"BOB"
At daybreak the roll of martial drums startled Jeanne into wakefulness.
"What is it?" she cried, springing from the couch.
"The drummers are beating the reveille," answered the calm voice of Bob
who was already up. "That means that it is time to get up. You needn't
be in a hurry, however. There are two hours yet until breakfast."
"But you are dressing," said Jeanne. "I will too."
"I always get up when the regiment does," answered Bob. "But you are
different. You are a guest."
"What are you?" asked Jeanne curiously.
"The Colonel's daughter, and the child of the regiment. What is your name?"
"Jeanne Vance. I live in New York city."
"That is a long way from here," said Bob. "Do you mind telling me why you
came down here?"
"I think I should like to," replied Jeanne gazing at the trim figure of
the girl admiringly. She was clad in a suit of gray cloth consisting
of a skirt and close fitting jacket with epaulets upon the shoulders.
A cap of the same material was perched jauntily upon her raven black
hair. Her face, piquant and sparkling, was tanned a healthy brown through
which the red of her cheeks glowed brightly. Jeanne thought that she
had never seen a more charming girl, and, rebel though she knew she was,
she felt her heart drawn toward her.
"Yes, I think that I should like to tell you," she repeated, and then
as rapidly as possible she told of her mission and the events that had
followed its execution.
Bob listened attentively.
"It was awfully mean in your aunt to treat you the way she did," she
commented as Jeanne finished her story. "You are a brave girl even if you
are a Yankee, and I like you. Father says there are some nice ones, but
I reckon that they haven't so awfully many brave ones among them, or we
wouldn't be whipping them so."
"Whipping them?" cried Jeanne aghast. "What do you mean by whipping them?
We were doing all the whipping the last I knew anything about it."
"Well, you certainly haven't heard the news lately then," rejoined Bob.
"If you had, you would have learned that General Bragg had invaded
Tennessee and Kentucky and that the Confederates have both those states
back again. I tell you the Yankees are just 'skedaddling' before him."
"It can't be true," wailed Jeanne. "Kentucky and Tennessee both taken from
us when we fought so hard to get them? Surely it is not true!"
"But it is," asserted Bob positively. "And that is not the greatest news:
General Lee has not only driven McClellan from in front of Richmond, but
he has invaded Maryland and we expect to hear at any time that Washington
has fallen into our hands."
"Is it true?" asked Jeanne again turning so pale that Bob thought she was
going to faint.
"Here, drink this!" Bob tipped up her canteen of water to Jeanne's lips.
"I did not know that Yankees cared so much for such things."
"Cared for such things," echoed Jeanne indignantly. "Of course we care.
How could any one hear that the Capital is menaced and not care? But the
traitors will never succeed in taking it. Never! I know our people. They
will defend it with their lives, and drive the treacherous miscreants,
who would dare profane by their touch, back to where they belong."
"We are not traitors," flashed Bob. "We have a right to secede if we want
to. The Capital belongs as much to us as it does to you, anyway."
"It doesn't," cried Jeanne angrily. "It belongs to the North because the
North is trying to uphold the Government left to us by our great and good
Washington."
"Your great and good Washington," sneered Bob. "Washington belonged to
us, I'd have you know. He was a Virginian, and let me tell you, that if it
hadn't been for Southerners there never would have been any United States
anyway."
"There would too," flashed back Jeanne. "My great-grandfather fought
in the Revolution, and there were plenty who fought that were not
Southerners."
"And who led them, pray?" demanded Bob. "Why, George Washington, a
Southerner. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Thomas Jefferson, a
Southerner. Who got up the Constitution? Why James Madison, a Southerner.
And mind you, Jeanne Vance, this country couldn't be run at first
except by Southerners. Out of the first five presidents, four were
Southerners."
"Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe," and Jeanne counted them
on her fingers. "John Adams was a Massachusetts man."
"Phew!" and Bob's lips curled scornfully. "And the people were so sick
of him that they only let him stay in four years. They were glad enough
to get back to us. I am sure that I don't wonder. I don't see how they
could stand a New Englander."
"I'm afraid that you'll have to," said Jeanne, wrathfully. "They are the
best people in the world. One of them is worth a dozen Southerners."
"He isn't," blazed Bob. "He----"
"Why, what does this mean?" cried a voice from without the tent. "Bob,
is that the way you treat a guest? I am surprised."
"It's dad!" exclaimed Bob, rapidly untying the flap of the tent. "Come in."
To Jeanne's surprise she saluted her father military fashion instead of
kissing him. The gentleman entered--a tall, black-haired, black-eyed man
of splendid military bearing and courtly mien. His eyes were twinkling,
but he spoke to his daughter in rather a stern tone.
"Is this the way to entertain a guest, my child? I suppose that this is
the young lady that Johnson brought in last night."
"Yes," answered Bob, in a shamefaced way. "She is a Yankee, and we were
quarreling. I don't know how it began. Do you?" to Jeanne.
"No," answered Jeanne. "I don't."
"I am ashamed of myself," said Bob, impulsively. "I ought to have
remembered that you were my guest. If you will forgive me this time I
won't do it any more."
"I was wrong too," said Jeanne, humbly. "We'll forgive each other."
Bob hesitated a moment and then leaned toward her.
"There!" said the Colonel, as the girls kissed. "That's better. Leave it
to the men to settle the differences of the country. It is not pleasant
to see girls quarrel. Introduce the little lady to me, Bob."
"Jeanne, this is my father, Colonel Peyton," said Bob. "Dad, this is
Jeanne Vance, from New York city. And she is a brave girl, if she is a
Yankee. You must get her to tell you all about her adventures."
