The Littlest Rebel Part 10

"Tell him," said the child, with a thoughtful glance at Miss Susan Jemima across the table, "tell him, if he ever marches along this way, I'll come over to his tent and rub his head, like I do yours--if he'll let me--till he goes to sleep." She clasped her fingers and looked into her father's eyes, hopefully, appealingly. "Do you think he would, if--if I washed my hands--real clean?"

The Southerner bit his lip and tried to smile.

"Yes, honey, I know he would! And think! He sent a message--to _you_."

"Did he?" she asked, wide-eyed, flushed with happiness. "What did he say, Daddy? What?"

"He said," her father answered, taking her hands in his: "'She's a brave little soldier, to stay there all alone. Dixie and I are proud of her!'"

"Oh, Daddy, did he? Did he?"

"Yes, dear, yes," the soldier nodded; "his very words. And look!" From his boot leg he took a folded paper and spread it on his knee. "He wrote you a pa.s.s--to Richmond. Can you read it?"

Virgie leaned against her father's shoulder, studying the paper long and earnestly; then, presently looked up, with a note of grave but courteous hesitation in her tone:

"Well--he--well, the Gen'ral writes a awful bad hand, Daddy."

Her father laughed in genuine delight, vowing in his heart to tell his general and friend of this crus.h.i.+ng criticism, if ever the fates of war permitted them to meet again.

"Dead right!" he agreed, with hearty promptness. "But come, I'll read it for you. Now then. Listen:

"HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VA.

"_Pa.s.s Virginia Cary and escort through all Confederate lines and give safe-conduct wherever possible._

"R.E. LEE, _General_."

There was silence for a moment, then Virgie looked up, with tears in her eyes and voice.

"An' he did that--for little _me_? Oh, Daddy, I love him so much, it--it makes me want to cry."

She hid her face on the coat of gray, and sobbed; while her father stroked her hair and answered soothingly, but in a tone of mourning reverie:

"So do we all, darling; big grown men, who have suffered, and are losing all they love. They are ragged--and wounded--hungry--and, oh, so tired!

But, when they think of _him_, they draw up their belts another hole, and say, '_For General Lee!_' And then they can fight and fight and fight--till their hearts stop beating--and the G.o.d of battles writes them a b.l.o.o.d.y pa.s.s!"

Again he had risen to his feet. He was speaking proudly, in the reckless pa.s.sion of the yet unconquered Southerner, only half-conscious of the tot who watched him, wondering. So she came to him quickly, taking his hand in both her own, and striving to bring him comfort from the fountain of her little mother-heart.

"Don't you worry, Daddy-man. We'll--we'll whip 'em yet."

"No, dear--no," he sighed, as he dropped into his seat. "We won't. It's hard enough on men; but harder still on children such as you." He turned to her gravely, earnestly: "Virgie, I had hoped to get you through to Richmond--to-day. But I can't. The Yankees have cut us off.

They are up the river and down the river--and all around us, I've been nearly the whole night getting here; creeping through the woods--like an old Molly-cotton-tail--with the blue boys everywhere, waiting to get me if I showed my head."

"But they didn't, did they?" said Virgie, laughing at his reference to the wise old rabbit and feeling for the pockets of his shabby coat, "Did you--did you bring me anything?"

At her question the man cried out as if in pain, then reached for her in a wave of yearning tenderness.

"Listen, dear; I--I had a little bundle for you--of--of things to eat."

He took her by the arms, and looked into her quaint, wise face, "And I was so glad I had it, darling, for you are thinner than you were." He paused to bite his lip, and continued haltingly, "There was bread in that bundle--and meat--real meat--and sugar--and tea."

Virgie released herself and clapped her hands.

"Oh, Daddy, where is it?" she asked him happily, once more reaching for the pocket. "'Cause I'm _so_ hungry for somethin' good."

"Don't! Don't!" he cried, as he drew his coat away, roughly, fiercely, in the pain of unselfish suffering. "For Daddy's sake, don't!"

"Why, what is it, Daddy," she asked, in her shrillness of a child's alarm, her eyes on the widening stain of red above his waist. "Is--is it hurtin' you again? What is it, Daddy-man?"

