RECAPTURE
"We must not stay here, Jeanne," said Dick, after his sister had finished
her narrative. "We must strike out for the Mississippi River. Once there
we may see some of our boats. That will be our best show for getting to
our lines."
"Is it far to the river, Dick?"
"I don't know, Jeanne. If I felt sure that Colonel Peyton would send you
to our men, I would let you go on with him, but after the treatment given
you, I don't like to let you go back."
"No; let me stay with you, Dick. I feel as if I never wanted to see a
rebel again."
"You are liable to see a good many of them before we are out of this,"
remarked Dick. "The woods are full of them. I fear----"
"What?" asked Jeanne, as the lad paused.
"For you, sister. It will be a long, hard journey. I wish I had known
just how matters stood and I would have left you where you were. You
have shown yourself a brave girl, and it will take all your courage and
resolution now to stand up under the perils we will have to encounter. I
wish we had some money. The Johnnies aren't averse to taking our money
for all their devotion to their cause. It would help us wonderfully."
"See here, Dick!" Jeanne took a roll of bills from her dress. "Will this
be enough?"
"Where did you get it?" cried Dick in delight. "Why, this is fine!"
"Father gave it to me just before I left," answered Jeanne. "He little
thought that it would help us both to get back to him. I know Aunt
Clarisse would have taken it if she had remembered telling me to hide it."
"Father will have a settling with Uncle Ben and his wife," cried the boy,
his eyes flashing. "I'd just like to meet the lady myself. I don't think
she'd like what she would hear!"
"I know it," and the girl looked at him admiringly. "I just feel as if my
troubles were all over. What a soldier you are, Dick!"
"You are a pretty good one yourself," answered Dick. "I had no idea,
Jeanne, that you could stand fire as you did on that transport. Why, I
have known big men to be afraid in a battle."
"It's the blood," observed the girl, sagely. "How could we be other than
brave, when our ancestors fought in the Revolution? We just can't help it."
Dick laughed.
"Ancestors don't seem to help some fellows I know," he said. "You'd be
surprised at some of the things they do. They play sick, fall in behind
the rest of us, or do anything in the world to get out of the way of
the bullets. The queer part of the whole thing is that those who expose
themselves the most rarely get hurt while the shots seek the cowards."
Thus conversing the two pursued their journey. Darkness came on, and Dick
proposed a halt and rest for the night.
"There are so many swamps," he said, "and so many of those things they
call bayous that I like to see where I am going. You won't be afraid to
stay out all night, will you? There isn't a house in sight, and it might
not be safe for us to go to it if there were."
"I am not afraid with you, Dick. But it does look rather ghost-like,
doesn't it, with all that moss hanging from the trees?"
"Yes; the forest is not so fine as our own Adirondacks. I don't like this
country anyway. There are cypress swamps and malaria every time you turn
round. Malaria has killed more of the boys than all the shots the rebs
ever fired. You won't get sick, will you?"
"I stood New Orleans in the summertime," said the girl, "and they said
down there that anybody who could live there through the summer could live
anywhere. But you have not told me how you came to be down here."
"Our regiment was sent to Corinth," answered Dick. "With a few others
I was taken prisoner during the battle there. General Van Dorn sent us to
Jackson, and from there we were to be taken by rail to Richmond, Virginia.
For some reason the orders were changed, and we were marched on foot to
your camp. What they intended to do with us is more than I know. I tell
you, I was glad to be free again."
"You are so pale," said Jeanne, touching him gently. "Are you well, Dick?"
"Fine! Just need a good square meal to set me up all right," answered
the boy cheerily. "I haven't had very much to eat since you girls set me
free. Just what I could find in the woods. Herbs and wild grapes, and
persimmons. I eat the green ones mostly."
"But why?" asked Jeanne mystified. "The ripe ones are ever so much better.
I like them now, although I didn't at first."
"The green ones are best if you don't have much to eat," rejoined Dick.
"They are fine to draw the stomach up to fit the supply. Say, Jeanne,
don't you wish we had some of mother's doughnuts?"
"You poor, poor boy," cried Jeanne laughing, but there were tears in her
eyes. "I wish we were where we could get them. Will the war last much
longer, Dick?"
"I am afraid so," was the lad's reply. "The rebs have played the mischief
this fall, and it looks as if all our work had to be done over again. Now,
Jeanne, you go to sleep, or you won't be fit to travel to-morrow."
"And what will you do?"
"Watch while you sleep. Never mind me. I am used to it. I have often stood
guard, and can do it just as well as not."
"I don't believe that anything will bother us, brother. I wish you would
sleep too."
"No," said Dick sturdily, "not now."
Jeanne tried to obey him but sleep would not come to her. The dark pines
were on all sides of them. The owls hooted dismally, and the chill wind
sobbed and moaned fitfully in the pine trees. Presently Dick stooped over
her.
"Are you cold, Jeanne?"
"Yes, Dick. And I can't sleep a bit. Can't we talk, or walk, or do
something?"
"We will walk," decided Dick. "I think that the horse must be rested by
this time. What is his name?"
"Robert E. Lee," answered Jeanne in a hesitating tone fearing that Dick
might not like the animal to be so called. "Bob called him 'Rel' for
short, and so do I because I don't like the full name."
"Lee is a fine general," commented Dick. "If we had had him on our side
to begin with, the war would have been over by this time. I hope the horse
is worthy of his name. Take my hand, Jeanne, and we will start."
Throwing the rein over his shoulder Dick guided himself by the stars
and the brother and sister again took up their journey to the westward.
Slowly they proceeded, stopping occasionally to rest and picking their
way carefully through the forest. At last, just at the break of day,
they came to a clearing in the woods in which stood a cabin. The blue
smoke curled invitingly from the chimney, and in the open door stood a
venerable darky.
