NED GRIFFIN BRINGS NEWS.
After accompanying our Confederate hero, Rodney Gray, through fifteen
months of army life, during which he saw more adventures, endured more
hardships and learned more wisdom than he had ever dreamed of, we left
him, at the close of the second volume of this series, safe in the home
of his boyhood, which he had left for the avowed purpose of "driving
the Yankees out of Missouri." He confidently assured his mother and
the servants who assembled to see him off that it would not take more
than three or four months to do that, and then he would return, like
Lentulus of old, "with victorious eagles." Instead of that, he came
back as ragged and disgusted a specimen of a Confederate volunteer as
could be found anywhere in the South at the time of which we write,
and that is saying a good deal. The summer clothing given him and
his comrades at Tupelo after the retreat from Corinth, and which had
been furnished by one of the numerous "ladies' associations" of the
South, was not calculated to stand soldier treatment. The trousers
Rodney wore were made of a rich shawl, and his blouse had once been
part of a costly silk dress. His nights at the camp-fire, and the days
he had passed trudging along dusty roads, had played sad havoc with
his "pictured uniform." That was what Dick Graham called it, and his
regiment, which had been pretty well supplied with clothing of the same
description, presented a very fantastic appearance the first time they
went on dress parade.
You will remember that Rodney brought Dick home with him. Dick wanted to
get into Missouri where his parents were, and in order to do that it was
necessary that he should find some point on the Mississippi that was not
guarded by Federal gunboats. They came from Camp Pinckney on foot, and
had been doing duty as infantrymen for months, although their regiment
was always spoken of as the —th Missouri cavalry. Their horses had been
"confiscated" by the commissary department during that dreary "mud
march" from the disastrous battlefield of Pea Ridge to Van Buren and
Pocahontas. The commanding general, Van Dorn, did not need cavalry
during that march, but it was necessary that his wagon train should go
through; so as fast as his jaded teams gave out and dropped in the road,
he took cavalry horses to replace them, and in process of time the two
Barrington boys found themselves on foot like hundreds of others.
You will remember, too, that when Rodney reached home he led his friend
into the parlor and pushed him into an easy-chair with the words: "Stay
here till I find somebody," and that his mother came in a moment later.
The way in which the two greeted each other after their long separation
was something of which Dick Graham could not remain an unmoved
spectator, for it made him think of his own mother away off across the
river, whom he might never see again. He staggered rather than walked
to the window, and looked out at the oleanders in the yard.
"O Rodney, is it possible that you have come back to me at last!"
exclaimed Mrs. Gray tearfully; and Dick knew, without turning his head,
that she was holding her stalwart son off at arms' length and giving
him a good looking over.
"Yes, sir," replied the returned soldier, placing his arm about his
mother's waist and leading her toward a sofa, "I have come back, and I
have come to stay. The last words you said to me right out there on the
gallery were that you never wanted to hear that I had failed to do my
duty. You haven't heard any such report as that, have you? I have done
the best I could, but I have come back whipped; and I wish every other
man who wears a gray jacket were honest enough to say the same thing."
The listening Dick expected to hear his chum soundly rebuked for giving
utterance to such sentiments, because he knew that the women were much
more zealous for the cause of Southern independence than their male
relatives, that they were exerting themselves to the utmost to keep the
war spirit at fever heat, and that, if it hadn't been for them, the
army from which he had just been discharged would have dwindled to a
corporal's guard long ago. By an accidental glance into a mirror that
hung on a side wall Dick saw that Mrs. Gray was holding her soldier boy
tightly clasped in her arms; but he did not hear her utter one word of
reproach. Like many another mother's, her patriotism had been sorely
tried, and now that Rodney had returned safe and sound she considered
that she had done all for the cause that could be expected of her, and
hoped that he would never leave her side again. Let some other mother's
son—Mrs. Randolph's, for instance—take Rodney's place at the front.
"Say!" exclaimed Rodney, starting up all of a sudden. "What's the
matter here? This room doesn't look just as it did the last time I saw
it. Where's the carpet?"
