The Drummer Boy Part 13

"It's mine; my name was called when it was flung in," said Frank, maintaining his hold.

"Well, keep it, then!" said John. "It's nothing but a great wad of paper."

"It's a torpedo! an infernal machine!" cried Tucket. "Look out, Manly!

it'll blow us all into the next Fourth of July."

Frank laughed, as he began to undo the package. The first wrapper was of brown paper with these words written upon it, in large characters:--

"FRANK MANLY, _Drummer_.

_Inquire Within._"

Beneath that wrapper was another, and beneath that another, and so on, apparently an endless series. The boys all gathered around Frank, looking on as he removed the papers one by one, until the package, originally as big as his head, had dwindled to the dimensions of his fist.

"It's got as many peels as an onion," said Tucket.

"Nothing but papers. I told ye so!" said Jack Winch.

But Frank perceived that the core of the package was becoming comparatively solid and weighty. There was certainly something besides paper there. What could it be? a stone? But what an odd-shaped stone it was! Stones are not often of such regular shape, so uniformly round and flattened. He had almost reached the last wrapper; his heart was beating anxiously; but, before he removed it, he thought he heard a peculiar sound, and held down his ear. A flush of delight overspread his countenance, and he clasped the ball in both hands, as if it had been something precious.

"O, boys!" he exclaimed, looking up eagerly for their sympathy, "where _did_ it come from? At.w.a.ter, did you see any body?"

n.o.body. It was all a mystery.

"Boys, it's for me, isn't it?" said Frank, still hugging his treasure, as if afraid even of looking at it, lest it should fly away.

"Come, let's see!" and Winch impatiently made a s.n.a.t.c.h to get at it.

At.w.a.ter coolly took him by the arm, and pulled him back. Then Frank, carefully as a young mother uncovered the face of her sleeping baby, removed the tinsel paper, which now alone intervened between the object and his hand, and revealed to the astonished eyes of his comrades a tiny, beautiful, smiling-faced silver watch.

"O, isn't it a beauty?" said Frank, almost beside himself with delight; for a watch was a thing of which he had greatly felt the need in beating his calls, and wished for in vain. "Who could have sent it? Don't you know, boys, any of you?" he asked, the mystery that came with the gift filling him with strange, perplexed gladness.

"All I know is," said Tucket, "I'd be willing to have six candles, all lit, knocked down my throat, and eat taller for a fortnight, ef such a kind of a football, infernal machine,--_watch you call it_,--would only come to me."

"Frank'll feel bigger 'n ever now, with a watch in his pocket," said the envious Jack Winch, with a bitter grin.

All had some remark to make except At.w.a.ter, who stood with his arms drawn up under his cape, and smiled down upon Frank well pleased.

Frank in the mean time was busily engaged in trying to discover, among all the papers, some sc.r.a.p of writing by which the unknown donor might be traced. But writing there was none. And the mystery remained unsolved.

X.

FRANK'S PROGRESS.

So pa.s.sed Thanksgiving in camp.

The next day the boys, with somewhat lugubrious faces, returned to their hard diet of pork and hominy, heaving now and then a sigh of fond remembrance, as they thought of yesterday's puddings and turkeys.

And now came other hards.h.i.+ps. The days were generally warm, sometimes hot even, like those of July in New England. But the nights were cold, and growing colder and colder as the winter came on. And the tents were but a thin shelter, and clothing was scanty, and the men suffered. Many a time Frank, s.h.i.+vering under his blanket, thought, with a swelling and homesick heart, of Willie in his soft, warm bed, of his mother's inexhaustible store of comforters, and of the kitchen stove and the family breakfast, those raw wintry mornings.

From the day the regiment encamped, the men had expected that they were soon to move again. But now they determined that, even though they should have orders to march in three days, they would make themselves comfortable in the mean while. They accordingly set to work constructing underground stoves, covered with flat stones, with a channel on one side to convey away the smoke, and a deeper channel on the other for the draft. These warmed the earth, and kept up an even temperature in the tents all night.

I said Frank sometimes had homesick feelings. It was not alone the hards.h.i.+ps of camp life that caused them. But as yet he had not received a single letter from his friends, and his longing to get news from them was such as only those boys can understand who have never been away from home until they have suddenly gone upon a long and comfortless journey, and who then begin to realize, as never before, all the loving care of their parents, the kindness of brothers and sisters, and the blessedness of the dear old nest from which they have untimely flown.

Owing to the uncertainty of the regiment's destination, Captain Edney had told his men to have all their friends' letters to them directed to Was.h.i.+ngton. There they had been sent, and there, through some misunderstanding or neglect, they remained. And though a small mail-bag full had been written to Frank, this was the reason he had never yet received one.

Alas for those missing letters! The lack of them injured Frank more deeply and lastingly than simply by wounding his heart. For soon that hurt began to heal. He was fast getting used to living without news from his family. He consoled himself by entering more fully than he had done at first into the excitements of the camp. And the sacred influence of HOME, so potent to solace and to save, even at a distance, was wanting.

And here begins a portion of Frank's history which I would be glad to pa.s.s over in silence. But, as many boys will probably read this story who are not altogether superior to temptation, and who do not yet know how easy it is for even a good-hearted, honest, and generous lad sometimes to forget his mother's lessons and his own promises, and commence that slow, gradual, downward course, which nearly always begins before we are aware, and from which it is then so hard to turn back; and as many may learn from his experience, and so save themselves much shame and their friends much anguish, it is better that Frank's history should be related without reserve.

