SCHOOL
It was with a grave face that Mr. Arnold listened to Berry’s story
of her morning’s adventure at the brook; and her mother instantly
declared that Berry could no longer run about alone. “The man was
probably a Confederate spy,” she said anxiously, “and if he had
discovered that a family from New England were living near by, that,
instead of being a little boy of Tennessee, you were a little Yankee
girl, we cannot tell what would have happened.”
“Yes, I believe the man has been traveling along the Cumberland and
Tennessee Rivers looking over the Confederate line of defense, and
his saying he might return this way in the spring may mean that the
Confederates fear an attack will be made upon Fort Henry or Fort
Donelson. If the Union army could capture these forts and open the
Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, the Confederate line of defense
would be destroyed,” said Mr. Arnold thoughtfully; and Mrs. Arnold
instantly added, “We surely need not fear any battle taking place near
this remote spot, but with spies everywhere we must take all possible
precautions. I hope you did not tell the Braggs of meeting a stranger,
Berry?” she added.
“No; I didn’t tell Mrs. Bragg. I don’t know why I didn’t,” Berry
responded thoughtfully. “I guess I was really frightened after all,
and didn’t want Mrs. Bragg to know it.”
“Nonsense, Berry!” said Mr. Arnold sharply. “You could run away
from anyone. And if you blew your whistle, even if you were too far
away for me to hear and come to your assistance, it would make any
dangerous person sure that help was close at hand, and would probably
frighten him away.”
Berry’s father did not like the idea of the little girl going about in
fear. He knew it would destroy all her pleasure in the free woodland
life which they had all taken so much happiness in. The whistle of
which he spoke had been a gift to Berry from her brother Francis.
It was a silver whistle, attached to a long silver chain that Berry
always wore about her neck, with the whistle tucked into the pocket
of her blouse. During the first year in the cabin Mr. Arnold had
not been sufficiently strong to walk far, and it was Francis who
had chopped the wood for the cabin fires, journeyed to Corinth for
necessary provisions, and fished for bass and pickerel along the
river; and Berry had often been his companion. He had given her the
whistle so if she lost sight of him in the woodland trails she could
instantly call him; and Berry valued it more than anything else and
never left the cabin without it.
Nothing more was said that day in regard to the stranger, but in the
afternoon Mr. Arnold started off into the forest, telling Berry that
he thought she would better stay and keep her mother company. He
followed the trail to the Braggs’ cabin, and made his way for some
distance up the stream where Berry had encountered the stranger; but
he found nothing to cause alarm, and was tempted to believe that,
after all, the man might have been only a woodsman journeying across
country, who had thought it an amusing game to frighten the small boy
for whom he had mistaken Berry.
As he walked along the ridge and down the slope to his cabin Mr.
Arnold thought to himself that, as his wife had said that noon,
however the conflict went between the armies of the North and the
South, there was small danger of its coming nearer to Shiloh church
than the defensive line of the Confederates at the river forts, and
which stretched on through Kentucky from the Mississippi River to the
Cumberland Mountains. The control of this defense was in the hands of
General Albert Sidney Johnston, a man respected alike by his opponents
and his soldiers. His line of defense included Fort Henry, on the
right bank of the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson, on the left bank
of the Cumberland River; and Mr. Arnold was confident that General
Ulysses S. Grant, the commander of Union forces in the West, would not
long delay in an attempt to conquer these river strongholds. “With
those forts destroyed Grant’s army could soon break the whole western
line of defense,” reflected Mr. Arnold, little realizing that within a
month this very thing would be accomplished.
Before Mr. Arnold reached home the sky filled with heavy clouds and it
began to snow. “Glad Berry is indoors,” he thought, as he approached
the cabin and saw the dancing blaze of the sitting-room fire shine out
through the windows. Berry and her mother were on the settle beside
the fire busy with sewing.
“It looks just like my things, only smaller,” said Berry, holding up a
blue serge blouse.
“Only Mollie’s suit is a skirt and blouse, instead of knickerbockers,”
her mother smilingly reminded her.
“Well, Mollie would like knickerbockers, but her father never would
let her wear them,” said Berry. “Why does Mr. Bragg think I ought to
wear long calico skirts, I wonder? I could not run or climb trees or
jump across brooks if I wore skirts. Mollie is always tearing hers,
and tumbling down when she runs after me.”
“Mr. Bragg doesn’t really think, my dear. He simply echoes,” responded
Mrs. Arnold. “But I am sure Mollie will like her new skirt.”
“Won’t she be surprised, Mother, to have a birthday party? And on the
very day school begins. The minute Mrs. Bragg said that January tenth
was Mollie’s birthday I thought I’d make her a present; but it was you
who thought of a party,” and Berry gazed admiringly at her pretty,
smiling mother, who was always thinking of such interesting things for
little girls to do. For it was Mrs. Arnold who had suggested ripping
up a blue serge skirt of her own and making a blouse and skirt of it
for Mollie. But it was Berry who, with her mother’s help, had cut out
blouse and skirt, and who had stitched the seams and embroidered a
star in red worsted on the corners of the collar.
When the Arnolds came to Tennessee they had brought a good store of
clothing; but they had not believed a great war was so close at hand,
a war that was to impoverish the Southern States and to make it nearly
impossible for people to procure suitable clothing; and at the close
of their second year in their mountain cabin the Arnolds began to
realize that they must take good care of their garments, as they could
not purchase new material in the town of Corinth. With the Braggs
conditions were more difficult, as they had never possessed decent
clothing; such dresses as Mrs. Bragg had managed to secure for herself
and Mollie were worn to rags. Mrs. Arnold had given Mrs. Bragg a dress
of stout gingham; but poor little Mollie ran about in a thin worn
calico. Mrs. Arnold was teaching the little girl to knit a jacket for
herself of the fine blue yarn that her mother spun, and, with a dress
of serge, Mollie would soon be comfortably clothed.
