THE WOLF AND THE SHEEPFOLD.
The glorious Fourth has come and gone. The Centennial anniversary has
had its completed category of parade and picnic; speech and song; fun
and fireworks. The thronging cities of the East have rejoiced with
unusual enthusiasm, especially Philadelphia, whose coffers are plethoric
with the tribute of visiting thousands. Out on the frontier we have
celebrated with modified _éclat_, since the national celebrants are
mostly absent on active service, and have no blank cartridges to dispose
of. The big garrison flags have been duly hoisted and saluted. The
troops have been paraded where there were any to parade, as only a few
infantrymen remain to take care of the forts and the families. The
Declaration of Independence has been read in one or two of the bigger
posts, where enough remains of defenders to make up a fair-sized
demonstration. One of these is far up on the Missouri, where the cavalry
ladies are all invited to hear the infantry orator of the day--and go.
No news has come for some time from husbands and lovers on the war-path,
and it is best to be hopeful and cheery. They make a lovely picture, a
dozen of them in their dainty white dresses, their smiling faces, their
fluttering fans and ribbons. They applaud each telling point with
encouraging bravos and the clapping of pretty hands. How free from
care, how joyous, how luxurious is army life! How gleeful is their
silvery laughter! How beaming the smiles with which they reward the
young gallant who comes among them for their congratulations! _Vanitas,
vanitatum!_ They are nearly all widowed, poor girls, but they don't know
it--not yet. The steamer laden with the wounded and the fell tidings of
disaster is but a few hours away. Before the breaking of another day
there will be none to smile in all their number. Verily, "In the midst
of life we are in death."
And Russell, too, has had its jubilee--on a more extensive scale, for
here are Webb and Truscott with their fine troops of horse, the band,
the infantry companies, and a brace of old howitzers, with which they
make the welkin ring. No tidings of any account have come from the
front. The Gray Fox is puzzled at the situation. The Indians are out
there somewhere, as he finds every time a scout goes forth, but they
appear to be engrossed in some big council over at the Greasy Grass. One
thing is certain, he can get no word through to Terry on the
Yellowstone, and he cannot afford another tussle with such force as they
show when he does come out. The --th is still down near the Black Hills.
Busy? Oh, yes. Busy is no word for it! They are scampering all over the
south Cheyenne country after small bands of Indians, whose fleet ponies
keep them just out of range of the carbines and just out of reach of the
horses, who, grain-fed all winter, are now losing speed, strength, and
bottom on the scant and wiry grass they find in the sandy valleys.
Truscott and Webb are eager to go forward, but orders say wait. Mrs.
Truscott is again almost in heaven. Jack has been with her nearly a
fortnight. They are domiciled in their new quarters. Mrs. Stannard is
their next-door neighbor; much of their furniture has come, and the army
home is beginning to look lovely. Mrs. Whaling and Mrs. Turner can never
see enough of it, or say enough.
Large numbers of recruits have been sent to the post to be drilled and
forwarded to the cavalry at the front. They are having riding-school all
hours of the day, and the cavalry officers are in saddle from morn till
night teaching them. Mr. Gleason is assiduous in this duty. Whatever
Captain Truscott has heard to the gentleman's discredit in the past, he
admits to himself that it has prepared him for agreeable disappointment.
No lieutenant could be more attentive or subordinate, more determined to
please. Captain Truscott cannot but wish that Mr. Gleason were less
attentive to Miss Sanford, but that young lady is evidently fully able
to keep him at a very pleasant distance. It excites the captain's
admiration to see how perfectly lady-like, how really gracious is her
manner to the aspiring widower, and yet--how serenely unencouraging. No
one understood this better than Mr. Gleason himself. Finding her deeper,
less impressionable than he at first supposed, he simply changed his
tactics. He avoided the store, he shunned conversations on dangerous
topics, he cultivated the society of Colonel Whaling, and deeply
impressed that veteran with the depth of his information on dogs,
horses, and military affairs. He dexterously lost small sums to the post
commander at pool and billiards; enough to keep the old gentleman in
cigars--and good-humor. He became "serious" in his conversation with
the colonel's amiable wife, whose exemplary habit it was to be always
found seated at a little table behind a very big Bible when visitors
called; though the garrison _did_ say, as garrisons will, that
occasionally they had to knock or ring half a dozen times before the
summons could be heard; not because the good lady was so deeply plunged
in religious meditation, but because the clatter of angry tongues made
all demonstration from without simply inaudible.
