Part 34 (1/2)
”The nicest in the world. A bed of oak leaves and a roof all stars.”
”You could stay here to-night. I've got a spare room.”
”You're just as good as gold,” said Allan. ”But I want to be out where I can hear the news. I'm a scout, you see.”
”I thought that, watching you come up the path. We're learning fast.
Used to be I just thought a soldier was a soldier! I never thought of there being different kinds. Do you think the army'll come this way?”
”I shouldn't be surprised,” said Allan. ”Indeed, I'm rather expecting it. But you never know. How many of your people are in it?”
”A lot of cousins. But my sons are with Johnston. Richmond's more'n a hundred miles away, I reckon, but all last night I thought I heard the cannon. Well, good-bye! I'm mighty glad to see you all again in the Valley. Be sure to come back for your breakfast--and if the army pa.s.ses I've got enough for one or two besides. Good-bye--G.o.d bless you.”
Allan left behind the small brick farmhouse, stopped for a drink at the spring, then climbed a rail fence and made across a rolling field of bright green clover to a width of blossoming woods, beyond which ran the Mt. Solon and Bridgewater road. From the forest issued a curl of blue vapour and a smell of wood smoke. The scout, entering, found a cheerful, unnecessarily large fire. Stretched beside it, upon the carpet of last year's leaves, lay Billy Maydew, for whose company he had applied upon quitting, a week before, the army between McDowell and Franklin. Allan snuffed the air. ”You build too big a fire, Billy! 'Tisn't a good scout's way of doing.”
Billy laid down horizontally upon the leaves the stick he had been whittling. ”Thar ain't anybody but home folks to smell it. Didn't we see Ashby on the black stallion draw a line like that thar stick across the Valley with a picket post for every knot?” He sat up. ”Did you get anything to eat?”
”I certainly did. There surely are good women in the land!” Allan disburdened himself. ”Rake the coals out and get the skillet.”
Afterwards they lay p.r.o.ne upon the leaves and talked. They had much of life in common; they were as at home with each other as two squirrels frequenting the same tree. Now, as they lay beneath two clouds from two briar-roots, they dwelt for some time upon Thunder Run, then from that delectable region turned to the here and now. Allan had taught Billy, finding him a most unsatisfactory pupil. Billy had in those days acquired little book learning, but a very real respect for the blond giant now lying opposite to him. Since coming to the army he had been led to deplore his deficiencies, and, a week ago, he had suggested to Allan that in the interim of active scouting the latter should continue his education. ”When thar air a chance I want to swap into the artillery. Three bands of red thar,” he drew a long finger across his sleeve, ”air my ambition. I reckon then Christianna and all the Thunder Run girls would stop saying 'Billy.' They'd say 'Sergeant Maydew.' An artillery sergeant's got to be head in ciphering, and he's got to be able to read words of mor'n one--one--”
”Syllable.”
”That's it. Now they aren't any printed books hereabouts, but you've got it all in your head--”
”I can't teach you much,” Allan had said soberly, ”whispering under bushes and listening for Schenck's cavalry! We might do something, though. You were an awful poor speller. Spell 'sergeant'--now 'ordnance'--now 'ammunition'--'battery'--'caisson'--'Howitzer'-- 'Napoleon'--'Tredegar'--'limber'--'trail'--'cannon-powder'--”
In the week Billy had made progress--more progress than in a session on Thunder Run. Now, lying in the woods a little west of Mt. Solon, waiting for the army moving back to the Valley, this time from the west, from the Allegheny fastnesses, he accomplished with eclat some oral arithmetic--”If two Yankee Parrotts are fired every eight minutes, and in our battery we serve the howitzer every nine minutes, the Napoleon every ten, the two six-pounders every eleven, and if the Yankees limber up and leave at the end of an hour, how many sh.e.l.ls will have been thrown?”--”If it is a hundred and ten miles from Harrisonburg to the Potomac, and if Old Jack's foot cavalry advances twenty-two miles a day, and if we lay off a day for a battle, and if we have three skirmishes each occupying two hours, and if Banks makes a stand of half a day at Winchester, and if Fremont executes a flank movement and delays us six hours, just how long will it be before Old Jack pushes Banks into the Potomac?”--”If Company A had ninety men when it started ('thar war a full hundred') and five men died of measles and pneumonia (”t were six'), and if we recruited three at Falling Springs, and six were killed at Mana.s.sas and sixteen wounded, half of whom never came back, and we got twelve recruits at Centreville and seven more at Winchester, and if five straggled on the Bath and Romney trip and were never heard of more, and if five were killed at Kernstown and a dozen are still in the hospital, and if ten more recruits came in at Rude's Hill and if we left four sick at Magaheysville, and if we lost none at McDowell, not being engaged, but two in a skirmish since, and if Steve Dagg straggled three times but was brought back and tried to desert twice but never got any further than the guardhouse--how many men are in Company A?”--”If”--this was Billy's--”if I have any luck in the next battle, and if I air found to have a speaking acquaintance with every d.a.m.ned thousand-legged word the captain asks me about, and I get to be a sergeant, and I air swapped into the artillery, and thar's a big fight, and my battery and Company A are near, and Sergeant Mathew Coffin gets into trouble right next door to me, and he cried out a hundred times (lying right thar in the zone of fire), 'Boys, come take me out of h.e.l.l!' and the company all was forced back, and all the gunners, and I was left thar serving my gun, just as pretty and straight, and he cried out anoth'r hundred times, 'Billy Maydew, come pick me up and carry me out of h.e.l.l'--and I just served on a hundred times, only looking at him every time the gun thundered and I straightened up--”
”For shame!” cried Allan. ”I've heard Steve Dagg say something like that about Richard Cleave.” Billy sat up indignant. ”It air not like that at all! The major air what he is, and Steve Dagg air what he is! Sergeant Mathew Coffin air what somebody or other called somebody else in that thar old history book you used to make us learn! He air 'a petty tyrant.' He air that, and Thunder Run don't like that kind. He air not going to tyrannize much longer over Billy Maydew. And don't you be comparing me to Steve Dagg. I ain't like that, and I never was.”
