A day or two later Battery G left Octavius for the seat of war.
It was not nearly so imposing an event as a good many others which had
stirred the community during the previous twelve months. There were
already two regiments in the field recruited from our end of Dearborn
County, and in these at least six or seven companies were made up
wholly of Octavius men. There had been big crowds, with speeches and
music by the band, to see them off at the old depot.
When they returned, their short term of service having expired, there
were still more fervent demonstrations, to which zest was added by
the knowledge that they were all to enlist again, and then we shortly
celebrated their second departure. Some there were who returned in mute
and cold finality—term of enlistment and life alike cut short—and
these were borne through our streets with sombre martial pageantry,
the long wail of the funeral march reaching out to include the whole
valley side in its note of lamentation. Besides all this, hardly a
week passed that those of us who hung about the station could not see a
train full of troops on their way to or from the South. A year of these
experiences had left us seasoned veterans in sightseeing, by no means
to be fluttered by trifles.
As a matter of fact, the village did not take Battery G very seriously.
To begin with, it mustered only some dozen men, at least so far as
our local contribution went, and there was a feeling that we couldn't
be expected to go much out of our way for such a paltry number. Then,
again, an artillery force was somehow out of joint with our notion of
what Octavius should do to help suppress the Rebellion. Infantrymen
with muskets we could all understand—could all be, if necessary. Many
of the farmer boys round about, too, made good cavalrymen, because
they knew both how to ride and how to groom a horse. But in the name
of all that was mysterious, why artillerymen? There had never been a
cannon within fifty miles of Octavius; that is, since the Revolution.
Certainly none of our citizens had the least idea how to fire one off.
These enlisted men of Battery G were no better posted than the rest;
it would take them a three days' journey to reach the point where for
the first time they were to see their strange weapon of warfare. This
seemed to us rather foolish.
Moreover, there was a government proclamation just out, it was said,
discontinuing further enlistments and disbanding the recruiting offices
scattered over the North. This appeared to imply that the war was about
over, or at least that they had more soldiers already than they knew
what to do with. There were some who questioned whether, under these
circumstances, it was worth while for Battery G to go at all.
But go it did, and at the last moment quite a throng of people found
themselves gathered at the station to say good-by. A good many of
these were the relations and friends of the dozen ordinary recruits,
who would not even get their uniforms and swords till they reached
Tecumseh. But the larger portion, I should think, had come on account
of Lieutenant Ransom.
Dwight was hail-fellow-well-met with more people within a radius of
twenty miles or so, probably, than any other man in the district.
He was a good-looking young man, rather stocky in build and deeply
sunburned. Through the decent months of the year he was always out of
doors, either tramping over the country with a level over his shoulder,
or improving the days with a shotgun or fish pole. At these seasons he
was generally to be found of an evening at the barber's shop, where he
told more new stories than any one else. When winter came his chief
work was in his office, drawing maps and plans. He let his beard grow
then, and spent his leisure for the most part playing checkers at the
Excelsior Hotel.
His habitual free-and-easy dress and amiable laxity of manners tended
to obscure in the village mind the facts that he came from one of the
best families of the section, that he had been through college, and
that he had some means of his own. His mother and sisters were very
respectable people indeed, and had one of the most expensive pews in
the Episcopal Church. It was not observed, however, that Dwight ever
accompanied them thither or that he devoted much of his time to their
society at home. It began to be remarked, here and there, that it was
getting to be about time for Dwight Ransom to steady down, if he was
ever going to. Although everybody liked him and was glad to see him
about, an impression was gradually shaping itself that he never would
amount to much.
All at once Dwight staggered the public consciousness by putting on
his best clothes one Sunday and going with his folks to church. Those
who saw him on the way there could not make it out at all, except on
the hypothesis that there had been a death in the family. Those who
encountered him upon his return from the sacred edifice, however,
found a clue to the mystery ready made. He was walking home with Julia
Parmalee.
There were others whose passionate desire it was to walk home with
Julia. They had been enlivening Octavius with public displays of their
rivalry for something like two months when Dwight appeared on the
scene as a competitor. Easy-going as he was in ordinary matters, he
revealed himself now to be a hustler in the courts of love. It took
him but a single day to drive the teller of the bank from the field.
The Principal of the Seminary, a rising young lawyer, and the head
bookkeeper at the freight-house, severally went by the board within a
fortnight.