The long-suffering and short-serving domestics who successively reigned
in the Whaling kitchen and chambers were wont to say that it was nag and
scold from morn till dewy eve,--sometimes later,--and that in the midst
of wrathful tirade the lady of the house would only be brought to
instant silence by the announcement of "some one at the door." A certain
Miss Finnegan, who served a brief apprenticeship in the household,
acquired lasting fame in the garrison for the mimetic power which
enabled her to portray "Mrs. Gineral's" instantaneous change from a
posture of fury to one of rapt devotion. She could look like Hecate
Hibernicized, and in one comprehensive second drop into a chair, "smooth
her wrinkled front" and side curls, shake out her rumpled draperies, and
rise from an instant's searching of the Scriptures with features
expressive of the very acme of Christian peace and benediction. "Mrs.
General" was a pet-name the lady had won from a wifely and lovable trait
that prompted her to aggrandize her placid lord above his deserts. Him
she ever addressed (in public), and of him she ever spoke, as "the
general," irrespective of the fact that the rank was one he never had or
never would attain, even by brevet, for the Senate drew the line at the
man who had been in the army through three wars and never heard a
hostile bullet whistle. His regiment had not been required in the
Florida business. He himself was put on other duty when they went to
Mexico, and, finally, in the great war of the Rebellion, there was
constant need of regulars to act as mustering and disbursing officers at
the rear. Such had been old Whaling's career, and, so long as he himself
was utterly unpretentious,--never claimed to have done any war service,
and was content to drift along and draw his pay,--nobody would have said
much in detraction had it not been for his wife's persistent pushing. He
was merely second in command of his regiment, but the lady spoke of him
as "the general" on all occasions, and alluded to his immediate
superior, who had led corps and divisions in his day, as Colonel Starr.
Others--of equal rank and with the brevets of major-generals--she
similarly belittled. They were merely field-officers. She admitted the
existence of no greater man than "the general," her husband, and
whatever might be the sorrows of other parents with their children, or
housewives with their servants, Mrs. Whaling pitied,--even
condoled,--but could not sympathize. With uplifted eyes she would thank
the Giver of all good that He had blessed her with sons so noble and
distinguished, with daughters so lovely and so dutiful, with servants so
singularly devoted. In the various garrisons in which the good lady had
flourished, what mattered it that her boys were known to be graceless
young scamps whom cudgelling could not benefit, or that her gentle
daughters squabbled like cats and flew to the neighbors to spread the
tales of their wrongs and mamma's injustice? What mattered it that her
paragons of servants left her one after another and swore they couldn't
stay in a house where there was so much spying and fault-finding? There
was no shaking Mrs. Whaling's Christian determination to run with
patience the race thus set before her.
Gleason found in converse with her so much that reminded him of the
mother he had lost, alas! so many years ago, and Mrs. Whaling welcomed
him to the consolations of her sanctified spirit. Together they deplored
the frivolity and vices of the younger officers (Ray came in for a good
showing-up just there, no doubt), and together they projected the
reformation of some of her favorites in the garrison. A wise man was
Gleason. She and her meek and lowly husband could be useful--very useful
in time of need. And did he abandon his devotions to Miss Sanford? No,
indeed! but they were modified as became the subject. He called less
frequently; he became less personal, less aggressive in his talk; he had
naught but good, or silence, for his comrades, and charity for the
world. He threw into his every look and word a deference and a respect
that made his manner proof against criticism; and yet, one and all, they
could not welcome him. Truscott, his captain, had never yet dropped the
"Mr." before the surname of his subaltern,--that well-understood barrier
to all army intimacy,--and Gleason, who stood among the very first on
the lineal list of lieutenants, hated him for the restriction, but gave
no sign.
