a
roughly made little needle-case such as women use, tolerably well stocked
with
sewing materials, and it had something hard and almost square
in a separate pocket. Darby opened this, and his gun almost slipped
from his hand. Inside was the Testament he had given back to Vashti
the evening before. He stopped stock-still, and gazed at it in amazement,
turning it over in his hand. He recognized the bow of pink ribbon
as one like that which she had had on her dress the evening before.
She must have dropped it. Then it came to him that she must have given it
to one of her brothers, and a pang shot through his heart.
But how did it get where he found it? He was too keen a woodsman not to know
that no
footstep had gone before his on that path that morning.
It was a
mystery too deep for him, and after puzzling over it a while
he tied the
parcel up again as nearly like what it had been before
as he could, and determined to give it to one of the Mills boys
when he reached the Cross-roads. He unbuttoned his
jacketand put it into the little inner pocket, and then rebuttoning it carefully,
stepped out again more
briskly than before.
It was perhaps an hour later that the Mills boys set out for the Cross-roads.
Their father and mother went with them; but Vashti did not go.
She had "been out to look for the cow," and got in only just before they left,
still clad in her yesterday's finery; but it was wet and bedraggled
with the soaking dew. When they were gone she sat down in the door,
limp and dejected.
More than once during the morning the girl rose and started down the path
as if she would follow them and see the company set out on its march,
but each time she came back and sat down again in the door,
remaining there for a good while as if in thought.
Once she went over almost to Mrs. Stanley's, then turned back
and sat down again.
So the morning passed, and the first thing she knew, her father and mother
had returned. The company had started. They were to march to the bridge
that night. She heard them talking over the appearance that they had made;
the speech of the captain; the cheers that went up as they marched off --
the
enthusiasm of the crowd. Her father was in much excitement.
Suddenly she seized her sun-bonnet and slipped out of the house
and across the
clearing, and the next
instant she was flying down the path
through the pines. She knew the road they had taken, and a path
that would strike it several miles lower down. She ran like a deer,
up hill and down, availing herself of every short cut, until,
about an hour after she started, she came out on the road.
Fortunately for her, the delays
incident to getting any body of new troops
on the march had detained the company, and a moment's
inspection of the road
showed her that they had not yet passed. Clambering up a bank,
she concealed herself and lay down. In a few moments she heard
the noise they made in the distance, and she was still panting from her haste
when they came along, the soldiers marching in order, as if still on parade,
and a
considerable company of friends attending them. Not a man, however,
dreamed that, flat on her face in the bushes, lay a girl peering down at them
with her
breath held, but with a heart which beat so loud to her own ears
that she felt they must hear it. Least of all did Darby Stanley,
marching erect and tall in front, for all the sore heart in his bosom,
know that her eyes were on him as long as she could see him.
When Vashti brought up the cow that night it was later than usual.
It perhaps was
fortunate for her that the change made by the absence
of the boys prevented any questioning. After all the excitement
her mother was in a fit of despondency. Her father sat in the door
looking straight before him, as silent as the pine on which
his
vacant gaze was fixed. Even when the little cooking they had
was through with and his supper was offered him, he never spoke.
He ate in silence and then took his seat again. Even Mrs. Mills's
complaining about the cow straying so far brought no word from him
any more than from Vashti. He sat silent as before, his long legs
stretched out toward the fire. The glow of the embers fell on the rough,
thin face and lit it up, bringing out the features and making them
suddenly clear-cut and strong. It might have been only the fire,
but there seemed the glow of something more, and the eyes burnt
back under the
shaggy brows. The two women
likewise were silent,
the elder now and then casting a glance at her husband. She offered him
his pipe, but he said nothing, and silence fell as before.
Presently she could stand it no longer. "I de-clar, Vashti," she said,
"I believe your pappy takes it most harder than I does."
The girl made some answer about the boys. It was hardly intended
for him to hear, but he rose suddenly, and walking to the door,
took down from the two dogwood forks above it his old, long,
single-barrelled gun, and turning to his wife said, "Git me my coat,
old woman; by Gawd, I'm a-gwine." The two women were both on their feet
in a second. Their faces were white and their hands were clenched
under the sudden
stress, their
breath came fast. The older woman
was the first to speak.
"What in the worl' ken you do, Cove Mills, ole an' puny as you is,
an' got the rheumatiz all the time, too?"
"I ken pint a gun," said the old man,
doggedly, "an' I'm a-gwine."
"An' what in the worl' is a-goin' to become of us, an' that cow
got to runnin' away so, I'm afeared all the time she'll git in the mash?"
Her tone was querulous, but it was not
positive, and when her husband
said again, "I'm a-gwine," she said no more, and all the time
she was getting together the few things which Cove would take.
As for Vashti, she seemed suddenly revivified; she moved about
with a new step, swift, supple, silent, her head up, a new light in her face,
and her eyes, as they turned now and then on her father,
filled with a new fire. She did not talk much. "I'll a-teck care o' us all,"
she said once; and once again, when her mother gave something like a moan,
she supported her with a word about "the only ones as gives three
from one family." It was a word in season, for the mother caught the spirit,
and a moment later declared, with a new tone in her voice, that that was
better than Mrs. Stanley, and still they were better off than she,
for they still had two left to help each other, while she had not a soul.
"I'll teck care o' us all,"
repeated the girl once more.