"It's darkies," cried Dick joyfully. "They will give us something to eat."
They hurried forward. The old man stared at them as they approached him.
"Could you give us some breakfast, sir?" asked Dick. "We are willing to
pay well for it. We are Unionists."
"'Meriky," called the old man excitedly, "hyar's two ob Massa Linkum's
folks wantin' sumthing ter eat. Yes, suh; kum in, suh. We'll gib yer what
we've got. Kum in!"
Gladly they entered. A bright looking colored woman surrounded by half a
dozen pickaninnies of all ages and sizes from two to fifteen was busily
preparing the morning meal. She bustled forward bowing and courtesying
as they entered.
"Kum in an' welcome," she said. "Lawsie, you is one ob Massa Linkum's
sojers sho' nuff. Hain't neber seed one befo'. We all jest lubs Fadder
Abraham, suh."
"And the horse?" said Dick suggestively.
"Dat's all right, suh. Hyar, Geo'ge Washington! Done yer see de gem'man's
hoss a stan'ing dere? Gib him sum fodder."
With homely but cheerful hospitality they pressed the viands upon them.
It seemed to Jeanne that nothing had ever tasted so good before, and
she could not but gaze in wonder at the quantity of hominy, molasses,
cornbread and rye coffee that Dick managed to stow away.
"What would it have been if he hadn't eaten the green persimmons," she
wondered.
"You all is a moughty long ways from your lines," remarked the old man
as Dick told them that he been taken prisoner and was making his escape.
"Dere's sojers all 'bout in dese hyar woods. 'Clar ter goodness I done
see how yer gwine ter git away from 'em."
"We'll manage," said Dick hopefully. He felt now that he could face all of
Van Dorn's brigade. "Take this, my friend, and tell us the best road to
reach the Mississippi River."
"Thankky kindly, massa," said the old darky, taking the dollar bill that
Dick gave him with the eagerness of a child. "See hyar, 'Meriky, it's
Linkum money. Good Linkum money!"
"Sho' nuff it am," cried 'Merica examining it. "Thankky, suh; and you too,
missy. Ef yer eber sees Massa Linkum tell him how we all lubs him, an'
dat we am a lookin' fohwa'd ter resting in his bosom."
"I will," said Jeanne with quick courtesy as a suspicious sound came from
Dick's direction. "Perhaps some day you will see him for yourself."
"De Lohd grant it," came from the negroes fervently. "De good buk done
promised dat we shall lie in Fadder Abraham's bosom, an' we knows we will.
Tell him we's 'spectin' it suah ter kum ter pass."
"Though how Lincoln is going to take them all into his bosom passes my
comprehension," was Dick's laughing comment as they went on their way.
"I think that he has done it already, Dick," said the girl with truer
insight than the boy. "They know it too, poor souls! I hope that they
will get to see him. I think if I were a negro I would walk all the way
to Washington to do it."
They were fortunate enough to obtain some ears of corn from the home of
a poor white, the woman being so suspicious of them that she would not
permit them to enter her house. She gladly however took the money they
offered and gave them the corn.
To all inquiries concerning the Mississippi River they were told that if
they kept on in the same direction that they were going they would reach
it in time.
"All of which is very specific," growled Dick as he threw himself under
a tree and declared a halt. "I wonder if any of them ever saw the river in
their lives."
"I don't believe that they have," said Jeanne. "I found out in New Orleans
that these people that they call 'poor whites' are very ignorant. But
we'll reach it some way, Dick."
"Yes; I begin to think that we will," said Dick complacently. "I wish that
I had a Confederate uniform though. These clothes are rather conspicuous."
"Dick," cried Jeanne in horrified tones, "you would not wear that uniform
for a minute, would you?"
"Wouldn't I?" chuckled Dick. "I wish I had a chance to try. Then we would
not have to skulk along this way but would go boldly to the nearest town
and board a train, and there we'd be!"
"I would not wear one," declared Jeanne.
"It wouldn't change my principles," said Dick. "The clothes don't make
the man only in the eyes of other people, and that is what we want now. I
would be just as true a Unionist as I am now, and it would be much safer
for us both. A uniform and a gun are just what I need. I am going to get
them!"
He rose determinedly as he spoke and helped Jeanne on the horse.
"Get on too, Dick," she pleaded. "You have walked all the time and your
shoes are in tatters. Please get up too."
To please her Dick climbed up before her, and they started off at a brisk
pace. Suddenly from a bend in the road before them a body of rebel cavalry
cantered into view. Jeanne tittered a cry of alarm but Dick setting his
teeth made a quick dash into the woods.
The rebels had seen them, however, and giving vent to their terrible yell,
they dashed in pursuit.
"Surrender," cried the leader as they drew near the hapless pair.
"Surrender!"
"Never!" cried Dick, furiously urging his horse to greater speed. A shower
of bullets fell about them. The horse stumbled and then swayed heavily.
Dick leaped from the animal's back and swung Jeanne to the ground just
as the poor brute fell. Throwing his arms about his sister the boy faced
the men defiantly.
"You are our prisoner, Yank," yelled the leader as they surrounded them.
"My sister," came from the lad's lips. His face was very pale and a
despairing look came into his eyes. He tottered and fell as he spoke.
"Dick!" shrieked Jeanne, frantically flinging herself beside him. "Dick,
Dick!"
"Wounded," was the terse remark of the Captain as he made a brief
examination. "By George, but he showed pluck to face us as he did! Look
here, boys."
Turning back the lad's shirt he showed a gaping wound in his chest. With a
cry of agony at the sight, the world turned dark to Jeanne, and she fell
prostrate across the form of her brother.