On the evening of the 15th the cavalry left by moonlight, riding along
the railroad toward Slow-River-Junction. The bulk of the infantry
followed two days later, leaving behind them “The Dead Rabbits,”—a New
York regiment,—a squad of cavalry, and Smith’s four-gun battery, to
garrison a hamlet inhabited principally by mosquitoes.
The hamlet of Slow-River contained a red brick church, some houses, a
water-tank, and a race-track. The “Dead Rabbits” established their warren
in the race-track sheds, the cavalry guarded the railway and water-tank,
and Smith’s battery decorated the graveyard around the red brick church.
The inhabitants of Slow-River, barring the mosquitoes, had mostly
disappeared toward Dixie before the arrival of Wilson’s division. When
Wilson moved on toward the Junction, leaving behind him the “Dead
Rabbits,”—and Smith’s Battery to take care of them—the non-combatant
population of Slow-River numbered two,—not including an Ethiopian of no
account.
Smith, of Smith’s Battery, had constituted himself an inquisition of one.
The Reverend Laomi Smull, pastor of the brick church, took the oath of
allegiance and smacked the Book with moist thick lips. Mrs. Ashley, the
remaining inhabitant of Slow-River, widow of a Union officer killed in
the early days of the war, took the oath earnestly, then told Smith who
she was and received his apologies with sensitive reserve.
“I wished to take the oath,” she said: “I have not had my country brought
so near for many months.”
The Reverend Laomi Smull, clasped his soft fingers together and surveyed
the firmament while Mrs. Ashley brushed the tears from her blue eyes.
When she thanked Smith for the privilege of publicly acknowledging her
country, the Reverend Laomi nodded and closed his small eyes as though in
ecstatic contemplation of a soul regenerated.
“Where’s the nigger?” inquired Smith when Mrs. Ashley had gone back to
her cottage below the church.
“Do you refer to our unfortunate coloured brother?” suggested the
reverend gentleman.
“Oh yes—of course,” said Smith, fidgeting with his sabre.
“Abiatha is angling from the bridge,” said Smull wagging his double chin
till his collar creaked.
“What is he fishing for,” inquired Smith, who was an angler.
“Fish,” said the Reverend Laomi, and entered his church with more agility
than his fat bulk appeared to warrant.
At the door he turned to cast one last sly glance at the firmament.
Smith, distrustful, and of the earth earthy, walked back to the
graveyard, lifting his sabre to prevent the clanking of the scabbard on
fallen grave-stones.
“Look out for that pastor,” he said to Steele: “if I know a copperhead
from a copper kettle he’s one with double fangs.”
“You think he may play tricks?” asked Steele, toasting a rasher of bacon
on the coals before his feet.
“Yes, I do. He’ll get no passes from me, I can tell you. I’m going up
into the church tower. Is there a bell there?”
“A cracked one,” said Steele.
“I’ll take the clapper out,” observed Smith. He accepted a bit of bacon
from Steele, laid it on a morsel of hard-tack, munched silently for a few
minutes, then washed his breakfast down with a tin of coffee, returned
Steele’s salute, and entered the church through the vestry. Climbing the
belfry ladder on tiptoe, cap in hand, he could not prevent the ladder
from creaking. So, when he stepped out on the loosely laid planks beside
the bell, he found the Reverend Laomi Smull leaning on the belfry-ledge,
preoccupied with the sky.
“Oh,” said the reverend gentleman with a start, “is it my young friend,
Captain Smythe?”
“Smith,” said the officer dryly, and felt in the bell for the iron
clapper.
“Where is the clapper?” he added turning on Smull.
The Reverend Laomi regarded him calmly.
“I do not know,” he said.
To search the person of the minister was Smith’s first impulse; Smull
divined it and smiled sadly.
“He’s thrown it from the tower where he can find it,” thought Smith. Then
he drew a jack-knife from his blouse, cut the two bell-ropes and let
them drop to the tiled floor far below. The thwack of the ropes echoed
through the silent church; Smith apologised for the military precaution
and stepped to the tower parapet. There he could look out over the
ravaged country toward the Junction where rumour reported an ominous
concentration of Union troops. He could see the water-tower and the
railroad and cavalry patroling the embankment in the morning sunshine.