It was only a few things that Cove Mills took with him that morning,
when he set out in the darkness to
overtake the company
before they should break camp -- hardly his old game-bag half full;
for the
equipment of the boys had stripped the little cabin of everything
that could be of use. He might only have seemed to be going
hunting,
as he slung down the path with his old long-barrelled gun in his hand
and his game-bag over his shoulder, and disappeared in the darkness
from the eyes of the two women
standing in the cabin door.
The next morning Mrs. Mills paid Mrs. Stanley the first visit she had paid
on that side the branch since the day, three years before,
when Cove and the boys had the row with Little Darby. It might have
seemed
accidental, but Mrs. Stanley was the first person in the district
to know that all the Mills men were gone to the army. She went over again,
from time to time, for it was not a period to keep up open hostilities,
and she was younger than Mrs. Stanley and better off; but Vashti never went,
and Mrs. Stanley never asked after her or came.
II
The company in which Little Darby and the Millses had enlisted
was one of the many hundred
infantry companies which joined and were merged
in the Confederate army. It was in no way particularly signalized
by anything that it did. It was commanded by the gentleman
who did most toward getting it up; and the officers were gentlemen.
The seventy odd men who made the rank and file were of all classes,
from the sons of the oldest and wealthiest planters in the neighborhood
to Little Darby and the dwellers in the district. The war was very different
from what those who went into it expected it to be. Until it had gone on
some time it seemed
mainly marching and camping and staying in camp,
quite
uselessly as seemed to many, and drilling and doing nothing.
Much of the time -- e
specially later on -- was given to marching
and getting food; but drilling and camp duties at first took up most of it.
This was e
specially hard on the poorer men, no one knew what it was to them.
Some moped, some fell sick. Of the former class was Little Darby.
He was too strong to be
sickly as one of the Mills boys was,
who died of fever in hospital only three months after they went in,
and too silent to be as the other, who was jolly and could dance
and sing a good song and was soon very popular in the company;
more popular even than Old Cove, who was popular in several rights,
as being about the oldest man in the company and as having a sort of dry wit
when he was in a good humor, which he generally was. Little Darby was
hardly
distinguished at all, unless by the fact that he was somewhat taller
than most of his comrades and somewhat more taciturn. He was only
a common soldier of a common class in an ordinary
infantry company,
such a company as was common in the army. He still had the little wallet
which he had picked up in the path that morning he left home.
He had asked both of the Mills boys
vaguely if they ever had owned
such a piece of property, but they had not, and when old Cove told him
that he had not either, he had
contented himself and carried it about with him
somewhat elaborately wrapped up and tied in an old piece of oilcloth
and in his inside
jacket pocket for safety, with a vague feeling that some day
he might find the owner or return it. He was never on
specially good terms
with the Millses. Indeed, there was always a trace of coolness
between them and him. He could not give it to them. Now and then
he untied and unwrapped it in a secret place and read a little
in the Testament, but that was all. He never touched a needle
or so much as a pin, and when he untied the
parcel he generally counted them
to see that they were all there.
So the war went on, with battles coming a little oftener
and food growing ever a little scarcer; but the company was about as before,
nothing particular -- what with killing and fever a little thinned,
a good deal faded; and Little Darby just one in a crowd,
marching with the rest,
sleeping with the rest, fighting with the rest,
starving with the rest. He was hardly known for a long time,
except for his silence, outside of his mess. Men were fighting
and getting killed or wounded
constantly; as for him, he was never touched;
and as he did what he was ordered
silently and was silent when he got through,
there was no one to sing his praise. Even when he was sent out
on the
skirmish line as a sharp-shooter, if he did anything no one knew it.
He would disappear over a crest, or in a wood, and
reappear as silent
as if he were
hunting in the swamps of the district; clean his gun;
cut up wood; eat what he could get, and sit by the fire and listen
to the talk, as silent awake as asleep.
One other thing
distinguished him, he could handle an axe better than any man
in the company; but no one thought much of that -- least of all, Little Darby;
it only brought him a little more work occasionally.
One day, in the heat of a battle which the men knew was being won,
if shooting and cheering and rapid advancing could tell anything,
the advance which had been going on with spirit was suddenly checked
by a
murderousartillery fire which swept the top of a slope,
along the crest of which ran a road a little raised between two deep ditches
topped by the remains of heavy fences. The
infantry, after a gallant
and
hopelesscharge, were ordered to lie down in the ditch behind the pike,
and were sheltered from the leaden sleet which swept the crest.
Artillery was needed to clear the field beyond, by silencing the batteries
which swept it, but no
artillery could get into position for the ditches,
and the day seemed about to be lost. The only way was up the pike,
and the only break was a gate
opening into the field right on top of the hill.
The gate was gone, but two huge
wooden gate-posts, each a tree-trunk,
still stood and barred the way. No
cannon had room to turn in between them;
a
battery had tried and a pile of dead men, horses, and debris
marked its
failure. A general officer galloped up with two or three
of his staff to try to start the advance again. He saw the impossibility.
"If we could get a couple of batteries into that field for three minutes,"
he said, "it would do the work, but in ten minutes it will be too late."
The company from the old county was lying behind the bank
almost exactly opposite the gate, and every word could be heard.
Where the axe came from no one knew; but a minute later a man slung himself
across the road, and the next second the sharp, steady blows of an axe
were ringing on the pike. The axeman had cut a wide cleft in the brown wood,
and the big chips were flying before his act was quite taken in,
and then a cheer went up from the line. It was no time to cheer, however;
other chips were flying than those from the cutter's axe,
and the bullets hissed by him like bees, splintering the hard post
and knocking the dust from the road about his feet; but he took no notice