There remained old Dr. Conger's son Emory, who was of a tougher fibre
and gave Dwight several added weeks of combat. He enjoyed the advantage
of having nothing whatever to do. He possessed, moreover, a remarkably
varied wardrobe and white hands, and loomed unique among the males of
our town in his ability to play on the piano. With such aids a young
man may go far in a quiet neighborhood, and for a time Emory Conger
certainly seemed to be holding his own, if not more. His discomfiture,
when it came, was dramatic in its swift completeness. One forenoon we
saw Dwight on the street in a new and resplendent officer's uniform,
and learned that he had been commissioned to raise a battery. That
very evening the doctor's son left town, and the news went round that
Lieutenant Ransom was engaged to Miss Parmalee.
An impression prevailed that Dwight would not have objected to let the
matter rest there. He had gained his point, and might well regard the
battery and the War itself as things which had served their purpose
and could now be dispensed with. No one would have blamed him much for
feeling that way about it.
But this was not Julia's view. She adopted the battery for her own
while it was still little more than a name, and swept it forward with
such a swirling rush of enthusiasm that the men were all enlisted, the
organization settled, and the date of departure for the front sternly
fastened, before anybody could lay a hand to the brakes. Her St.
Mark's Ladies' Aid Society presented Dwight with a sword. Her branch of
the Sanitary Commission voted to entertain the battery with a hot meal
in the depot yard before it took the train. We have seen how she went
and had herself photographed standing proudly behind the belted and
martial Dwight. After these things it was impossible for Battery G to
back out.
The artillerymen had a bright blue sky and a warm sunlit noontide for
their departure. Even the most cynical of those who had come to see
them off yielded toward the end to the genial influence of the weather
and the impulse of good-fellowship, and joined in the handshaking at
the car windows, and in the volley of cheers which were raised as the
train drew slowly out of the yard.
At this moment the ladies of the Sanitary Commission had to bestir
themselves to save the remnant of oranges and sandwiches on their
tables from the swooping raid of the youth of Octavius, and, what with
administering cuffs and shakings, and keeping their garments out of the
way of coffee-cups overturned in the scramble, had no time to watch
Julia Parmalee.
The men gathered in the yard kept her steadily in view, however, as
she stood prominently in front of the throng, on the top of a baggage
truck, and waved her handkerchief until the train had dwindled into
nothingness down the valley. These observers had an eye also on three
young men who had got as near this truck as possible. Interest in
Dwight and his battery was already giving place to curiosity as to
which of these three—the bank-teller, the freight-house clerk, or the
rising young lawyer—would win the chance of helping Julia down off her
perch.
No one was prepared for what really happened. Miss Parmalee turned and
looked thoughtfully, one might say abstractedly, about her. Somehow she
seemed not to see any of the hands which were eagerly uplifted toward
her. Instead, her musing gaze roved lightly over the predatory scuffle
among the tables, over the ancient depot building, over the assembled
throng of citizens in the background, then wandered nearer, with the
pretty inconsequence of a butterfly's flight. Of course it was the
farewell to Dwight which had left that soft, rosy flush in her dark,
round cheeks. The glance that she was sending idly fluttering here and
there did not seem so obviously connected with the Lieutenant. Of a
sudden it halted and went into a smile.
"Oh, Mr. Pulford! May I trouble you?" she said in very distinct tones,
bending forward over the edge of the truck, and holding forth two white
and most shapely hands.
Marsena was standing fully six feet away. Like the others, he had been
looking at Miss Parmalee, but with no hint of expectation in his eyes.
This abrupt summons seemed to surprise him even more than it did the
crowd. He started, changed color, fixed a wistful, almost pleading
stare upon the sunlit vacancy just above the head of the enchantress,
and confusedly fumbled with his glove tips, as if to make bare his
hands for this great function. Then, straightening himself, he slowly
moved toward her like one in a trance.
The rivals edged out of Marsena's way in dumfounded silence, as if he
had been walking in his sleep, and waking were dangerous. He came up,
made a formal bow, and lifted his gloved hands in chivalrous pretence
of guiding the graceful little jump which brought Miss Parmalee to the
ground—all with a pale, motionless face upon which shone a solemn
ecstasy.
It was Marsena's habit, when out of doors, to carry his right hand in
the breast of his frock-coat. As he made an angle of his elbow now,
from sheer force of custom, Julia promptly took the movement as a
proffer of physical support, and availed herself of it. Marsena felt
himself thrilling from top to toe at the touch of her hand upon his
sleeve. If there rose in his mind an awkward consciousness that this
sort of thing was unusual in Octavius by daylight, the embarrassment
was only momentary. He held himself proudly erect, and marched out of
the depot yard with Miss Parmalee on his arm.
As Homer Sage remarked that evening on the stoop of the Excelsior
Hotel, this event made the departure of Battery G seem by comparison
very small potatoes indeed.