"I am sure that I shall be pleased to hear them," said the Colonel,
affecting not to notice Jeanne's start of surprise as she heard his name.
"Do you girls know that it is breakfast time?"
"Mercy!" cried Bob. "Have the drums beaten the call? I did not hear them.
Did you ever! We've been two hours talking and--quarreling," she added,
in a lower tone.
"Yes; there was a time when I thought that it would be coffee and pistols
for two," laughed the father. "Come, let us have breakfast. I will hear
the little lady's story while we eat."
Jeanne looked about her with curious eyes as they emerged from the tent.
Everywhere there were tents that were arranged with military precision
back of a parade-ground which formed the front. First were the tents of
the men arranged by companies. Next after the tents of the men came those
of the commissioned officers of the companies. These faced on streets
which ran at right angles with the company streets. Still back of these
were the tents of the Colonel and his staff. The flag-staff at the edge
of the parade-ground, and immediately in front of the Colonel's tent,
sported a Confederate flag that waved gaily in the breeze. In the rear
of all were found the Quartermaster's and Sutler's departments. Dick had
often written about the soldiers doing their own cooking but here the
camp seemed filled with negroes who bustled about cooking and waiting
upon the soldiers as if they had been in their own dining-rooms.
"We are here awaiting orders," said the Colonel, when Jeanne had told
him her story, "but we expect to leave soon for Jackson. There are a
number of Federals in that vicinity. It seems to me that your best plan
would be to remain with us until we reach Jackson where I will try to get
you to your own side. They will assist you to get home. That is where you
ought to be."
"And where I wish to be," said Jeanne. "You are very kind, Colonel Peyton.
Kinder than my own people were, and yet you know that I am a Yankee."
"I am treating you as I would wish my own daughter treated under like
circumstances," replied the Colonel gravely. "I don't war on girls, and
it seems to me that you have had rather a hard time of it. Well, we'll
get you out of it as soon as possible unless you and Bob destroy each
other in your quarrels." And he looked at them with a humorous twinkle
in his eye.
"We won't quarrel any more," decided Bob. "We have had our say and we feel
better. Don't we, Jeanne?"
"Ye-es," said Jeanne hesitatingly. "Only I didn't say all I wanted to."
"Never mind," laughed Colonel Peyton. "I've no doubt but that you will
have the opportunity yet. Did Bob tell you how she came to be with me?"
"No; how was it?"
"I ran away," said Bob, her mouth full of chicken. "I have no mother.
Nobody but dad. So when the war broke out, and he went into it I made up
my mind that I would go too. Dad sold off our darkies and sent me to stay
with Aunt Betty in Mobile. I stood it just as long as I could, then I
took Jack, my horse, and struck out for dad. I found him finally, and
now I've been with him for six months. And I am going to stay too. Am I
not, dad?"
"Until we get to Jackson," answered her father, regarding her fondly.
"Then I shall send you on to Vicksburg to stay with sister Sally. That
is the safest place in the Confederacy. Once there my mind will be easy
about you. A camp is no place for a girl."
The breakfast was finished and Colonel Peyton was about to leave them when
he turned to Bob abruptly.
"By the way," he said, "wasn't it Mr. Vance who bought Snowball?"
"Yes; it was, dad. I wonder how Madame treats her! It seems to me that
I've heard some awful stories about the way she uses her darkies."
"When she whips them she does whip dreadfully," said Jeanne. "But I only
know of once that she had Snowball whipped. And you are the Colonel Peyton
who bought her?" Then she told them of Tenny, Snowball's mother.
"That was why you started when you heard my name, was it not?" asked the
Colonel.
"Yes, sir."
"I wondered just a little at the cause of it," remarked the officer as
he left them. "Now, girls, be good."
"I don't want to go to Vicksburg a bit," confided Bob to Jeanne as they
reentered the former's tent. "I just love soldiering. Besides I want to
be near dad. Suppose he should be wounded. He'd die if I was not right
there to look after him. I'm not going to say anything, but it will take
a regular guard to keep me with Aunt Sally."
"But if he wishes it," said Jeanne to whom her father's lightest wish was
law. "You will have to stay then. He knows best."
"It won't be best for me to be away from him," said Bob, rebelliously.
"I should imagine all sorts of things were happening to him."
"Everybody who has a father or a brother in the army does that," said
Jeanne sadly as she thought of Dick. "But we have to stand it, Bob,
when the men and the boys will go to the war. I could not if I didn't
think it was right. If Dick should be killed----" her voice faltered a
little--"it would be a noble death. Admiral Farragut said that there was
no nobler one than to die for one's country, and I should try not to
grieve too much if he were to fall doing his duty."
"I do wish you were a Southerner," said Bob impulsively. "You feel just
like we do about those things. But, Jeanne, what if your brother had
thought that we were right and had gone to our side? What would you do
then?"
"Dick couldn't do that," cried Jeanne. "Why the place where he was born
and the way he was brought up would be against it. No; Dick couldn't be a
rebel."
"That's what I thought about Frank," said Bob, with bitterness. "That's
one reason that I stick so close to dad. I have, or rather had, a brother
too, Jeanne. But he broke dad's heart and mine by going to fight with the
Yankees. Yet his place of birth and his raising were both against it. I
will never forgive him," and the tears rolled down her cheeks. "And dad
never will either."
"But he is your brother," said Jeanne, pressing her hand. "If he thinks
he is right, even if he does differ with you, he is still your brother."
"Never," cried Bob, dashing the tears from her eyes. "I have no brother.
Come, let's go to see the men drill."