It was necessary that some one of the cavalry officers should be placed
in charge of the newly-arrived recruits, and this duty fell to Gleason's
lot. It relieved him from service with his troop and made him
independent of his captain. Webb and Truscott, if consulted, would have
named a far better instructor among their lieutenants, but Colonel
Whaling issued the order from post headquarters, and there was nothing
for it but obey. Gleason lent his best efforts to the work, and he and
his drill sergeants were ceaseless in their squad instruction. Several
old cavalrymen had come among the dozens of green hands, so had a small
squad transferred by War Department orders from West Point. Among these
men were competent drill-masters, and among the drill-masters the most
active and efficient was the Saxon soldier, Sergeant Wolf.
Mr. Gleason had invited the ladies to walk out on the prairie east of
the post one lovely morning late in June, that they might see the
skirmish drills of the two cavalry troops. Often as she had been a
spectator before, Mrs. Truscott never tired of watching Jack and his
men, and Miss Sanford was greatly interested at all times in the martial
exercises, especially the mounted. Strolling homeward about ten o'clock,
having been joined by one of the young infantry officers, Mr. Gleason
suggested their stopping at the store and refreshing themselves with a
lemonade. Miss Sanford would have declined with thanks, but silently
waited for her hostess to speak; and Mrs. Truscott, who remembered how
papa had sometimes called her into the club-room when she was a child,
and who knew that the garrison ladies frequently accepted such
invitations, hesitatingly assented. It must be confessed that Mrs.
Truscott sometimes acted before she thought, and this was one of the
times. Truscott himself rarely, if ever, entered the club-room, and had
never thought it necessary to say anything to his wife on the subject.
The door stood invitingly open; the attendant was lolling thereat in his
shirt-sleeves admiringly scanning the approaching group. As soon as he
saw they were heading for the club-room instead of the gate, he slipped
behind the bar and put on his coat. Miss Sanford hung back as Mr.
Gleason threw open the portals, and called out encouragingly,--
"Come right in, ladies; there's no one here but the bar-keeper."
Mrs. Truscott stepped lightly over the threshold, and glanced with
smiling curiosity around. The first thing that caught her eye was a
placard hanging at the entrance of a little alcove-like space beyond the
rusty old billiard-tables. Within were two or three green baize-covered
card-tables and rude wooden chairs. On the placard, roughly stencilled,
was the legend,--
"He who enters here leaves soap behind."
Mrs. Truscott's eyes expressed wonderment and mirth commingled.
"How utterly absurd! Who did that, Mr. Gleason?"
"That? Oh! That's some of Blake's work, I believe! Ah--are you not
coming in, Miss Sanford?"
"Thanks, no, Mr. Gleason; I believe I'll wait here," was the reply,
pleasant but decided.
"Why, Marion! Do come in!" cried Mrs. Truscott, hastening to the door.
Miss Sanford's face was flushing slightly, but her voice was gentle as
usual.
"I'll wait for you, Grace; but I do not care for a lemonade, and--would
rather not go in."
"Indeed, I don't care for one either. I only said yes because I thought,
perhaps, you would like it--or would care to see the club-room," Mrs.
Truscott protested, as she hurriedly came forth. "We are just as much
obliged to you, Mr. Gleason, but--not to-day." And with that they
resumed their homeward stroll. Once through the gate Mr. Gleason
slackened the pace, so as to detain his fair companion a moment.
"Why would you decline my invitation?" he asked, in a tone of what was
intended to be tender reproach.
"I prefer not to visit--the club-room, as I believe it is called."
"You would soon get used to it if you were in the Army," he ventured
awkwardly.
"But I am not in the Army," she began, self-restrainedly enough; then,
as though she could not repress the words, "Nor would I be if, as you
say, I had to get used to that."
She has a temper then, quoth Gleason to himself, ruefully noting that he
had made a bad move. It gave him an opportunity of putting in what was
generally considered a pretty effective piece of work, however,--one
that had been often employed on somewhat similar occasions, and will be
again.
"Ah, Miss Sanford, were there more women like you, there would be fewer
places like that."
But to this she made no reply whatsoever. If anything, its effect was to
quicken her pace.