"It was cut into blankets and sent to Corinth, along with a lot of
other things that I thought might be of use to you ragged, shivering
soldiers," replied his mother.
"I hoped you would never be called upon to make the smallest
sacrifice," said Rodney in a tone of disgust.
"Do you think I made no sacrifice when I sent you to the field?" said
Mrs. Gray reproachfully. "O Rodney."
"I didn't mean that," said the boy quickly. "But you don't want to rob
yourself for the sake of those fellows up there," bobbing his head in
the direction in which he supposed Bragg's army to be. "Like as not
the poor, foolish woman who cut her shawl up to make these trousers
of mine will suffer with cold for the want of it. But I am forgetting
something. Come here, old fellow. Mother, you have often heard me speak
of Dick Graham, the only brother I've got. Well, here he is. Rags and
dust and all, that's Dick. Kiss him for his mother, and tell me where I
will find father."
The lonely, homesick young Missourian was almost overwhelmed by the
kindly greeting that Rodney's mother gave him, but his friend was quick
to notice it and came to his relief. When his mother said that Mr. Gray
had gone to Mooreville on business and might not be back for an hour
or two, he seized Dick by the arm and hurried him up to his room.
"I have known you a good while, but I never saw you look so glum
before," said he, as he closed the door and forced Dick into a seat.
"You may well say that," replied the latter. "I bore up pretty well
until I saw you and your mother together, and that knocked me. It's a
fur ways to Little Rock, and there are a good many Yanks on the road."
"I'll trust you and your discharge to get along with the Yankee cavalry
if I can only see you safe over the river," said Rodney. "There is
where the fun is going to come in."
"Don't you think that the commanding naval officer, or the provost
marshal at Baton Rouge, might be prevailed upon to give me permission
to go over openly and above-board?" inquired Dick.
"Not much. You wouldn't do it yourself if you were in their places.
How would they know but that you were a spy or a bearer of secret
despatches, and that your discharge was a humbug? I tell you, Dick,
since I have had time to think of the way those Yankee scouts treated
us when they told us to come in out of the wet, I confess to a very
friendly feeling for the Yankees. How many are there who would have
run us in, just to be able to say that they had captured a couple of
graybacks?"
"That's so," assented Dick.
"Now the best thing you can do is to stay with me long enough to rest
your hands and face, say a week or such a matter, and then we'll go up
to Vicksburg——"
"Suffering Moses!" exclaimed Dick. "There is a portion of two Yankee
fleets up there, according to the last report I read, and they are
fighting our fellows all the time."
"Well, say Port Hudson then. There hasn't been much of any fighting
there. We'll buy a light, tight boat and provision it——"
Here Dick straightened up, and turned his pockets inside out one after
the other to show that they were empty.
"I know what you mean by that," exclaimed Rodney, "but I'll see that
you have all the money you want—money, I said, and not such stuff as
that," he added, thrusting his hand into his pocket and pulling out
the roll of Confederate scrip that the paymaster had given him with his
discharge. "Mother was wild for Southern independence when this thing
was first started, but thought it wise to prepare for a rainy day; so
she and father and I put away a little gold."
"If it wasn't for the fact that my father and mother did the same
thing, I'd call you a traitor," said Dick.
"Oh, I know we are in good company," answered Rodney with a laugh. "And
we don't think any the less of ourselves for putting away that gold,
either. Think what a fix Washington's army was in when it was mustered
out at Newburgh. Those men were victorious, but even victors must eat
and have something to wear, and what did they have to live on? Do you
suppose they would have thought seriously of mutiny if they had had a
little store of hard stuff to fall back on? That's why we hid the gold;
and it doesn't make any difference what sort of laws the government at
Richmond passes, we are going to keep what we have. Now, let me show
you how much my old company thought of me."