He lay p.r.o.ne again, insulted, and would not go on with the lesson. Allan took it calmly, made a placating remark or two, and lapsed into a friendly silence. It was pleasant in the woods, where the birds flitted to and fro, and the pink honeysuckle grew around, and from a safe distance a chipmunk daintily watched the intruders. The scout lay, drowsily happy, the suns.h.i.+ne making spun gold of his hair and beard, his carbine resting near. Back on Thunder Run, at the moment, Christianna in her pink sunbonnet, a pansy from the tollgate at her throat, rested upon her hoe in the garden she was making and looked out over the great sea of mountains visible from the Thunder Run eyrie. Shadows of clouds moved over them; then the sun shone out and they lay beneath in an amethystine dream; Christianna had had her dream the night before. In her sleep she had come upon a dark pool beneath alders, and she had knelt upon the black bank and plunged her arms to the shoulders into the water. It seemed in her dream that there was something at the bottom that she wanted--a breastpin or a piece of money. And she had drawn up something that weighed heavily and filled her arms. When she had lifted it halfway out of the water the moon came out, and it was Allan Gold. She stood now in her steep mountain garden bordered with phlox and larkspur and looked far out over the long and many ridges. She knew in which general direction to look, and with her mind's eye she tried to see the fighting men, the fighting men; and then she shook her head and bent to her hoeing--far back and high up on Thunder Run.
Thirty leagues away, in the flowering wood by the Mt. Solon road Allan sat up. ”I was nearly asleep,” he said, ”back on the mountain-side above Thunder Run.” He listened. ”Horses' hoofs--a squad at a trot, coming east! some of Ashby's of course, but you stay here and put earth on the fire while I take a look.” Rifle in hand, he threaded the thick undergrowth between the camp and the road.
It was late in the afternoon, but the road lay yet in suns.h.i.+ne between the clover and the wheat, the bloomy orchards and the woods of May.
Allan's precautions had been largely instinctive; there were no Federals, he had reason to be sure, south of Strasburg. He looked to see some changing picket post of Ashby's. But the five hors.e.m.e.n who came in sight, three riding abreast, two a little behind, had not a Valley air.
”Tidewater men,” said Allan to himself. ”How far is it to Swift Run Gap?
Shouldn't wonder if General Ewell--”
A minute later the party came in line with the woods. Allan, after another deliberate look, stepped from behind a flowering thorn. The party drew up. ”Good-afternoon, my man,” said the stars and wreath in the centre in a high, piping voice. ”Alone, are you?--Ain't straggling, I hope? Far too many stragglers--curse of this service--civilians turned soldiers and all that. What's that? You know him, Stafford? One of General Jackson's scouts?--Then do you know, pray, where is General Jackson? for, by G.o.d, I don't!”
”I came across country myself to-day, sir--I and a boy that's with me.
We've been ahead with Ashby, fending off Fremont. General Jackson is marching very rapidly, and I expect him to-night.”
”Where's he going, then?”
”I haven't the least idea, sir.”
”Well,” piped Ewell, ”I'll be glad to see him. G.o.d knows, I don't know what I'm to do! Am I to strengthen Johnston at Richmond? Am I to cross into the Valley--by G.o.d, it's lovely!--and reinforce Jackson? d.a.m.n it, gentlemen, I'm a major-general on a seesaw! Richmond in danger--Valley in danger. 'Better come to me!' says Johnston. Quite right! He needs every man. 'Better stay with Jackson,' says Lee. Quite right again! Old Jackson has three armies before him and only a handful. 'Better gallop across and find out the crazy man's own mind,' says the major-general in the middle.” He turned with the suddenness of a bird to Allan. ”By G.o.d, I'm hungry as a coyote! Have you got anything to eat?”