He could see the weather-stained sheds of the race-track where the “Dead
Rabbits” prowled, a nuisance and sometimes a terror to everybody except
the enemy. Behind him he heard the Reverend Laomi pattering about over
the loose planks that formed the belfry flooring.
“I shall station a signal officer here,” he said without turning.
“Sir,” stammered the minister.
“I am sorry,” said Smith impatiently: “we need the church more than you
do.”
“I agree with you,” said Smull in a peculiarly soft voice.
“I am sorry to exclude you—” began Smith turning,—and those words had
wellnigh been his last, for one leg slipped through an unexpected fissure
between the planks, and he clutched a beam beside him and drew himself
up, deadly pale.
He looked at Smull; the clergyman overwhelmed him with congratulations on
his escape from pitching headlong to the tiled floor below. He spoke of
the mercy of Providence, of the miracles of the Most High; he deplored
the condition of the belfry floor; he reproached himself for not noticing
the fissure.
“I did not notice it either—when I came up,” said Smith.
He followed Smull down the ladder and out of the church, returning the
reverend gentleman’s salute gravely. Then he ordered Steele to use the
church for barracks and march his men in without delay.
“Into the church?” repeated Steele.
“I guess Union soldiers won’t desecrate this church or any other church,”
said Smith savagely, and turned on his heel.
On his way to the river he passed Mrs. Ashley’s cottage; she was
hanging a home-made flag over the porch; the stars and stripes were not
symmetrical, but they were stars and stripes.
She stood on the top of a ladder, hammering tacks and holding the red,
white, and blue folds in her pretty mouth. Occasionally she hammered one
pink-tipped finger instead of a tack; at such moments she repeated, “Oh
dear!”
Smith, cap in hand, offered to hold the ladder; Mrs. Ashley thanked him
and continued to hammer serenely, until she remembered her ankles and
descended precipitately. Then Smith climbed the ladder, drew out all the
tacks Mrs. Ashley had hammered in, rehung the “symbol of light and law,”
draped and nailed it with military rigidity, and descended, covered with
perspiration and mosquito bites.
Mrs. Ashley, cool and sweet in a white gown and black sash, thanked him
and offered him a cup of tea under the magnolias. He accepted and sat
down, sabre between his knees, to mop his face and evade mosquitoes until
she returned with two cups of cold tea, creamless and sugarless.
“I have some limes—if you wish,—Captain Smith,” she ventured, holding out
the golden-green fruit in her smooth palm.
He thanked her and squeezed a lime into his tea.
Overhead, among the magnolia blossoms, the summer harmony had already
begun with the deep symphony of bees; butterflies hovered under the
perfumed branches; a grasshopper clicked incessantly among the myrtle
vines.
Mrs. Ashley rested her chin on her wrist and looked at nothing. A breeze
began to stir the folds of the draped flag over the porch; the crimson
stripes undulated, the stars rose and fell.
“We hear nothing in Slow-River,” said Mrs. Ashley: “has anything
important happened, Captain Smith?” Her voice was almost inaudible.
“Nothing important. The last battle went against us.”
“Will there be a battle here?”
“No—I don’t know—I have no reason to suppose so,” he said with
conscientious precision. “If by any possible chance the rebel cavalry
should ride around our army we might be visited here, but,” he added,
“the contingency is too remote for speculation.”
“Too remote for speculation?” repeated Mrs. Ashley under her breath.
Smith looked up at her—he had been watching a file of ants bearing off
minute crumbs from the biscuit he was nibbling. Smith’s shoulder-straps
were too recent to admit of trifling, and he had an instinct that Mrs.
Ashley considered him young.
“Too remote for speculation,” he repeated, and touched the down on his
upper lip with decision. The faintest flicker of amusement stirred Mrs.
Ashley’s blue eyes.