Although Rodney's room had been regularly cared for during the long
months it had been without an occupant, he noticed, the moment he went
into it, that nothing had been disturbed. A newspaper, which he had
tossed upon the floor the morning he left, was lying in nearly the same
spot yet; and his light fowling-piece was standing in the corner where
he had placed it after shooting a hawk that was bothering Aunt Martha's
chickens. He opened the door of his closet as he spoke, and almost
without looking put his hand upon the elegant cavalry sabre that Bob
Hubbard's Rangers had given him. The uniform he had worn while acting
as drill-master, and his military saddle and bridle were there, too.
"I left them at home because I knew they would get me captured if
I tried to take them into Missouri," said he. "Now, pull off that
picture-book," he added, nodding toward Dick's silk blouse, "and after
you have removed a little of the Louisiana soil from your features, put
on this citizen's suit. I am not sure it will fit you, but it is the
best I can do until I see how trade is."
"I suppose gold is as potent in Baton Rouge as it was in Little Rock,"
said Dick. "But do you think our discharges will take us inside the
Yankee lines?"
"We'll make them," replied Rodney. "We'll say that we want to report
ourselves to the provost marshal and get a paper of some kind from him
that will keep the Federal scouts from bothering us; and when we see
him we'll bounce him for permission to trade."
The boys went to work to make such improvements in their personal
appearance as they could with plenty of soap and water and Rodney's
abundant wardrobe, and when a bell rang in a lower hall half an hour
later, they answered it looking quite unlike the dusty ragamuffins who
had walked unbidden into Mrs. Gray's front parlor. It is true that
their coats were a little short in the sleeves and tight across the
shoulders, but there were no holes in them or in the light shoes they
wore on their feet.
"That's all O. K., mother," said Rodney, catching a momentary glimpse
of a well-filled table through the open door. "When you can't think
of any other way to put in the time, just ask us if we want something
to eat. Now come and sit down with us, and tell us everything that's
happened since I have been in the army."
Rodney's entrance into the dining room seemed to be the signal that
the house servants had been waiting for. The moment he stepped over
the threshold they rushed in through every door, some smiling, some
laughing outright, and all pushing and crowding one another in the
effort to be the first to shake "young moster" by the hand. Foremost
in the struggle was Rosebud, the darkey who had been Rodney's playmate
in the days of his babyhood, and who yelled so dolefully when he went
away. Although they all inquired particularly after his health, there
was not one among them who asked what he thought of the Yankees as
fighters now that he had had some experience with them. They knew as
well as he did that he and his comrades had failed utterly in their
efforts to take Missouri out of the Union.
Mrs. Gray could not describe in one dinner hour everything that had
happened in and around Mooreville during the last fifteen months, nor
could she do it in a dozen hours; and even at the end of a week she
and her husband had many questions to answer as well as many to ask.
But before he went to bed that night Rodney knew pretty nearly what
Tom Randolph and his Home Guards had been doing, and how he and the
enrolling officer stood in the community, and had been made to see at
least one thing very clearly: the surest way for him to keep out of
the army was to follow Ned Griffin's example and take a position as
overseer on one of his father's plantations.
"I am overjoyed to know that you have decided to remain at home with
us," said his father, "but, to be honest, I did not look for it, so I
gave Griffin the best opening I had. Our upper plantation, as you are
aware, is right in the middle of the woods; but I think Ned will be
willing to make the change if I ask him."
"Not for the world," said Rodney quickly.
"I am used to living in the woods, so I will take the little farm and
let Ned and his mother stay near civilization, where they can see white
folks once in a while. Besides, I'd rather like to be within reach
of the cotton you've got up there. A Northern paper that came into
our hands just before we left Tupelo contained the information that
there's going to be trading allowed along the river, and what the Yanks
especially want is cotton."
"I don't blame them," said Mr. Gray, with a smile. "It is worth sixty
cents a pound in New York."
This piece of news almost took Rodney's breath away.
"Four hundred and fifty bales at—let me see; $270 a—— Great Scott,
father! That doesn't look as though you are going to be reduced to
beggary."