Arriving near their quarters, a small party of enlisted men, apparently
recruits, were observed clustered about a wagon loaded with boxes. A
spruce, handsome, blond-moustached young soldier stepped suddenly into
view from behind the wagon, where he had been superintending the
unloading of some of the goods. At sight of him Miss Sanford stopped
short. Looking wonderingly at her, Mr. Gleason saw that her face had
paled, and that she was gazing intently on the approaching soldier and
on Mrs. Truscott, who, absorbed in laughing talk with her escort, had
apparently not observed him. As he halted and saluted, Mr. Gleason could
not but note that she started, then that she had flushed crimson. He
glanced quickly from one to the other,--the pale girl by his side, the
startled young matron in front, and the statuesque soldier, respectfully
standing with his hand at the cap visor.
"Pardon, madame; the quartermaster sends me to unload these boxes at
Captain Truscott's quarters, if madame will designate the room to which
they shall be carried."
"The captain will be here in a moment," she replied, hurriedly, and
moving into the gate as though eager to avoid the very presence of the
soldier. "Oh! may I ask you in, gentlemen?" she added, glancing over her
shoulder, and still evidently discomposed.
And Gleason followed.
The parlor was cool and pleasant after the hot sunshine without. Mrs.
Truscott threw herself into a chair, then rose as hastily and went into
the dining-room beyond. Miss Sanford's eyes followed her anxiously as
she stood at the sideboard pouring out a glass of water.
"That man--er--Wolf, who came with this batch of recruits, tells me he
was first sergeant of Captain Truscott's troop at the Point," he said,
tentatively.
"Yes. When did he get here, or how?"
"He came with recruits two nights ago; transferred from West Point with
some other men on the captain's application, as I understand it. I
presume he is to be assigned to our troop."
And here the clatter of hoofs outside announced the captain's return
from drill, and Gleason soon took his leave, pondering over what he had
seen. What was the secret of Mrs. Truscott's evident uneasiness, if not
agitation? what of Miss Sanford's visible annoyance?
It was very late that night when Miss Sanford sought her room. There had
been a drive to town during the afternoon, and a pleasant dance at the
hop-room afterwards. Not once had she had an opportunity of speaking
alone with Mrs. Truscott, nor was she quite certain of what she wished
to say even had the opportunity occurred. For several days previous to
their start from the Point, Sergeant Wolf, with others of the cavalry
detachment, had been constantly at the house packing goods and
furniture. Nothing could exceed the punctilious distance and respect
with which he addressed the ladies whenever occasion required that he
should speak to them at all; but Miss Sanford could not forget his
mysterious conduct the night she discovered him at the front gate. Once
she spoke with half-laughing hesitancy of the assiduity with which the
sergeant devoted all his spare time to his captain's service, or to
madame's, and Grace had looked so annoyed that she ceased further
mention of him. She wanted to tell her of his being at the gate that
night, and his going around under the library-window, but it proved a
difficult thing, and she postponed it from day to day. Then came the
sudden departure of the sergeant and his party for New York, where they
were ordered to report at a recruiting rendezvous. Believing that they
had seen the last of him she breathed freer, and decided to keep the
story of his midnight visit to herself, at least for a time; and now
here he was again, and his coming had evidently startled her friend. She
wanted, above all things, to have a frank talk with Mrs. Truscott. This
keeping a secret from her was distressing, and she could not bear the
thought of a possible cloud or misunderstanding between them, but poor
Grace had totally forgotten the existence of such a person as Wolf by
the time they got home. She was having a little trouble of her own. They
were strolling across the parade in the brilliant moonlight, Grace on
her stalwart husband's arm, looking up in his face with all her soul in
her eyes, chatting merrily over the events of the day. Miss Sanford was
amiably listening to the dissertation of an infantry friend upon
astronomical matters, while Gleason was elsewhere escorting Mrs.
Whaling. At the door Truscott looked back and hospitably invited the
young officer to enter, but the latter doffed his cap and gallantly said
something to the effect, that all who entered left their hearts behind,
and took himself off with the conviction that he had made a glowing
impression. It reminded Mrs. Truscott of the stencil inscription over
the local Inferno.
"Oh, Jack! Have you seen Mr. Blake's latest absurdity,--that slangy
paraphrase of Dante at the club-room?"
"I heard of it," said Truscott, smilingly. "Who told you of it,
Queenie?"