When the last stitches were set and Mollie’s dress was quite finished,
Berry carried the serge blouse and skirt into her own room, which
opened from the sitting-room, and that was as pleasant a chamber as
any little girl could ask. The floor of the room, like all the cabin
floors, was painted yellow. The walls and ceiling were boarded with
pine, whose soft color blended with the floor. Mr. Arnold and Francis
had built this room on to the cabin, and its wide window overlooked
the deep ravine toward Lick Creek. But a tall oak tree grew so close
to the cabin on this side as to hide the little building from sight,
and when Berry looked from her window she looked out between the
branches of the trees toward rough banks and wooded ridges. Mr. Arnold
had made the simple white bedstead that stood in Berry’s room, and the
dressing-table, over which hung a small square mirror. And Francis had
built the box-like window-seat, which Mrs. Arnold had covered with
flowered chintz which she had brought with her from the North, and
had made curtains for the window of the same material. A white rug of
sheepskin lay beside the bed, and there was a chest of drawers in one
corner of the room, and a small wooden rocking-chair painted white.
Berry put Mollie’s new dress in the lower drawer of the wide chest
and looked at it admiringly. Then, from a far corner of the drawer
she took a long package wrapped in a piece of newspaper—for tissue
and wrapping paper were not easy to obtain in that part of the world
in 1862—and unrolled it, and a small doll appeared, a doll made of
cloth, whose hair was of yarn raveled from the foot of an old brown
stocking; whose eyes were black buttons, and whose scarlet mouth had
been marked by beet juice. The doll wore a gay dress made of bits of
yellow silk from Mrs. Arnold’s scrap-bag. Her feet were covered with
kid shoes, made from a worn-out glove, and the little hat, tied on
with a bit of yellow silk, Berry had made by plaiting dried grasses.
“Mollie will like this doll, too,” Berry thought happily, as she
returned the package to its former place. “I wish there were some
other little girls to ask to her birthday party,” she thought,
recalling her former playmates of the far-off Vermont village, where
a birthday party had meant the gathering of at least a dozen little
girls, all in pretty dresses, and each bringing a gift for the girl
whose birthday they were celebrating. Berry smiled to herself as she
glanced down at her stout leather boots and baggy knickerbockers.
“They would all think my clothes as queer as Mr. Bragg does,”
she thought, recalling the full flounced skirts and embroidered
pantalettes that she had worn before coming to Shiloh.
Snow continued to fall during the night, so that Mollie’s feet were
wet and her faded skirt more drabbled and limp than usual when she
reached the Arnolds’ cabin the next morning. An old brown shawl of
Mrs. Bragg’s covered her head and shoulders, and one end of it trailed
behind her as she entered the pleasant kitchen.
Mrs. Arnold took off Mollie’s shawl as she welcomed their little
visitor, and Berry ran for a pair of moccasin slippers that Mr. Arnold
had made from tanned sheepskin, and in a few moments Mollie’s wet
shoes had been set to dry and she was following Berry through the
sitting-room to Berry’s chamber, looking about as she always did with
admiring eyes at the simple comforts of a home so different from the
Braggs’ dark, squalid cabin.
“Do you remember what day this is, Mollie?” Berry demanded as they
entered her room.
Mollie nodded eagerly as she smiled radiantly up at her friend.
“’Deed I does. It’s the day school begins!” she responded, her pale
eyes shining with delight.
“And what else?” questioned Berry.
Mollie’s smile faded and her face grew anxious.
“I dunno, Berry. It’s snowing; you don’t mean that, do you?” she
questioned, and Berry gave a gay little laugh, and leaning toward her
kissed Mollie’s cheek, saying, “Happy birthday, Mollie Bragg. Here you
are, eleven years old to-day! And you forgot all about it!”
Mollie looked at her friend with wide eyes. “I ’most always fergits
it,” she replied. “I guess nobody ever said ‘Happy birthday’ to me
before.”
“Well, I’ll always say it to you after this, always!” Berry declared.
“If I go back to Vermont and can’t _say_ it, I’ll write it,” she
promised; and it was a promise she remembered and fulfilled after the
two little girls were separated by the long distance between Vermont
and Tennessee.
As Berry spoke she turned toward the chest of drawers and said:
“Birthdays mean presents, and here are your birthday presents from
Mother and me,” and Berry drew forth a little petticoat of soft gray
flannel, one that she had formerly worn, and the blue serge blouse and
skirt.
“Slip off your dress, Mollie, and we’ll see if they fit,” urged Berry,
laying the garments on her bed, and before Mollie had recovered from
her surprise she found herself dressed in the warm petticoat and
the pretty serge dress, and Berry was tying one of her own scarlet
neckties under the wide sailor collar of the blouse.
“There, Mollie! Look at yourself!” and Berry swung Mollie about in
front of the small mirror, where the little girl gazed admiringly at
her new appearance. Then, with a sober face, she began to untie the
strip of scarlet silk and to unfasten the blouse.
“Don’t take them off, Mollie!” exclaimed the astonished Berry. “You
are to wear them, to-day anyway.”
“Are they mine? Truly?” asked Mollie, as if unable to believe that she
could really own such beautiful apparel.
“Of course they are yours. I helped to make them, but it was Mother
who planned them,” responded Berry.
“O-ooh!” exclaimed Mollie; but before she could say anything more a
bell in the sitting-room tinkled sharply.
“School! Father is waiting!” Berry exclaimed laughingly, and putting
her arm about the blue-clad little figure she drew Mollie toward the
door.