"Your bundle," he answered, in the flat, dull tone of utter hopelessness. "I lost it, Virgie. I lost it."

"Oh," she said, with a quaver of disappointment, which she vainly strove to hide. "How did you do it?"

For a moment the man leaned limply against a chair-back, hiding his eyes with one trembling hand; then he spoke in shamed apology:

"I--I couldn't help it, darling; because, you see, I hadn't any powder left; and I was coming through the woods--just as I told you--when the Yanks got sight of me." He smiled down at her bravely, striving to add a dash of comedy to his tragic plight. "And I tell you, Virgie, your old dad had to run like a turkey--wis.h.i.+ng to the Lord he had wings, too."

Virgie did not smile in turn, and her father dropped back into his former tone, his pale lips setting in a straight, hard line.

"And then--the blue boy I was telling you about--when he shot at me, I must have stumbled, because, when I scrambled up, I--I couldn't see just right; so I ran and ran, thinking of you, darling, and wanting to get to you before--well, before it was breakfast time. I had your bundle in my pocket; but when I fell--why, Virgie, don't you see?--I--I couldn't go back and find it." He paused to choke, then spoke between his teeth, in fury at a strength which had failed to breast a barrier of fate: "But I _would_ have gone back, if I'd had any powder left. I _would_ have! I would!"

A pitiful apology it was, from a man to a little child; a story told only in its hundredth part, for why should he give its untold horrors to a baby's ears? How could she understand that man-hunt in the early dawn?

The fugitive--with an empty pistol on his hip--wading swamps and plunging through the tangled underbrush; alert and listening, darting from tree to tree where the woods were thin; crouching behind some fallen log to catch his laboring breath, then rising again to creep along his way. He did not tell of the racking pain in his weary legs, nor the protest of his pounding heart--the strain--the agony--the puffs of smoke that floated above the pines, and the ping of bullets whining through the trees. He did not tell of the ball that slid along his ribs, leaving a fiery, aching memory behind, as the man crashed down a clay bank, to lie for an instant in a crumpled heap, to rise and stumble on--not toward the haven of his own Confederate lines, but forward, to where a baby waited--through a dancing mist of red.

And so the soldier made his poor apology, turning his head away to avoid a dreaded look in Virgie's big, reproachful eyes; then he added one more lashwelt to his shame:

"And now your poor old daddy is no more use to you. I come to my little girl with empty hands--with an empty gun--and an empty heart!"

He said it bitterly, in the self-accusing sorrow of his soul; and his courage, which had borne him through a h.e.l.l of suffering, now broke; but only when a helper of the helpless failed. He laid his outflung arms across the table. He bowed his beaten head upon them and sobbed aloud, with sobs that shook him to his heels.

It was then that Virgie came to him again, a little daughter of the South, who, like a hundred thousand of her sisters, brought comfort in the blackest hours.

One tiny, weak arm was slipped about his neck. One tiny brown hand, with its berry-stained fingers, was run through his tangled hair, softly, tenderly, even as she longed to soothe the weary head of General Lee.

"Don't cry, Daddy-man," she murmured in his ear; "it's all right. _I_ can eat the blackberries. They--they don't taste so _awful_ good when you have 'em _all_ the time; but _I_ don't mind." She paused to kiss him, then tried once more to buoy his hope and hers. "We'll have jus'

heaps of things when we get to Richmon'--jus' heaps--an' then--"

She stopped abruptly, lifting her head and listening, in the manner of a sheep dog scenting danger from afar. Her father looked up sharply and gripped her hands.

"Virgie! You hear--_what_?"

"Horses! Oh, a lot of 'em! On the big road!"

It was true, for down the breeze came the faintly echoed thud of many hoofs and the clinking jingle of sabers against the riders' thighs.

Virgie turned back from the open door.

"Why--why, they've turned into _our_ road!" Her breath came fast, as she sank her voice to a faint, awed whisper, "Daddy--do you reckon it's--_Yankees_?"

"Yes," said her father, who had risen to his feet. "Morrison's cavalry!

They won't hurt _you_; but I'll have to get to the woods again! Good-by, honey! Good-by!"