"But you must bear in mind that our cotton is not in New York, but
concealed in the depths of a swamp," said his mother; and Rodney
afterward had occasion to recall the words when he was working night
and day, with Sailor Jack's assistance and Marcy's to keep this cotton
out of the hands of rascals, both Union and Confederate, who were
trying their best to take it from him by force or to cheat him out of
it. This news was so very important that it could be talked of only in
whispers; and after the difficulties that lay in the way of getting the
cotton into the hands of the traders had been discussed in tones so low
that no eavesdropper at the door could have heard a word of it, Mrs.
Gray said in her ordinary voice:
"You boys have often spoken of having Northern papers in your
possession. Did your officers permit that?"
"Well, no," said Rodney, with a laugh. "It was against orders to
look at one of them, and I have seen men triced up by the thumbs for
disregarding that order."
"Then how did they get inside our lines?"
"They were taken from dead Yanks, or out of the pockets of prisoners,"
replied Rodney. "Sometimes they were handed over to an officer, or
thrown aside to be picked up by other men who didn't care so much
for orders; and those who got them were mighty careful to know who
was around when they took them out to read them. Why, mother, I am
telling you the gospel truth when I say that all the reliable news we
army fellows got was what came to us through the columns of Northern
papers, or from the mouths of Northern prisoners. But, as I was
saying—$120,000 and over. That's what your cotton is worth, father,
and I will take the little farm so as to be where I can see it once in
a while."
There were so many questions to be asked and answered that Rodney and
Dick scarcely stirred out of the house during the whole of the next
day. On the second day they rode out to call upon Ned Griffin and his
mother, both of whom shed tears of joy and gratitude when they took
Rodney by the hand.
"Yes; thanks to your father's kindness, I am here yet," said Ned,
wiping his eyes, which grew misty every time he spoke of his
benefactor, "though mercy knows how I am going to pay the debt I shall
owe him when the terms of the conscription law are complied with. A
hundred pounds of beef and bacon for every darkey on this place, big
and little, and beef and bacon worth—worth way up yonder," said Ned,
pointing to the ceiling. "It will take me a lifetime to pay it."
"Oh, no, it won't," said Rodney encouragingly, "for if goods are high,
your services will command wages in proportion; don't you see?"
"Do you imagine that I will ever charge your father a cent after what
he has done for me?" cried Ned indignantly. "I am not that kind of a
fellow, and you ought to know it."
"Well, I suppose that is sentiment, but it isn't business," said the
practical Rodney. "Now, then, what do you know? Have you the straight
of the fights the Home Guards had with those gunboats?"
Ned laughed until he was red in the face, and then went on to give the
"straight" of one "fight" as he had heard it from indignant citizens of
Baton Rouge, who had petitioned General Williams, the Union commander,
to send a company of cavalry to Mooreville with orders to exterminate
the Home Guards or drive them from the country. The boys heard much
the same story from several disabled veterans of Bragg's army, upon
whom they called on their way home, and that was the way Rodney came
to know so much about what had been transpiring along the river during
his absence. He and Dick also learned from various sources that the
enrolling officer would prove to be a jolly and entertaining companion
when once they became acquainted with him, but as he was Tom Randolph's
friend, they had better not trust him too far at first.
"Perhaps we'll not trust him at all," said Rodney. "We can tell better
after we have had a look at him. As we are not in the Confederate
service we are under no obligations to go near him; still he might look
upon it as a courteous and friendly act if we were to drop into his
office to-morrow and tell him 'hallo!'"
With this object in view they rode to Mooreville on the afternoon
of the next day, and that was the time they saw Tom Randolph and
frightened him nearly out of his wits, as we have recorded, by assuring
him that he need not expect to take a squad of conscripts to Camp
Pinckney without having a brush with the Union cavalry. It was after
they left him that they heard the hounds giving tongue in the woods;
but such sounds were common enough in that country, and so they paid no
attention to it, although they might have done so had they been able
to look far enough into the future to see what was going to happen
afterward.
