Joe Maxwell was very tired the day after his experience in the cabin
with the deserters and the runaways, but he was not too tired to
joyfully accept an invitation to visit Hillsborough with the editor of
_The Countryman_. For months the town had been practically in a state of
siege. As the war progressed, it had been made a hospital station. The
old temperance hall and many of the other buildings in the town had been
fitted up for the accommodation of the sick and wounded. There were also
many refugees in Hillsborough from Tennessee and north Georgia. While
the town was crowded, the small-pox broke out, and for a month or more
the country people were prevented from going there. Guards were placed
on all the roads leading into the town; but this was not necessary, for
the country people were not anxious to visit the place when they learned
of the small-pox. Hillsborough was placed under martial law, and a
provost-marshal given charge of affairs. This was necessary, not only to
control the small-pox, but to control the convalescing soldiers, among
whom were some very rough characters.
Joe had stayed away so long that the town seemed to be new to him. The
playground in front of the old school-house was full of dingy hospital
huts; the stores with which he had been familiar had been put to new
and strange uses; and there were strange faces everywhere. Squads of
soldiers were marching briskly here and there; men with crutches at
their sides, or bandages on their heads, or with their arms in slings,
were sunning themselves on every corner. Everything was strange. Even
the old china-trees under which Joe had played hundreds of times had an
unfamiliar look. Dazed and confused, the lad sat down on one of the long
benches that were placed along the wall in front of some of the stores.
The bench was tilted back against the wall, and one end of it was
occupied by two men who were engaged in earnest conversation. Joe paid
little attention to them at first, but a word or two that he heard
caused him to observe them more closely. One of them was Mr. Deometari,
the Greek exile and lawyer; the other was a man whom Joe did not know.
He noticed that, although Mr. Deometari wore a faded and shabby uniform,
his linen was spotless. His cuffs and shirt-bosom shone in the sun, and
the setting of a heavy ring on his chubby finger sparkled like a star.
“He has forgotten me,” Joe thought, and he sat there determined not to
make himself known, although he and Mr. Deometari had been great friends
before the lad left Hillsborough.
“There's another thing I'm troubled about,” Joe heard Mr. Deometari say
to his companion. “Pruitt has come home.”
“What's the matter with him?” asked the other.
“Deserted!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari.
“Well,” said the other, “it's a big risk for a grown man to take. If
he's caught, he'll have to pay the penalty.”
“No!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari, bringing his fist down on his broad knee.
“He'll be caught, but he won't pay the penalty.”
“Why, what do you mean, Deo?” asked his companion.
“Don't you know him?” exclaimed Mr. Deometari. “He belongs to the Relief
Committee!”
“Phew!” whistled the other, raising both his hands in the air, and
letting them fall again.
“Don't you know him?” Deometari went on, with increasing earnestness.
“He's the man that shot the otter.”
Again Mr. Deometari's companion gave a long whistle of astonishment.
“Jack Pruitt?” he asked.
“The identical man,” said Deometari. “And do you know who this
provost-marshal here is--this Captain Johnson?”
[Illustration: 0187]
“Oh, yes,” said the other; “he's the chap that stole the last dust of
meal we had been saving to make soup for poor Tom Henderson.”
“And what happened then?” inquired Mr. Deometari, as if trying to
refresh his own memory instead of that of his companion. “Didn't Jack
Pruitt give him a whipping?”
“Why, bless my life!” exclaimed the other. “What am I thinking about?
Why, of course he did!” Saying this, Mr. Deometari's companion rose to
his feet, and caught sight of Joe Maxwell as he did so. Instantly he
laid his hand on Mr. Deometari's shoulder and remarked:
“It is fine weather for birds and boys.”
Joe was not at all disconcerted. He was not eavesdropping, though he
was very much interested in what he had heard. The way to interest a boy
thoroughly is to puzzle him, and Joe was puzzled.
“I saw Mr. Pruitt last night,” he remarked, and then, as his old friend
turned, he said:
“How do you do, Mr. Deo? You haven't forgotten me, have you?”
