Part 2 (1/2)

He flashed back a glare of rebuke and then bellowed to heaven and earth, ”Oh, the devil and Tom Walker! I don't keep run of sutlers and citizens!” He took a circuit, standing in his stirrups and calling orders to his teamsters, and as he neared me again he said very gently, ”Good Lord! my boy, don't you know better than to shoot your mouth off like that? You'll find n.o.body with the Major but Ned Ferry, and I don't say you'll find him.”

I galloped to the road. Away down through the woods it was full of hors.e.m.e.n falling into line. With the nearest colonel was Lieutenant Helm, the aide-de-camp. I turned away from them toward Hazlehurst, but looked back distrustfully. Yes, sure enough, the whole command was facing into column the other way! My horse and I whirled and stood staring and swelling with indignation--we ordered south, and the brigade heading westward! He fretted, tramped, neighed, and began hurriedly to paw through the globe to head them off on the other side. He even threatened to rear; but when I showed him I was ashamed of that, he bore me proudly, and I sat him as proudly as he bore me, for he made me more than half my friends. And now as the aide-de-camp wheeled about from the receding column and came our way saluting cordially, we turned and trotted beside him jauntily. Our first talk was of saddles, but very soon I asked where the General was.

”Out on the Natchez Trace waiting for the command. I'm carrying orders to Fisher's battery, down here by the cross-roads. Haven't you seen the General this morning? What! haven't seen him in his new uniform? Whoop! he's a blaze of glory! Look here, Smith, I believe you know who brought it to him!”

”How on earth should I know?”

”Oh, how innocent you always are! Look here! just tell me this; was it the Major's brother brought it, or was it Ned Ferry?”

”Suppose it wasn't either.”

”I knew it! I knew it was her! Ah, you rogue, you know it was her!”

”Well, that might depend on who 'her' is.” We had reached the cross-roads and he was turning south.

”Look!” he said, and gave the glance and smile of the lady in the curtained wagon so perfectly that I cackled like a small boy. ”Oh, you know that, do you? I dare you to say she didn't bring it!”

”I give you my word I don't know!” called I as the distance grew between us. ”And I give you my word I don't care!” he crowed back as we galloped apart. His speech was two or three words longer, but they are inappropriate at the end of a chapter, and I expurgate.

V

EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN, TWENTY

On entering Hazlehurst I observed all about the railway-station a surprising amount of quartermaster's stores. A large part were cases of boots and shoes. Laden with such goods, a train of shabby box-cars stood facing south, its beggarly wood-burner engine sniffing and weeping, while the cork-legged conductor helped all hands wood up. Though homely, the picture was a stirring one. Up through the blue summer morning came the sun, bringing to mind the words of the dying Mirabeau, ”If that is not G.o.d, at least it's his first cousin.”

Even in the character of the goods there was eloquence, and not a drollery in the scene, not even an ugliness, but was touched, was rife, with the woe of a war whose burning walls were falling in on us. And outward, too, upon others; a few up-ended cottonbales leaned against each other ragged and idle, while women and babes starved for want of them in far-away Lancaster.

One of the cars furthest from the engine had no freight proper, only a number of trunks; and these were nearly hidden by the widely crinolined flounces of an elegant elderly lady who sat on the middle one. And now she, too, was hidden, and the wide doorway in the side of the car more than filled, by the fas.h.i.+onable gowns of three girls. On the ground below there stood a lieutenant in a homemade gray uniform, and at his back half a dozen big, slouching, barefoot boys squirted tobacco juice and gazed at the ladies. The officer scanned me, spoke to the ladies, scanned me again, and threw up an arm. ”Ho--o! Come here! Hullo! Come here--if you please.”

If he had not said please he should have ho'd and hullo'd in vain, but at that word I turned. Before I had covered half the distance I read New Orleans! my dear, dear old New Orleans! in every line of those ladies' draperies, and at twenty-five yards I saw one n.o.ble family likeness in all four of their sweet faces. Oh, but those three maidens were fair! and I could name each by her name at a glance: Camille, Cecile, Estelle; eighteen, nineteen, twenty!

There was a hush of attention among them as the lieutenant and I saluted. His left hand was gone at the wrist and the sleeve pinned back on itself. He asked my name; I told him. In the car there was a stir of deepening interest. I inquired if he was the post-quartermaster here. He was.

”Ain't you Major Harper's quartermaster-sergeant?” he asked.

”I am his clerk.” In the car a flash of joy and then great decorum.

As he handed me a writing he glowed kindly. It proved to be from Major Harper; a requisition upon this officer for shoes and clothing; not for a brigade, regiment or company, but for me alone, from hat to shoes. I tendered it back silently, and saw that he knew its purport already from the Major, and that the ladies knew it from him. The good fellow looked quite happy a moment, but then reddened as they joyfully crowded the car's doorway to see me fitted!

”We can select out sev'l pair--” he began, but heard a puerile t.i.tter and lost his nerve. ”Now, you boys that ain't got any business here, jest clair out!--Go! I tell you, aw I'll--” The boys loitered off toward the engine. ”We can select out sev'l si-izes,” he drawled, uncovering a box, ”and fit you ove' in my office. You ain't so pow'ful long nor so pow'ful slim, but these-yeh gov'ment contrac's they seldom ev' allow fo' anybody so slim in the waist bein' so long in the, eh,--so, eh,--so long f'om thah down. But yet still, if you'll jest light off yo' hoss and come and look into this-yeh box--”

Hmm! yes! I wouldn't have got off my horse and leaned over that box to save the Confederacy. ”I thank you, Lieutenant, but I can't stop. If you'll hand me up a jacket and pair of shoes I'll sign for them and go. I don't want a hat, but I reckon I'd as well include shoes, although really,--” I glanced down brazenly at the stirrup-leathers that so snugly hid my naked toes.

As the quartermaster lifted out a pair of brogans as broad as they were long, there came a cry of protestation from the freight-car group, that brought the entire herd of rustics from the woodpile and the locomotive. Miss Harper rose behind her nieces, tall, slender, dark, with keen black eyes as kind as they were penetrating. ”My boy!” she cried, ”you cannot wear those things!”

Camille, the youngest, whispered to her, whereupon she beckoned. ”Oh!--oh, do come here!--Mr. Smith, I am the sister of Major Harper. You're from New Orleans? Does your mother live in Apollo Street?”