When they reached the enrolling office Rodney found that he knew
everyone there except the officer in charge; and as he shook hands with
some and barely nodded to others, he told himself that they were just
the sort of men he expected to find in Tom Randolph's company of Home
Guards. There were a few industrious, hard-working ones among them, but
the majority were long-haired, lazy vagabonds, who had never been known
to earn an honest living.
"They're a pretty set to fight a gunboat," he whispered to Dick while
the two were hitching their horses at the rack. "And I'll bet my roll
of Confederate scrip against yours that they never take any conscripts
to the camp of instruction. I'll go farther, and say that they will
never start with any, for when they are wanted they'll not be found.
Now let's go in and see what sort of a chap we have to deal with."
Dick Graham put him down at once as a conceited prig, who did not
know a thing outside of office routine, and was so disgusted with
the airs he tried to throw on that he did not salute when he handed
out his discharge; but Rodney, who did not care any more for the
enrolling officer than he did for a crooked stick in the road, pursued
a different course, and very soon succeeded in making Captain Roach
ashamed of himself. He made him see that there was a big difference
between a veteran soldier and a Home Guard, and ended by asking him to
dinner.
"Now you've done it," said Dick, as the two mounted their horses and
rode homeward. "If your mother had wanted that officer at her table,
don't you think she would have asked him long ago?"
"Oh, that's all right," said Rodney. "We're privileged characters, and
my folks will back up anything we do or say. Besides, during the last
three days I've got to be a policy man."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just this: so long as Captain Roach collogues with Tom Randolph and
his mother—she's the one I am afraid of, for she is a schemer from
the word go, I tell you—so long will he be more or less under their
influence; and I am well enough acquainted with them to know that they
would not hesitate to say or do anything that came into their heads
if they thought they could set him against me. So I wanted the first
chance at the captain. There's no telling at what moment he may be able
to do us a good turn."
When the boys reached home they were surprised to find that there was
a good deal of suppressed excitement among the servants, which showed
itself now and then in spite of all their efforts to keep it concealed.
Rodney's black playmate, who came to the steps to take charge of their
horses, was full of news, but his master could not get anything out
of him, although he threatened, if he did not speak, to take him on
board the gunboats and sell him to the Yankees the first thing in the
morning. When they went into the house they met Mrs. Gray, whose face
showed that she was not altogether at her ease.
"What's up?" demanded Rodney.
"Nothing more than we can expect in times like these, I suppose," she
replied, with a smile. "But the blacks are frightened, and of course
that has an effect on me. There are four escaped Union prisoners in
the vicinity, and some Confederate soldiers are pursuing them with
bloodhounds."
Dick Graham took note of the fact that she did not say "some of _our_
soldiers," as almost every other Southern woman would have done. He
thought of the Federal scouts who had captured and released himself and
Rodney a few days before, and said mentally:
"I hope they'll not catch them. I wish we could find them long enough
to hand them a bottle of turpentine. That would throw the dogs off
their trail in short order."
"Well, what are the blacks frightened at?" continued Rodney. "The Yanks
don't make war on people of their color."
"But they know that there are two ex-Confederate soldiers in this
house——" began Mrs. Gray.
"Now I understand it!" exclaimed Rodney. "And that was the reason
Rosebud wouldn't tell me what he had on his mind, though I promised to
sell him if he didn't. He was afraid that Dick and I would saddle up
and go after those prisoners. Well, we're not making war on Yanks so
much as we were, so you can rest easy, mother. But how did you find it
out? We didn't hear a word of it in town or along the road."
"Three of the pursuing party rode into the yard not half an hour
ago to tell me of it, and to ask if I thought any of our blacks
would be likely to feed and shelter the Federals if they came on the
plantation," answered Mrs. Gray. "And I could only say truthfully
that I was sure they would. The soldiers do not mean to give the poor
fellows any rest, or the least chance to escape to the river."
"Hal-lo!" ejaculated Rodney. "Is a Yank a poor fellow in your
estimation?"
"A weary and hungry man is always an object of pity," replied his
mother, "and such have never been turned from this plantation without
having their wants relieved. And now the soldiers have gone and put
those dreadful Home Guards after them."