Joe advanced and offered his hand. As Mr. Deometari took it, the frown
cleared away from his face.
“Why, my dear boy!” he exclaimed, pulling the lad toward him and giving
him a tremendous hugging, “I am delighted to see you! I could count on
my ten fingers the people who are left to call me Deo. And if I counted,
my boy, you may be sure I'd call your name long before I got to my
little finger. Why, I'm proud of you, my boy! They tell me you write the
little paragraphs in the paper credited to 'The Countryman's Devil'?
Not all of them! Ah, well! it is honor enough if you only write some of
them. Forget you, indeed!”
Mr. Deometari's greeting was not only cordial but affectionate, and the
sincerity that shone in his face and echoed in his words brought tears
to Joe Maxwell's eyes.
“Blandford,” said Mr. Deometari, “you ought to know this boy. Don't you
remember Joe Maxwell?”
“Why, yes!” said Mr. Blandford, showing his white teeth and fixing his
big black eyes on Joe. “He used to fight shy of me, but I remember him
very well. He used to stand at the back of my chair and give me luck
when I played draughts.”
Mr. Blandford had changed greatly since Joe had seen him last. His black
hair, which once fell over his shoulders in glossy curls, was now gray,
and the curls were shorn away. The shoulders that were once straight and
stalwart were slightly stooped. Of the gay and gallant young man whom
Joe Maxwell had known as Archie Blandford nothing remained unchanged
except his brilliant eyes and his white teeth. Mr. Blandford had, in
fact, seen hard service. He had been desperately shot in one of the
battles, and had lain for months in a Richmond hospital. He was now, as
he said, just beginning to feel his oats again.
“Come!” said Mr. Deometari, “we must go to my room. It is the same old
room, in the same old tavern,” he remarked.
When the two men and Joe Maxwell reached the room, which was one of
the series opening on the long veranda of the old tavern, Mr. Deometari
carefully closed the door, although the weather was pleasant enough--it
was the early fall of 1864.
“Now, then,” said he, drawing his chair in front of Joe, and placing
his hands on his knees, “I heard you mention a name out yonder when you
first spoke to me. What was it?”
“Pruitt,” said Joe.
“Precisely so,” said Mr. Deometari, smiling in a satisfied way. “John
Pruitt. Now, what did you say about John Pruitt?”
“Late of said county, deceased,” dryly remarked Mr. Blandford, quoting
from the form of a legal advertisement.
“I said I saw him last night,” said Joe, and then he went on to explain
the circumstances.
“Very good! and now what did you hear me say about Pruitt?”
“You said he would be caught and not punished because he belonged to the
Relief Committee.”
“Hear that!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari. “If any but these friendly ears
had heard all that, we'd have been put on Johnson's black list, and
maybe we'd have been transferred from the black list to the guard-house.
Now, then,” continued Mr. Deometari, “you don't know anything about the
Relief Committee, of course, and as you might be inquiring around about
it, and asking what John Pruitt, the deserter, has to do with the Relief
Committee, I'll tell you. But, my dear boy, you must remember this: It's
not a matter to be joked about or talked of anywhere outside of this
room. Now, don't forget. It isn't much of a secret; it is simply a piece
of business that concerns only a few people. Do you remember reading or
hearing about the retreat from Laurel Hill?” asked Mr. Deometari, moving
his chair back and unwinding the stem of his Turkish pipe. “That was
in the early part of the war, and it will never cut much of a figure in
history, but some of those who were in that retreat will never forget
it. In the confusion of getting away a little squad of us, belonging
mostly to the First Georgia Regiment, were cut off from the main body.
When we halted to get our bearings there were not more than a dozen of
us.”
“Seventeen, all told,” remarked Mr. Blandford.
“Yes,” said Mr. Deometari, “seventeen. We were worse than lost. We
were on the mountains in a strange country. Behind us was the enemy and
before us was a forest of laurel that stretched away as far as the eye
could reach. To the right or to the left was the same uncertainty. We
could hear nothing of the rest of the command. To fire a gun was to
invite capture, and there was nothing for us to do but push ahead
through the scrubby growth.”
