of them, his axe plied as
steadily as if he had been cutting a tree
in the woods of the district, and when he had cut one side,
he turned as
deliberately and cut the other; then placing his hand high up,
he flung his weight against the post and it went down. A great cheer went up
and the axeman swung back across the road just as two batteries of
artillerytore through the
opening he had made.
Few men outside of his company knew who the man was, and few had time to ask;
for the battle was on again and the
infantry pushed forward.
As for Little Darby himself, the only thing he said was, "I knowed I could
cut it down in ten minutes." He had nine
bullet holes through his clothes
that night, but Little Darby thought nothing of it, and neither did others;
many others had
bullet holes through their bodies that night.
It happened not long afterward that the general was talking of the battle
to an English gentleman who had come over to see something of the war
and was visiting him in his camp, and he mentioned the incident
of a battle won by an axeman's
coolness, but did not know the name of the man
who cut the post away; the captain of the company, however,
was the general's cousin and was dining with his guest that day,
and he said with pride that he knew the man, that he was in his company,
and he gave the name.
"It is a fine old name," said the visitor.
"And he is a fine man," said the captain; but none of this
was ever known by Darby. He was not mentioned in the gazette,
because there was no gazette. The
confederate soldiery had no honors
save the
approval of their own consciences and the love of their own people.
It was not even mentioned in the district; or, if it was, it was only
that he had cut down a post; other men were being shot to pieces all the time
and the district had other things to think of.
Poor at all times, the people of the district were now
absolutely without
means of
subsistence. Fortunately for them, they were inured to hardship;
and their men being all gone to the war, the women made such shift
as they could and lived as they might. They hoed their little patches,
fished the streams, and trapped in the woods. But it was poor enough at best,
and the weak went down and only the strong survived. Mrs. Mills was
better off than most, she had a cow -- at first, and she had Vashti.
Vashti turned out to be a tower of strength. She trapped more game
than anyone in the district; caught more fish with lines and traps --
she went miles to fish below the forks where the fish were bigger than above;
she
learned to shoot with her father's old gun, which had been sent back
when he got a
musket, shot like a man and better than most men;
she hoed the patch, she tended the cow till it was lost, and then she did
many other things. Her mother declared that, when Chris died
(Chris was the boy who died of fever), but for Vashti she could not have
got along at all, and there were many other women in the pines
who felt the same thing.
When the news came that Bob Askew was killed, Vashti was one of the first
who got to Bob's wife; and when Billy Luck disappeared in a battle,
Vashti gave the best reasons for thinking he had been taken prisoner;
and many a string of fish and many a
squirrel and hare found their way
into the empty cabins because Vashti "happened to pass by."
From having been rather stigmatized as "that Vashti Mills", she came to be
relied on, and "Vashti" was consulted and quoted as an authority.
One cabin alone she never visited. The house of old Mrs. Stanley,
now almost completely buried under its unpruned wistaria vine,
she never entered. Her mother, as has been said, sometimes went
across the bottom, and now and then took with her a hare or a bird
or a string of fish -- on condition from Vashti that it should not be known
she had caught them; but Vashti never went, and Mrs. Mills found herself
sometimes put to it to explain to others her unneighborliness.
The best she could make of it to say that "Vashti, she always DO
do her own way."
How Mrs. Stanley's wood-pile was kept up nobody knew, if, indeed,
it could be called a wood-pile, when it was only a recurring supply
of dry-wood thrown as if
accidentally just at the edge of the clearing.
Mrs. Stanley was not of an
imaginative turn, even of enough to explain
how it came that so much dry-wood came to be there broken up
just the right length; and Mrs. Mills knew no more than that "that cow was
always a-goin' off and a-keepin' Vashti a-huntin' everywheres in the worl'."
All said, however, the women of the district had a hungry time,
and the war bore on them heavily as on
everyone else, and as it went on
they suffered more and more. Many a woman went day after day
and week after week without even the small
portion of
coarse corn-bread
which was
ordinarily her common fare. They called oftener and oftener
at the house of their neighbors who owned the plantations near them,
and always received something; but as time went on the plantations themselves
were stripped; the little things they could take with them when they went,
such as eggs, honey, etc., were
wanting, and to go too often
without anything to give might make them seem like beggars,
and that they were not. Their husbands and sons were in the army
fighting for the South, as well as those from the plantations,
and they stood by this fact on the same level.
The
arrogant looks of the negroes were
unpleasant, and in marked contrast
to the
universal graciousness of their owners, but they were slaves and they
could afford to
despise them. Only they must
uphold their independence.
Thus no one outside knew what the women of the district went through.
When they wrote to their husbands or sons that they were in straits,
it meant that they were starving. Such a letter meant all the more
because they were used to
hunger, but not to
writing, and a letter meant
perhaps days of thought and
enterprise and hours of labor.
As the war went on the hardships everywhere grew heavier and heavier;
the letters from home came oftener and oftener. Many of the men
got furloughs when they were in winter quarters, and sometimes in summer, too,
from wounds, and went home to see their families. Little Darby never went;
he sent his mother his pay, and wrote to her, but he did not even apply
for a furlough, and he had never been touched except for a couple
of flesh wounds which were
barely skin-deep. When he heard from his mother
she was always
cheerful; and as he knew Vashti had never even visited her,
there was no other reason for his going home. It was in the late part
of the third
campaign of the war that he began to think of going.
When Cove Mills got a letter from his wife and told Little Darby
how "ailin'" and "puny" his mother was getting, Darby knew that the letter
was written by Vashti, and he felt that it meant a great deal. He applied
for a furlough, but was told that no furloughs would be granted then --
which then meant that work was expected. It came
shortly afterward,
and Little Darby and the company were in it. Battle followed battle.