"Haw, haw!" laughed Rodney. "Tom Randolph's Home Guards may be dreadful
to unarmed Union men who have never snuffed powder, but veterans, such
as I take these escaped prisoners to be, won't stand in fear of them.
Why, mother, if these four men were armed they would whip Tom's whole
company."
"They are thoroughly armed," said Mrs. Gray. "And when they are in need
of food they walk right into a plantation house and demand it."
"That's all right too. You don't expect men to go hungry when there's
grub in sight, just because they have the misfortune to be Yanks, do
you? Where did they get their weapons?"
Mrs. Gray shuddered as she told the story as we have already heard
it; and when she described how the fugitives had surprised, captured,
and paroled a squad of six men who had been sent in pursuit of them,
Rodney's face and Dick's beamed with admiration.
"I'll bet they are bricks," said the former.
"Top-notch," chimed in Dick.
"And do the Home Guards know that the Yanks are armed?" continued
Rodney. "If they do, there isn't a man in the company who will join in
the pursuit. They'll make a big show of going if Tom orders them out,
but the first good chance they get they'll hide in the woods."
"And I don't know that I blame them," observed Dick.
"Nor me. There's no fun in walking up on an armed and desperate man
when he is concealed and can see every move you make, while you cannot
see hide nor hair of him. Mother," here he sunk his voice to a whisper,
"I hope they won't catch those fellows; and if they come around this
house I'll help them if I can."
"Here too," whispered Dick; and Mrs. Gray never uttered a word of
rebuke. The boys believed that she would help them herself.
When Mr. Gray came in the matter was talked over again, and he did not
appear to be very anxious that the fugitives should be captured. On the
contrary he discussed their chances of escape with great composure,
and said he thought their prospects would be brighter than they were
if they only had somebody with them who could show them how to throw
off the dogs. These dogs were not intended to seize the fugitives, you
will understand, but merely to overtake and hold them at bay until the
soldiers could come up. Large packs of trained "nigger" dogs would
sometimes pull down a single man when they found him in the woods, and
it is a matter of history that some of our poor fellows who escaped
from Andersonville were sadly torn by them.
But the four escaped prisoners in question did not come near Mr. Gray's
house that night; or if they did, Rodney and Dick never knew it. It was
on the morning of the next day, just as breakfast was nearly over,
that the first exciting thing happened. Ned Griffin rode into the yard,
and on his way to the back porch he passed along the carriage-way in
front of one of the dining-room windows. Rodney had a fair view of his
face as he rode by, and Ned looked through the open window and saw
Rodney; and in an instant a signal passed from one to the other—a
signal so very slight that no one but a schoolboy would have noticed
it, but it told Rodney as plainly as words that Ned had news for him
that he did not want to divulge in the presence of any third party. So
Rodney hastily excused himself and went out on the porch.
"You look just as Rosebud did when I came home last evening," said he,
when he saw Ned standing at the foot of the steps holding his horse by
the bridle. "But I hope you will be more accommodating than he was, for
he would not tell what he had on his mind."
"Say," replied Ned. He looked all around to make sure that there was no
else within hearing and then went on. "You heard about those escaped
Yankees, didn't you?"
"I heard all about them. What of it?"
"They came to our house last night."
"That's all right. You treated them white, didn't you?"
"I treated them the best I knew how. I thought you and your father
wouldn't care."
"Of course not. But we would care if you had treated them any other
way. What of it?"
"They want me to guide them to Baton Rouge," continued Ned; and then
Rodney noticed that the hand with which he held his bridle trembled
like a leaf.
"That's all right too, and I don't see anything alarming in it. Why
don't you do it?"
"I am perfectly willing to do it, but you see they have got Tom
Randolph with them and won't give him up. They are bound to take him
into the city as a prisoner, for they captured him in uniform."
This astounding information almost knocked Rodney over. He sat down on
the topmost step, rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his
hands, and looked at Ned without speaking.