They spoke of the war, of battles on land and sea, of sieges and
blockades, of prisons and of death. Listening to her passionless voice
he forgot his shoulder-straps for a while. She noticed it. She spoke now
as a very young hostess to a distinguished guest, and he appreciated
it. Little by little they dropped into the half frank, half guarded
repertoire peculiar to conventional civilisation; he recognised her
beauty; she conceded his gallantry; the bees buzzed among the magnolias;
the warm breeze stirred the flag.
Sitting there with white fingers interlaced, and blue eyes demurely fixed
on his, she wondered at the pains she took to wind him around the least
of those white fingers of hers. Yet there was reason enough for her; her
reason, in concrete form, skulked upstairs under a mound of bedclothes,—a
sallow faced, furtive young man, reported killed at Bull Run,—a
deserter from the Union army, a Rebel at heart, too cowardly to back
his convictions,—the blight and sorrow and curse of her young life—her
husband.
From the day of their marriage, she had found him out and loathed him,
yet, when he marched with a loyal regiment, she had bade him God-speed.
When the news came from Bull Run she had wept and forgiven him the past,
because he had been good to her in death,—he had left her the widow of
a Union soldier. His apparition in Slow-River almost killed her. The
Reverend Laomi Smull sarcastically bade her rejoice and put off her
widow’s weeds. She did neither.
Suddenly Wilson’s advance was signalled from the hills beyond the
river; the population of Slow-River fled Dixie-ward,—all except young
Ashley, who lay sleeping off a debauch in his own gutter. The Reverend
Laomi preferred to remain for several reasons. Hours after the Union
cavalry dashed into the village, Ashley awoke to consciousness. When he
comprehended what had happened he crawled into bed and cursed his wife
and his luck and the Union Army impartially.
With what loathing did she aid in concealing him! With what desperation
did she evade questions and intrusive patrols and the quiet questions
of officers, courteous young fellows in blue, who accepted her word of
honour with a bow and went away, deceived by a loyal woman—the wife of a
coward and traitor—for that traitor’s sake.
But she must play the frightful comedy to the end; she was doing it now,
smiling back at Smith with eyes that caressed; with death in her heart.
When he rose to go she dropped him the quaintest and stateliest courtesy
that can be dropped by a girl of twenty. His cap swept the tall
grass-blades; Southern chivalry is infectious. So he passed on his way to
the river.
Five minutes later the Reverend Laomi Smull appeared at the gate,
smirked at the young wife, entered the cottage, and ascended the stairs
with a parodoxical nimbleness that displayed two white cotton socks and
inadequate attention to personal ensemble.
Smith pursued his way to the river through a weed-tangled path choked
with rank marshy stalks, mint, elder, and wild lady-slipper. The little
brown honey-bees hummed from bud to bud; dragon-flies, balanced in
mid-air on quivering wings, selected plump mosquitoes from the cloud
that wavered above Smith’s head, and darted so close to his ears that
he dodged like a new recruit at a bullet. When he came to the narrow
sluggish river, where a foot-bridge swayed in the amber eddies, he took
his cigar from his mouth and his Bible from his pocket.
A dilapidated individual of African descent, legs dangling over the
water, fishpole clasped in both black fists, glanced up at the young
officer and said: “Mohnin’ suh!” Smith nodded, looked hard at the darkey,
shrugged his shoulders, and restored the cigar to his lips and the Bible
to his pocket.
“What are you fishing for, Uncle?” he asked.
“Fishin’ foh bass, suh,” replied the dilapidated one.
“Catch any?”
“I done cotch free bass an’ a tarrypin turkle, suh.”
“Want to sell them?”
“No, suh.”
“Going to eat them all yourself, Uncle?”
“I’s gotter right ter,” said the angler combatively.
Smith glanced down on the river sand where, anchored to a string, three
plump bass floated out in the current.
“Are you going to eat the terrapin, too, Uncle?”
“Co’s I is,” sniffed the darkey; “I’s gotter right ter.”
“Let’s see it,” said Smith.
The angler climbed down to the strip of sand, picked up the terrapin, and
held it out to Smith.
“How much?” asked Smith.
“Two dollahs, suh.”
Smith paid the money grimly, picked up the terrapin, and stood a moment
watching the darkey climb back to his perch on the foot-bridge.