A good many men in the company were killed, but, as it happened,
not one of the men from the district was among them, until one day
when the company after a
fiercecharge found itself hugging the ground
in a wide field, on the far side of which the enemy --
infantry and
artillery-- was posted in force. Lying down they were pretty well protected
by the conformation of the ground from the
artillery; and lying down,
the
infantry generally, even with their better guns, could not hurt them
to a great
extent; but a line of sharp-shooters, well placed behind cover
of scattered rocks on the far side of the field, could reach them
with their long-range rifles, and galled them with their dropping fire,
picking off man after man. A line of sharp-shooters was thrown forward
to drive them in; but their guns were not as good and the cover was inferior,
and it was only after numerous losses that they succeeded in silencing
most of them. They still left several men up among the rocks,
who from time to time sent a
bullet into the line with
deadly effect.
One man, in particular, ensconced behind a rock on the hill-side,
picked off the men with unerring
accuracy. Shot after shot was sent at him.
At last he was quiet for so long that it seemed he must have been silenced,
and they began to hope; Ad Mills rose to his knees and in sheer bravado
waved his hat in
triumph. Just as he did so a puff of white came from
the rock, and Ad Mills threw up his hands and fell on his back, like a log,
stone dead. A groan of mingled rage and
dismay went along the line.
Poor old Cove crept over and fell on the boy's body with a flesh wound
in his own arm. Fifty shots were sent at the rock, but a puff of smoke
from it afterward and a hissing
bullet showed that the marksman was untouched.
It was
apparent that he was secure behind his rock bulwark
and had some
opening through which he could fire at his leisure.
It was also
apparent that he must be dislodged if possible; but how to do it
was the question; no one could reach him. The slope down and the slope up
to the group of rocks behind which he lay were both in plain view,
and any man would be riddled who attempted to cross it. A bit of woods
reached some distance up on one side, but not far enough to give a shot at one
behind the rock; and though the ground in that direction dipped a little,
there was one little ridge in full view of both lines and
perfectly bare,
except for a number of bodies of skirmishers who had fallen earlier
in the day. It was discussed in the line; but
everyone knew that no man
could get across the ridge alive. While they were talking of it Little Darby,
who, with a white face, had helped old Cove to get his boy's body
back out of fire, slipped off to one side, rifle in hand,
and disappeared in the wood.
They were still talking of the
impossibility of dislodging the sharp-shooter
when a man appeared on the edge of the wood. He moved swiftly
across the sheltered ground, stooping low until he reached the edge
of the exposed place, where he straightened up and made a dash across it.
He was recognized
instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即,立刻">
instantly by some of the men of his company as Little Darby,
and a buzz of
astonishment went along the line. What could he mean,
it was sheer
madness; the line of white smoke along the wood
and the puffs of dust about his feet showed that
bullets were raining
around him. The next second he stopped dead-still, threw up his arms,
and fell prone on his face in full view of both lines.
A groan went up from his comrades; the whole company knew he was dead,
and on the
instant a puff of white from the rock and a hissing
bullet told
that the sharp-shooter there was still intrenched in his covert.
The men were discussing Little Darby, when someone cried out
and
pointed to him. He was still alive, and not only alive, but was moving --
moving slowly but
steadily up the ridge and nearer on a line
with the sharp-shooter, as flat on the ground as any of the
motionless bodies
about him. A strange
thrill of
excitement went through the company
as the dark object dragged itself nearer to the rock, and it was not allayed
when the whack of a
bullet and the
well-known white puff of smoke
recalled them to the sharp-shooter's dangerous aim; for the next second
the creeping figure
sprang erect and made a dash for the spot.
He had almost reached it when the sharp-shooter discovered him,
and the men knew that Little Darby had underestimated the quickness of his
hand and aim; for at the same moment the figure of the man behind the rock
appeared for a second as he
sprang erect; there was a puff of white
and Little Darby stopped and staggered and sank to his knees.
The next second, however, there was a puff from where he knelt,
and then he sank flat once more, and a moment later rolled over on his face
on the near side of the rock and just at its foot. There were no more
bullets
sent from that rock that day -- at least, against the Confederates --
and that night Little Darby walked into his company's bivouac,
dusty from head to foot and with a
bullet-hole in his clothes
not far from his heart; but he said it was only a spent
bulletand had just knocked the
breath out of him. He was pretty sore from it
for a time, but was able to help old Cove to get his boy's body off
and to see him start; for the old man's wound, though not dangerous,
was enough to
disable him and get him a furlough, and he determined
to take his son's body home, which the captain's influence enabled him to do.
Between his wound and his grief the old man was nearly helpless,
and accepted Darby's silent
assistance with mute gratitude.
Darby asked him to tell his mother that he was getting on well,
and sent her what money he had -- his last two months' pay --
not enough to have bought her a pair of stockings or a pound of sugar.
The only other message he sent was given at the station just as Cove set out.
He said:
"Tell Vashti as I got him as done it."
Old Cove grasped his hand tremulously and faltered his promise to do so,
and the next moment the train crawled away and left Darby to plod back to camp
in the rain, vague and
lonely in the
remnant of what had once been
a gray uniform. If there was one thing that troubled him
it was that he could not return Vashti the needle-case until he replaced
the broken needles -- and there were so many of them broken.
After this Darby was in some sort known, and was put pretty constantly
on sharp-shooter service.
The men went into winter quarters before Darby heard anything from home.