The Battle Ground Part 48

A howl of derision went up from the regiment as it fell into ranks.

"Has anybody got a few grape-leaves to spare?" it demanded in a high chorus.

"Oh, shut up," responded Dan promptly. "Come on, Pinetop, we'll clothe ourselves to-morrow."

The brigade formed and swung off rapidly along the road, where the dust lay like gauze upon the suns.h.i.+ne. At the end of a mile somebody stopped and cried out excitedly. "Look here, boys, the persimmons on that tree over thar are gittin' 'mos fit to eat. I can see 'em turnin'," and with the words the column scattered like chaff across the field. But the first man to reach the tree came back with a wry face, and fell to swearing at "the darn fool who could eat persimmons before frost."

"Thar's a tree in my yard that gits ripe about September," remarked Pinetop, as he returned dejectedly across the waste. "Ma she begins to dry 'em 'fo' the frost sets in."

"Oh, well, we'll get a square meal in the morning," responded Dan, growing cheerful as he dreamed of hospitable Maryland.

Some hours later, in the warm dusk, they went into bivouac among the trees, and, in a little while, the campfires made a red glow upon the twilight.

Pinetop, with a wooden bucket on his arm, had plunged off in search of water, and Dan and Jack Powell were sent, in the interests of the mess, to forage through the surrounding country.

"There's a fat farmer about ten miles down, I saw him," remarked a lazy smoker, by way of polite suggestion.

"Ten miles? Well, of all the confounded impudence," retorted Jack, as he strolled off with Dan into the darkness.

For a time they walked in silence, depressed by hunger and the exhaustion of the march; then Dan broke into a whistle, and presently they found themselves walking in step with the merry air.

"Where are your thoughts, Beau?" asked Jack suddenly, turning to look at him by the faint starlight.

Dan's whistle stopped abruptly.

"On a dish of fried chicken and a pot of coffee," he replied at once.

"What's become of the waffles?" demanded Jack indignantly. "I say, old man, do you remember the sinful waste on those blessed Christmas Eves at Cheric.o.ke? I've been trying to count the different kinds of meat--roast beef, roast pig, roast goose, roast turkey--"

"Hold your tongue, won't you?"

"Well, I was just thinking that if I ever reach home alive I'll deliver the Major a lecture on his extravagance."

"It isn't the Major; it's grandma," groaned Dan.

"Oh, that queen among women!" exclaimed Jack fervently; "but the wines are the Major's, I reckon,--it seems to me I recall some port of which he was vastly proud."

Dan delivered a blow that sent Jack on his knees in the stubble of an old corn field.

"If you want to make me eat you, you're going straight about it," he declared.

"Look out!" cried Jack, struggling to his feet, "there's a light over there among the trees," and they walked on briskly up a narrow country lane which led, after several turnings, to a large frame house well hidden from the road.

In the doorway a woman was standing, with a lamp held above her head, and when she saw them she gave a little breathless call.

"Is that you, Jim?"

Dan went up the steps and stood, cap in hand, before her. The lamplight was full upon his ragged clothes and upon his pallid face with its strong high-bred lines of mouth and chin.

"I thought you were my husband," said the woman, blus.h.i.+ng at her mistake.

"If you want food you are welcome to the little that I have--it is very little." She led the way into the house, and motioned, with a pitiable gesture, to a table that was spread in the centre of the sitting room.

"Will you sit down?" she asked, and at the words, a child in the corner of the room set up a frightened cry.

"It's my supper--I want my supper," wailed the child.

"Hush, dear," said the woman, "they are our soldiers."

"Our soldiers," repeated the child, staring, with its thumb in its mouth and the tear-drops on its cheeks.

For an instant Dan looked at them as they stood there, the woman holding the child in her arms, and biting her thin lips from which hunger had drained all the red. There was scant food on the table, and as his gaze went back to it, it seemed to him that, for the first time, he grasped the full meaning of a war for the people of the soil. This was the real thing--not the waving banners, not the bayonets, not the fighting in the ranks.

His eyes were on the woman, and she smiled as all women did upon whom he looked in kindness.

"My dear madam, you have mistaken our purpose--we are not as hungry as we look," he said, bowing in his ragged jacket. "We were sent merely to ask you if you were in need of a guard for your smokehouse. My Colonel hopes that you have not suffered at our hands."

"There is nothing left," replied the woman mystified, yet relieved. "There is nothing to guard except the children and myself, and we are safe, I think. Your Colonel is very kind--I thank him;" and as they went out she lighted them with her lamp from the front steps.

An hour later they returned to camp with aching limbs and empty hands.

"There's nothing above ground," they reported, flinging themselves beside the fire, though the night was warm. "We've scoured the whole country and the Federals have licked it as clean as a plate before us. Bless my soul!

what's that I smell? Is this heaven, boys?"

"Licked it clean, have they?" jeered the mess. "Well, they left a sheep anyhow loose somewhere. Beau's darky hadn't gone a hundred yards before he found one."

"Big Abel? You don't say so?" whistled Dan, in astonishment, regarding the mutton suspended on ramrods above the coals.

"Well, suh, 'twuz des like dis," explained Big Abel, poking the roast with a small stick. "I know I ain' got a bit a bus'ness ter shoot dat ar sheep wid my ole gun, but de sheep she ain' got no better bus'ness strayin' roun'

loose needer. She sutney wuz a dang'ous sheep, dat she wuz. I 'uz des a-bleeged ter put a bullet in her haid er she'd er hed my blood sho'."

As the shout went up he divided the legs of mutton into shares and went off to eat his own on the dark edge of the wood.

A little later he came back to hang Dan's cap and jacket on the branches of a young pine tree. When he had arranged them with elaborate care, he raked a bed of tags together, and covered them with an army blanket stamped in the centre with the half obliterated letters U. S.

"That's a good boy, Big Abel, go to sleep," said Dan, flinging himself down upon the pine-tag bed. "Strange how much spirit a sheep can put into a man.

I wouldn't run now if I saw Pope's whole army coming."

Turning over he lay sleepily gazing into the blue dusk illuminated with the campfires which were slowly dying down. Around him he heard the subdued murmur of the mess, deep and full, though rising now and then into a clearer burst of laughter. The men were smoking their brier-root pipes about the embers, leaning against the dim bodies of the pines, while they discussed the incidents of the march with a touch of the unconquerable humour of the Confederate soldier. Somebody had a fresh joke on the quartermaster, and everybody hoped great things of the campaign into Maryland.

"I pray it may bring me a pair of shoes," muttered Dan, as he dropped off into slumber.

The next day, with bands playing "Maryland, My Maryland," and the Southern Cross taking the September wind, the ragged army waded the Potomac, and pa.s.sed into other fields.

II