“You’ll leave your footprints on the sand of time,” said Smith; “you’ll
be in Wall Street in a month—or in Sing-Sing.”
“Wha’s dat yoh’s a-sayin’ ’bout leabin’ shoe-prints on de san’s ob time,
suh?” asked the sable one, much interested.
“Nothing. If you get any more terrapin, bring them to the artillery camp.
What’s your name, Uncle?”
“Nuffin’, suh?”
“No name?”
“No suh, jess ’Biah, suh.”
“Oh—Alcibiades? No? Then Abiatha?”
“Yaas, suh.”
“Whose darkey are you?”
“Mis’ Ashley’s niggah, suh.”
“Oh! And the fish are for Mrs. Ashley?”
“Yaas, suh. Gwineter tote ’em back foh dinner, suh.”
“Then,” said Smith, “take back your terrapin too, you rascal! How dare
you sell your mistress’s property!”
’Biah watched the terrapin fall on the sands again, then he ruefully
fished out the two dollars from some rent in his ragged coat. For a
moment he struggled to tell the truth,—that Mrs. Ashley, in the present
state of her finances, would rather have twenty-five cents than a dozen
terrapins. Perhaps he feared Mrs. Ashley’s wrath, perhaps a spark of
Mrs. Ashley’s pride had lodged beneath his own shirtless bosom. He said
nothing, but rose, holding his fishpole in one hand, and sidled along the
foot-bridge toward Smith, money clutched in one outstretched fist.
Smith glanced at the four silver half-dollars.
“Keep them and buy a coat, ’Biah,” he said, relighting his cigar. At the
same instant a big bass seized ’Biah’s hook and made off with it, and
’Biah, losing his balance, dropped the silver coins into the river. Then
the tattered African lost his head, too; for a minute, bass, darkey,
pole, and line became a blurr on the bridge, on the sands below, and
finally in the water.
When ’Biah emerged, he had the bass by the gills; later he fished
out pole and line, while Smith, wading through the shallows in his
cavalry-boots, poked about for the lost coins with the butt of his
sabre-scabbard.
Ten minutes later ’Biah had recovered three of the half-dollars. Smith
had found something else,—a bundle of soaked clothes bearing United
States army buttons and a second lieutenant’s shoulder-straps.
Instinctively he tossed the soaked packet into the alders and walked
carelessly back to the foot-bridge where ’Biah, absorbed in disentangling
his tackle, breathed hard and deep and muttered maledictions on “dat ole
bull-bass what fink he know a heap moh’n ole ’Biah.”
“Done drap mah hook in de hole,” he puffed; “gwine ter gitter hook an’
tote mah fish, suh. Mohnin’, suh, mohnin’,”; and ’Biah scrambled to his
feet and shuffled back along the weed-grown footpath that led to Mrs.
Ashley’s cottage.
When the negro had disappeared, Smith leaped lightly to the sand below,
parted the alders, found the bundle of clothes, and cut the cord with his
sabre.
“New clothes,” he muttered: “not a patch, not a rag—hello—what’s this?”
He drew a soaked bit of paper from the breast-pocket of the jacket, and,
standing in the alders, read the pencilled memorandum.
It was a receipt signed by the Reverend Laomi Smull for pew-rent received
from Anderson Ashley. But what troubled Smith was the date, for, if Mrs.
Ashley’s husband had been killed at Bull Run, how could he be renting
pews from the Reverend Laomi in Slow-River? Smith examined the paper
closely; it read:
“Received from Anderson Ashley, Esquire, $3.75, pew-rent for Mr. and Mrs.
Anderson Ashley.”
The date, two months back, startled him. As he stood, holding the paper,
staring vacantly at the motionless leaves on the alders, far away he
heard the noon call from the artillery bugles, taken up by the cavalry
trumpets at the water-tank, and passed on to the infantry around the
race-track. He shoved the wet clothes under a fallen log, opened the
Bible in his pocket, placed the folded receipt between the leaves, and,
carrying the Bible in one hand, sword in the other, went back along the
tangled footpath toward Mrs. Ashley’s cottage.