It was impossible for the twain not to realize that everybody was
looking at them, as they made their way up the shady side of the main
street. But there is another language of the hands than that taught
in deaf-mute schools, and Julia's hand seemed to tell Marsena's arm
distinctly that she didn't care a bit. As for him, after that first
nervous minute or two, the experience was all joy—joy so profound
and overwhelming that he could only ponder it in dazzled silence. It
is true that Julia was talking—rattling on with sprightly volubility
about all sorts of things—but to Marsena her remarks no more invited
answers than does so much enthralling music. When she stopped for a
breath he did not remember what she had been saying. He only knew how
he felt.
"I wish you'd come straight to the gallery with me," he said; "I'd like
first-rate to make a real picture of you—by yourself."
"Well, I swow!" remarked Mr. Newton Shull, along in the later
afternoon; "I didn't expect we'd make our salt to-day, with Marsena
away pretty near the whole forenoon, and all the folks down to the
depot, and here it turns out way the best day we've had yet. Actually
had to send people away!"
"Guess that didn't worry him much," commented the boy, from where he
sat on the work-bench swinging his legs in idleness.
Mr. Shull nodded his head suggestively. "No, I dare say not," he said.
"I kind o' begrudge not bein' an operator myself, when such setters
as that come in. She must have been up there, a full two hours—them
two all by themselves—and the countrymen loafin' around out in the
reception-room there, stompin' their feet and grindin' their teeth,
jest tired to death o' waitin'. It went agin my grain to tell them last
two lots they'd have to come some other day; but—I dunno—perhaps
it's jest as well. They'll go and tell it around that we've got more'n
we can do—and that's good for business. But, all the same, it seemed
to me as if he took considerable more time than was really needful. He
can turn out four farmers in fifteen minutes, if he puts on a spurt;
and here he was a full two hours, and only five pictures of her to show
for it."
"Six," said the boy.
"Yes, so it was—countin' the one with her hair let down," Mr. Shull
admitted. "I dunno whether that one oughtn't to be a little extry. I
thought o' tellin' her that it would be, on account of so much hair
consumin' more chemicals; but—I dunno'—somehow—she sort o' looked
as if she knew better. Did you ever notice them eyes o' hern, how they
look as if they could see straight through you, and out on the other
side?"
The boy shook his head. "I don't bother my head about women," he said.
"Got somethin' better to do."
"Guess that's a pretty good plan too," mused Mr. Shull. "Somehow you
can't seem to make 'em out at all. Now, I've been around a good deal,
and yet somehow I don't feel as if I knew much about women. I'm bound
to say, though," he added upon reflection, "they know considerable
about me."
"I suppose the first thing we know now," remarked the boy, impatiently
changing the subject, "McClellan'll be in Richmond. They say it's
liable to happen now any day."
Newton Shull was but a lukewarm patriot. "They needn't hurry on my
account," he said. "It would be kind o' mean to have the whole thing
fizzle out now, jest when the picture business has begun to amount to
something. Why, we must have took in up'ards of $11 to-day—frames and
all—and two years ago we'd a' been lucky to get in $3. Let's see:
there's two fifties and five thirty-five's, that's $2.75, and the Dutch
boy with the drum, that's $3.40, counting the mat, and then there's
Miss Parmalee—four daguerreotypes, and two negatives, and small frames
for each, and two large frames for crayons she's going to do herself,
and cord and nails—I suppose she'll think them ought to be thrown
in——"
"What! didn't you make her pay in advance?" asked the boy. "I thought
everybody had to."
"You got to humor some folks," explained Mr. Shull, with a note of
regret in his voice. "These big bugs with plenty o' money always have
to be waited on. It ain't right, but it has to be. Besides, you can
always slide on an extra quarter or so when you send in the bill. That
sort o' evens the thing up. Now, in her case, for instance, where we'd
charge ordinary folks a dollar for two daguerreotypes, we can send her
in a bill for——"
Neither Mr. Shull nor the boy had heard Marsena's descending steps on
the staircase, yet at this moment he entered the little work-room and
walked across it to the bay window, where the printing was done. There
was an unusual degree of abstraction in his face and mien—unusual
even for him—and he drummed absent-mindedly on the panes as he stood
looking out at the street or the sky, or whatever it was his listless
gaze beheld.
"How much do you think it 'ud be safe to stick Miss Parmalee apiece for
them daguerreotypes?" asked Newton Shull of his partner.
Marsena turned and stared for a moment as if he doubted having heard
aright. Then he made curt answer: "She is not to be charged anything at
all. They were made for her as presents."
It was the other partner's turn to stare.
"Well, of course—if you say it's all right," he managed to get out,
"but I suppose on the frames we can——"
"The frames are presents, too," said Marsena, with decision.