We were travelling (wearily enough) through a piece of woods,
overarching and autumn-tinted, the road being cut down, and,
consequently, either side of it walled in by upheaving embankments,
green-covered and yellow-fringed, over which the declining sun could not
dart its rays upon us. The heavy trains of the entire army were making
the march along with us, disturbing the modest influences of the
spot,--some trundling forward in the van, others toiling after in our
rear, the tending angels of all being drowsy, in the shape of the lazy
teamsters astride their beasts. Only that peculiar music, made up of the
ponderous _thud_ (the birds had all grown still) or tramp of the men for
a bass,--of the clink and clatter of the canteens for a treble,--and of
a little broken conversation, in the whining, drawling tones of the
guard, on their own side of the lines, and so with no quieting weight
upon their tongues, for a _viva-voce_ accompaniment,--broke the sweet
summer stillness. The shafts of sunlight bridging the road above our
heads, making a golden ether-plank for the air-insects to cross upon,
and lighting up the veins in the trembling leaves as the breeze put them
to confusion, set me to thinking of the eyebrows that the Adjutant was
engaged to, and, no doubt, of eyebrows in general. A cool air, smelling
of mould and fallen leaves, perhaps a little damp, fell upon us here.
The charms of Nature may have loosened the Sergeant's tongue.
"I was captured in Mar'land," he began, looking straight before him, but
of course honoring me with his address.
I was grateful to him, a little for companionship's sake, but chiefly
for here giving me a chance that I had hoped for, as I deemed it of
considerable value,--I mean, a chance to dig down to the mine of good
feeling, to the heart of this gray-covered, slumbering crater, that, an
hour since, had thrust out that "do"; and also, I was beholden to him
for taking my thoughts from the tape.
"How did our boys treat you?" I asked.
"Very fair," he said quickly, with a faint Judas-start, as if it were a
matter of conscience, and he had now twitched it out. "They done well by
me."
Here was good fortune, indeed! The mine, with all its riches, mine
without any digging.
"I am glad of it," I said, briefly; for I saw that laconics were his
jewels, perhaps from a sense of expediency as well as of beauty. "We
always try to treat you well, whenever we are not firing our guns at
you."
This he acknowledged with a nod, but without turning from his look
directly front.
"I lay two months in hosp't'l," he began again,--"in Fred'r'k, in
Mar'land. I was wounded in the hip."
"In '62, I suppose?" said I.
"Yes,--at Boonsboro'."
Here the conversation ended as suddenly as it had opened. It was very
clear that the Sergeant had said his last word for some time. But I was
convinced in my own mind that at length more good would fall to my lot.
He pondered the matter some ten minutes, and then quite overwhelmed me
with his story.
"One of your boys," he began, "lay wounded by me on the field,--of a
ball in the lungs,--and wanted some water. Whenever he spoke, he threw
out blood, and wasn't likely to live, nohow. I said,----
"'Yank, will you take my tin?'--for there was a drop in it yet, and I
rolled on my side and gave it him.
"'I am goin' to die,' he said.
"'Yes,' says I.
"'They'll treat you well,' he said; 'they'll carry you to the hosp't'l,
and I hope you'll live to git home.'
"'Thank you,' says I.
"He gave me some 'baccy and a roll of money.
"'The paymaster's been about, and he gave me more 'n I want now. You'll
want 'baccy in hosp't'l,--you'll want it all,' he said.
"And he run over in blood and died. He gave me right smart of money. I
rolled away from him when he died, and they took me to hosp't'l."
The Sergeant paused for my comment.
Under my peculiar circumstances, I was very much touched by this story.
"Poor fellow! many such a one has gone to his account," I said, sadly.
"And I want to give back some of the money to you," said the Sergeant.