"Why!--I--saw it to-day," she replied, as though suddenly conscious that
she had put her foot on forbidden ground. Then, as he said nothing
whatever, she went on in anxious explanation: "Mr. Gleason asked us in
to have a lemonade on our way from drill. You know the ladies often go,
Jack."
"I know some of them do, Gracie."
"Ought we not to have gone--I mean, ought I not to have gone? for Marion
would not. Indeed, Jack, the moment I saw she had not come in I left at
once. Was it--are you vexed?"
"There's no great harm done, dear. I had not thought to warn you against
it, though I knew the others--some of them, went there at times."
"You mean you had not supposed it would be necessary, Jack."
And so, it must be admitted, he had; and poor Grace was in the depths as
a natural consequence. It was the first time she had felt that he was
disappointed in her, and though the matter was trivial and his loving
kiss and caress reassured her, she was plunged in dismay to think that
in entering the club-room with Mr. Gleason she had done what he
disapproved of, what, as a woman of refined breeding, she should have
shunned, and--what Marion _had_ declined. She was too much a woman not
to feel that therein lay an additional sting; she was too gentle and
loving a wife not to feel forlorn at thought of having disappointed
Jack. Some women would have resented the idea of his objecting to such a
thing. (No, fair reader, of course I don't mean you; but is it not just
possible I may be right in saying so of Mrs. ---- next door?)
Grace had kissed her friend good-night just a wee bit less
affectionately than usual, and Marion well knew that husband and wife
were best left alone together, as the surest and speediest way of
settling the affair. She, therefore, went to her room.
There were only two rooms up-stairs in the little army house, each with
its big closet, a door connecting the two, and others opening out on the
narrow landing above the stairs; each with its sharply sloping roof and
dormer-window. Grace had insisted on her guest's taking the front room,
looking out on the parade as she had at the Point; but after much
laughing discussion they settled it by pulling straws, as many a
question had been decided in the old school days. This reversed the
assignment, and the rear room became Miss Sanford's. The view from the
window was not attractive. Immediately beneath was the shingle roofing
of the dining-room and kitchen annex, stretching out to the servants'
rooms and sheds beyond. The yard, like all its fellows, was bare and
brown, for nothing would grow on such a soil. Rough, unpainted wooden
fences separated them one from another; rough cow-sheds, coal-sheds, or
wood-sheds were braced up against the fences, and back of all the yards
along the row ran a high rickety barrier of boards, as rough and
unprepossessing as the others. Beyond this fence lay a triangular space
of open prairie ornamented only by ash-barrels and occasional heaps of
empty cans awaiting the coming of the "police cart." Beyond this space
stood the big brown hospital on the north; the back-yards of the
surgeon's and sutler's quarters on the east; while the hypothenuse of
the right-angled triangle thus limited was the unsightly fence that
bounded the back-yards of officers' row. Mr. Dick Swiveller's delightful
view "of over the way" was a gem of landscape in comparison.
But for such gloomy outlook Miss Sanford had little thought. She went to
the window to draw the curtain, and far out across the distant prairie
slopes, where she could see them at all, the moon was throwing her
silvery beams, while closer at hand broad, irregular wastes of blackness
sailed over the dry plateau as the clouds that caused them drifted
across the dazzling face. Harsh and unlovely as were the surroundings by
day, they lost something of their asperity under the softening shimmer
of that mystic light. Far down by the stables she could hear the ringing
watch-call of the sentries proclaiming half-past twelve o'clock and all
well, and then--and then as a cloud floated away and the bright beams
poured down in unhindered radiance, she became aware of a form enveloped
in a cavalry overcoat standing in the corner of the fence. She could see
the moonlight glinting on the polished insignia,--the crossed
sabres,--on the front of his forage-cap, and though she could not see
the face, she knew it was that of Sergeant Wolf.
Captain and Mrs. Truscott were still below. She could hear them putting
out the parlor lamps and locking the doors. She could hear a quick
footstep on the hard-beaten walk in front and the clink of a scabbard,
and knew it must be the officer of the day starting out to make his
rounds. So too, apparently, did the mysterious prowler in the back-yard.
He stepped quickly out of the enclosure, and the next instant she could
see the erect, soldierly figure moving rapidly away towards the
northwestern entrance of the post, where lay the band's quarters.