In the first place, he learned to smoke. He began by taking a whiff, now and then, out of the pipe of a comrade, just to be in fas.h.i.+on, and to keep himself warm those chill evenings and mornings. Then a tobacco planter gave him, in return for some polite act on his part, a bunch of tobacco leaves, which Frank, with his usual ingenuity, made up into cigars for himself and friends. The cigars consumed, he obtained more tobacco of some negroes, addicted himself to a pipe, and became a regular smoker.

Now, I don't mean to say that this, of itself, was a very great sin. It was, however, a foolish thing in Frank to form at his age a habit which might tyrannize over him for life, and make him in the end, as he himself once said to John Winch, "a filthy, tobacco-spitting old man."

But the worst of it was, he had promised his mother he would not smoke.

He thought he had a good excuse for breaking his word to her. "I am sure," he said, "if she knew how cold I am sometimes, she wouldn't blame me." Unfortunately, however, when one promise has been broken, and n.o.body hurt, another is broken so easily!

Ardent, sympathetic, fond of good-fellows.h.i.+p, Frank caught quickly the spirit of those around him. He loved approbation, and dreaded any thing that savored of ridicule. He disliked particularly the appellation of "the parson," which John Winch, finding that it annoyed him, used now whenever he wished to speak of him injuriously. Others soon fell into the habit of applying to him the offensive t.i.tle, without malice indeed, and for no other reason, I suppose, than that nicknames are the fas.h.i.+on in the army. To call a man simply by his honest name seems commonplace; but to christen him the "Owl" if his eyes are big, or "Old Tongs" if his legs are long, or "Step-and-fetch-it" if he suffers himself to be made the underling and cats-paw of his comrades,--that is considered picturesque and amusing.

Frank would have preferred any of these epithets to the one Winch had fastened upon him. Perhaps it was to show how little he deserved it, that he made his conduct appear as unclerical as possible--smoking, swaggering, and, I am sorry to add, swearing. Imbibing unconsciously the spirit of his companions, and imitating by degrees their habits and conversation, he became profane before he knew it,--excusing himself on the plea that every body swore in the army. This was only too near the truth. Men who had never before indulged in profanity, now frequently let slip a light oath, and thought nothing of it. For it is one of the great evils of war that men, however refined at home, soon forget themselves amid the hards.h.i.+ps, roughness, and turbulence of a soldier's life. It seems not only to disguise their persons, but their characters also; so that those vices which would have shocked them when surrounded by the old social influences appear rather to belong to their new rude, half barbarous existence. And we all know the pernicious effect when numbers of one s.e.x a.s.sociate exclusively together, unblessed by the naturally refining influence of the other.

Such being the case with men of years and respectability, we need not wonder that Frank should follow their example. Indeed, from the first, we had but one strong ground of hope for one so young and susceptible--that he would remember his pledges to his mother. These violated, the career of ill begun, where would he end?

Here, however, I should state that Frank never thought, as some boys do, that it is smart and manly to swear. Sometimes we hear a man talk, whom the vicious habit so controls that he cannot speak without blasphemy.

With such, oaths become as necessary a part of speech as articles or prepositions. If deprived of them they are crippled; they seem lost, and cannot express themselves. They are therefore unfit for any society but that of loafers and brawlers. Such slavery to an idle and foolish custom Frank had the sense to detest, even while he himself was coming under its yoke.

Here, too, before quitting the subject, justice requires us to bear witness in favor of those distinguished exceptions to the common profanity, all the more honorable because they were few. Although, generally speaking, officers and men were addicted to the practice, the language of here and there an officer, and here and there a private, shone like streaks of unsullied snow amid ways of trodden mire. Captain Edney never swore. At.w.a.ter never did. No profane word ever fell from the lips of young Gray. And there were others whose example in this respect was equally pure.

Fortunately, Frank was kept pretty busy these times; else, with that uneasy hankering for excitement which possesses unoccupied minds, and that inclination to mischief which possesses unoccupied hands, he might have acquired worse vices.

No doubt some of our young readers will be interested to know what he had to do. The following were some of his duties:--

At daybreak the _drummer's call_ was beat by the drums of the guard-tent.

Frank, though once so profound a sleeper, had learned to wake instantly at the sound; and, before any of his comrades were astir, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his drum, and hurried from the tent. That call was a signal for all the drummers to a.s.semble before the colors of the regiment, and beat the reveille. Then Frank and his fellow-drummers practised the _double-quick_ for two hours. Then they beat the _breakfast call_. Then they ate their breakfast. At eight o'clock they had to turn out again, and beat the _sergeant's call_. At nine o'clock they beat for _guard mounting_. Then they practised two hours more at _wheeling_, _double-quick_, _etc_. They then beat the _dinner call_. Then they had the pleasure of laying aside the drumsticks, and taking up the knife and fork once more. After dinner more _calls_ and similar practice. The time from supper (five o'clock) until the beat for the evening roll-call (at eight), the drummers had to themselves. After that the men were dismissed for the night, and could go to bed if they chose,--all except the drummers, who must sit up and beat the _tattoo at nine_. That is the signal for the troops to retire. Then come the _taps_ (to extinguish lights), beat by each drummer in the company, going down the line of tents.

There were other calls besides those mentioned, such as the company _drill call_, the _adjutants call_, to _the color_, _etc._, all of which were beat differently; so that, as you see, the drummer boy's situation was no sinecure.

He found his watch of great a.s.sistance to him, in giving him warning of the moment to be ready for the stated calls. Although evidently a new watch, it had been well regulated, and it kept excellent time. The secret donor of this handsome present was still undiscovered. Sometimes he suspected the colonel, sometimes Captain Edney; then he surmised that it must somehow have come to him from home. But all his conjectures and inquiries on the subject were alike in vain; and he enjoyed the exquisite torment of feeling that he had a lover somewhere who was unknown to him.

XI.

A CHRISTMAS FROLIC.