history were there more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern States.
They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the men moving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the sound of music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the several companies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old parlours, behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from a wedding gown.
Look away! look away!
Look away down South to Dixie!
The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free, belonging to this village and the surrounding country, were of an excellent type, worthy and respectable men and women, honoured by and honouring their ”white people.” A number of these were in the meadow by the river, and they, too, clapped and cheered, borne away by music and spectacle, gazing with fond eyes upon some nursling, or playmate, or young, imperious, well-liked master in those gleaming ranks. Isaac, son of Abraham, or Esau and Jacob, sons of Isaac, marching with banners against Canaan or Moab, may have heard some such acclaim from the servants left behind. Several were going with the company. Captain and lieutenants, and more than one sergeant and corporal had their body-servants--these were the proudest of the proud and the envied of their brethren. The latter were voluble. ”Des look at Wash,--des look at Was.h.i.+ngton Mayo!
Actin' lak he own er co'te house an' er stage line! O my Lawd! wish I wuz er gwine! An dat dar Tullius from Three Oaks--he gwine march right behin' de captain, an' Ma.r.s.e Hairston Breckinridge's boy he gwine march right behin' him!--Dar de big drum ag'in!”