“The commissary was absent on a furlough,” remarked Mr. Blandford.
“Yes,” said Mr. Deometari, laughing. “The commissary was missing, and
rations were scanty. Some of the men had none at all. Some had a little
hard-tack, and others had a handful or so of meal. Though the weather
was bitter cold, we built no fire the first night, for fear of
attracting the attention of the enemy. The next day and the next we
struggled on. We saved our rations the best we could, but they gave out
after a while, and there was nothing left but a little meal which John
Pruitt was saving up for Tom Henderson, who was ill and weak with fever.
Every day, when we'd stop to breathe awhile, Pruitt would make Henderson
a little cupful of gruel, while the rest of us ate corn, or roots, or
chewed the inside bark of the trees.''
“And nobody begrudged Tom his gruel,” said Mr. Blandford, “though I'll
swear the sight of it gave me the all-overs.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari. “Somebody did begrudge Tom the
gruel. One night this Captain Johnson, who is lording it around here
now, thought Pruitt and the rest of us were asleep, and he made an
effort to steal the little meal that was left. Well, Pruitt was very
wide awake, and he caught Johnson and gave him a tremendous flogging;
but the villain had already got into the haversack, and in the struggle
the meal was spilled.”
Mr. Deometari coiled the stem of his pipe around his neck, and blew a
great cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.
“But what about the Relief Committee, Mr. Deo?” inquired Joe.
“Why, to be sure! A nice story-teller am I!” exclaimed Mr. Deometari.
“I had forgotten the Relief Committee entirely. Well, we went forward,
growing weaker and weaker every day, until finally we came to a ravine.”
“It was a gorge,” observed Mr. Blandford, stretching himself out on Mr.
Deometari's bed, “and a deep one too.”
“Yes, a gorge,” said Mr. Deometari. “When we reached that gorge we were
in a famished condition. Not a bird could be seen except crows and
buzzards. The crows would have made good eating, no doubt, but they were
very shy. We had lived in the hope of finding a hog, or a sheep, or a
cow, but not a sign of a four-footed creature did we see. I don't know
how it was, but that gorge seemed to stretch across our path like the
Gulf of Despair. Some of the men dropped on the ground and declared that
they would go no farther.
[Illustration: 0194]
“They said they had no desire to live; they were as weak and as foolish
as children. Of the seventeen men in the squad, there were but five
who had any hope, any spunk, or any spirit--Blandford there, Pruitt,
Henderson, this Captain Johnson, and myself.”
“You ought to put yourself first,” said Mr. Blandford. “You were as fat
as a pig all the time, and as full of life as a grasshopper in July.”
“This ravine or gorge,” continued Mr. Deometari, paying no attention to
the interruption, “was our salvation. Mr. Blandford and Pruitt explored
it for a little distance, and they found a little stream of water
running at the bottom. It was what you call a branch. When they came
back there was considerable disagreement among the men. The poor
creatures, weak and irritable from hunger, had lost all hope, and would
listen to no argument that didn't suit their whims. There was this
question to settle: Should we cross the gorge and continue in the course
we had been going, or should we' follow the gorge? It was a very serious
question. We had not the slightest idea where we were. We had been
wandering about in the mountains for eight days, and if we were going to
get out at all it was necessary to be in a hurry about it.
“Then there was another question. If the gorge was to be followed, which
way should we go? Should we follow the running water or should we go
the other way? Blandford and Pruitt had already made up their minds to
follow the running water, and of course I was going with them.”
“That's because it was down hill,” remarked Mr. Blandford, laughing.
“Deo always said his legs were never made for going up hill.”
“We had a great discussion. My dear boy, if you want to see how peevish
and ill-natured and idiotic a grown man can be, just starve him for a
matter of eight or nine days. Some wanted to go one way and some wanted
to go another, while others wanted to stay where they were. Actually,
Blandford and I had to cut hickories and pretend that we were going to
flog the men who wanted to stay there and die, and when we got them
on their feet we had to drive them along like a drove of sheep, while
Pruitt led the way.
“Pruitt's idea was that the running water led somewhere. This may seem
to be a very simple matter now, but in our weak and confused condition
it was a very fortunate thing that he had the idea and stuck to it. We
found out afterward that if we had continued on the course we had been
going, or if we had followed the gorge in the other direction, we would
have buried ourselves in a wilderness more than a hundred miles in
extent.
“The next day a couple of hawks and two jay-birds were shot, and, though
they made small rations for seventeen men, yet they were refreshing, and
the very sight of them made us feel better. The walls of the gorge grew
wider apart, and the branch became larger as we followed it. The third
day after we had changed our course Pruitt, who was ahead, suddenly
paused and lifted his hand. Some of the men were so weak that they
swayed from side to side as they halted. The sight of them was pitiful.
We soon saw what had attracted Pruitt's attention. On the rocks, above a
pool of water, an otter lay sunning himself. He was as fat as butter. We
stood speechless a moment and then sank to the ground. There was no
fear that the otter could hear our voices, for the branch, which had now
grown into a creek, fell noisily into the pool. If he had heard us--if
he had slipped off the rocks and disappeared--” Mr. Deometari paused and
looked into his pipe.
“Great heavens, Deo!” exclaimed Mr. Blandford, jumping up from the bed.
“I'll never forget that as long as I live! I never had such feelings
before, and I've never had such since.”
“Yes,” continued Mr. Deometari, “it was an awful moment. Each man knew
that we must have the otter, but how could we get him? He must be shot,
but who could shoot him? Who would have nerve enough to put the ball in
the right spot? The man who held the gun would know how much depended on
him; he would be too excited to shoot straight. I looked at the men, and
most of them were trembling. Those who were not trembling were as white
as a sheet with excitement. I looked at Pruitt, and he was standing up,
watching the otter, and whistling a little jig under his breath. So I
said to him, as quietly as I could:
“'Take your gun, man, and give it to him. You can't miss. He's as big as
a barn-door.'
“Pruitt dropped on one knee, put a fresh cap on his gun, shook his hand
loose from his sleeve, leveled his piece, and said, 'Pray for it, boys!'
[Illustration: 0200]
“Then he fired. He was so weak that the gun kicked him over. When I
looked at the otter it seemed that the creature had never moved, but
presently I saw a leg quivering, and then we rushed forward as fast as
we could, the happiest lot of men you ever saw on this earth. The otter
was shot through the head. The men were so ravenous they acted like
maniacs. It was all that Blandford and Pruitt and I could do to keep
them from falling on the otter with their knives and eating it raw, hide
and all.
“But it saved us,” Mr. Deometari went on, “and we had something to
spare. The next day we met with a farmer hunting his stray sheep, and we
soon got back to the army. Four of us formed the Relief Committee before
we parted. Blandford, Pruitt, Tom Henderson, and myself--the men who
had never lost hope--promised each other, and shook hands on it, that
whenever one got in trouble the others would help him out without any
questions.
“Now, it isn't necessary to ask any questions about Pruitt He deserted
because his family were in a starving condition.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Blandford, bringing his heavy jaws together with a snap,
“and I believe in my soul that Johnson has kept food and clothes away
from them!”
“I know he has,” said Mr. Deometari, calmly. “Tom Henderson is one
of Johnson's clerks, and he keeps the run of things. He is to meet us
to-night, and then you'll see a man who has been blazing mad for three
months.--Now, my boy,” continued Mr. Deometari, “forget all about this.
You are too young to be troubled with such things. We're just watching
to see how Captain Johnson proposes to pay off the score he owes Pruitt.
Should you chance to see John, just tell him that the Relief Committee
has taken charge of Hillsborough for a few weeks. Another thing,” said
Mr. Deometari, laying his hand kindly on the boy's shoulder, “if you
should be sent for some day or some night, just drop everything and
come with the messenger. A bright chap like you is never too small to do
good.”
The two men shook hands with Joe, and Mr. Blandford gravely took off his
hat when he bade the boy good-by.