REVELATIONS OF A YOUNG GUARDSMAN
Dexter Lyon was very much perplexed by the situation of his uncle's
family in Barcreek; for he owned his place, which had cost five thousand
dollars, unencumbered; and about two years before he had received from
the estate of his deceased brother twenty thousand dollars in cash and
stocks.
"Of course the story that your mother had not a dollar in the house is a
fiction, such as people who collect money, or don't want to pay it out,
often tell," said the young cavalryman, as he went to the post where he
had secured his horse.
"Fiction? What do you mean by that?" asked Sandy Lyon, the expression on
whose face was very sad and discontented.
"You didn't mean that what you said was true?"
"What did I say that was not true?" inquired Sandy, looking at his
cousin as though he was in doubt whether or not to conceal the correct
answer to the question.
"Everybody in Barcreek knows that your father has gone to Bowling Green,
and you said that your mother had not a dollar in the house," replied
Deck, studying the expression on the face of his cousin. "You didn't
mean that, did you?"
Sandy looked at his cousin, and each seemed to be considering the
meaning of the other's looks. They were own cousins, and their homes
were not more than a mile apart; but they had not met for three months.
Politics, as the people of this locality generally called the two great
questions of the day, Unionism and Secession, had created a great gulf
between the two families. Judging from the threadbare and semi-miserable
condition of the two sons of Captain Titus, times had gone hardly with
the family.
"I did not say that mother had not a dollar in the house," said Sandy,
after a long silence.
"Orly said so, and you did not contradict him; so it is all the same
thing," added Deck.
"I did say so; and I said it because it was just as true as
Breckinridge's long letter," said Orly earnestly.
"That is not saying much for the truth of it," answered Deck, with a
smile on his handsome face; for he had the reputation of being a
good-looking fellow, especially since he had donned his uniform.
"Well, it is true as that the sun shines in the sky," added Orly; and
there was an expression of disgust on his face.
"But your father has plenty of money," suggested the young soldier.
"No, he hasn't," protested Orly.
"You are talking too fast, Orly," interposed Sandy reproachfully.
"We may as well let the cat out of the bag first as last, for she will
scratch her way out very soon," replied Orly. "Mother will be glad
enough to see that two dollars when Sandy offers it to her."
Just at that moment the blast of a bugle, or several of them, was heard
in the direction of the Cross Roads, the way Deck was going when he was
arrested by the cry for help from Pickford's house.
"What's that?" asked Sandy, as though he was glad to have the subject of
the conversation changed, however it may have been with his more
impulsive brother.
"It must be my company, or the squadron to which it belongs," replied
Deck rather indifferently.
"How many companies have you, Deck?" asked Orly.
"Only two yet, hardly enough for a battalion."
"Where are they going now?"
"Probably they are out for drill; and I must fall in as soon as the
companies come up," said Deck, as he mounted his horse and straightened
himself up in the saddle, as though he wished to present a proper
appearance before his cousins.
But the battalion or squadron was still at a considerable distance from
him, and the young cavalryman could not help looking at the pinched
faces of his cousins; for though they had ostensibly embraced the cause
of Secession, he was full of sympathy for them. They looked as though
they had been poorly fed, if not half-starved; and when the time had
come for them to have new suits of clothes, they had not obtained
them. But if Captain Titus's family was without money, it could be only
a temporary matter, for he could hardly have exhausted his twenty
thousand dollars in stocks and cash, though it was well known that he
had contributed five thousand dollars for the purchase of arms and
ammunition to be used by his company of Home Guards, which had now moved
south to join the Confederate army.
"As I said before, your father had plenty of money," continued Deck,
though he was not disposed to be over-inquisitive.
"He had at one time," Sandy admitted; and it was plain from his manner
that he was not willing to tell all he knew about his father's financial
affairs.
"I don't understand how your mother should be so short of money, Sandy;
but it is none of my business, and I won't ask any more questions,"
added the cavalryman, as he whirled his restive horse about. "I thought
you and Orly went with the company to Bowling Green, Sandy."
"We did; but we came back again," replied the elder brother. But there
appeared to be something to conceal in regard to their return.
"There wasn't any fun in soldiering without any pay, and without even
half enough to eat, with nothing to wear," added the plain-spoken
younger brother.
"You needn't tell all you know, Orly," interposed Sandy, with a frown at
his brother.
"You needn't snap at me, Sandy; for I told you before I had had enough
of this thing, and I shall never join the company again," returned Orly
earnestly. "Do you suppose I can enlist in one of your companies, Deck?"
"Shut up, Orly!" exclaimed Sandy very sternly. "You don't know what you
are talking about."
"I'll bet I know what I'm talking about, and my stomach knows too,"
retorted Orly.
"Don't make a fool of yourself! You don't mean to turn traitor to your
father and the cause, Orly?" pleaded Sandy; but he appeared to be trying
to keep up appearances.
"Hang the cause!" exclaimed Orly, as though he meant all he said. "My
father got me into the scrape, and he will get enough of it before he is
many months older."
"Use your reason and common-sense," counselled the elder brother.
"That's what we just haven't been using the last two years, and now I'm
going to use my reason and common-sense on my own hook. If you like
soldiering without pay or rations, Sandy, you can join the company again
as soon as you like; but when you catch me there, you will find a
Kentuckian without any eye-teeth," replied Orly, who was only two years
younger than his brother, and was considered the brighter boy of the
two; and his tones and his manner were vigorous enough to indicate that
he meant all he said.
"You are acting like a fool to talk like that before your cousin, who is
an abolition soldier."
"Before my cousin! His father and himself have been sensible from the
first; and I only wonder that Deck don't quote Scripture to us, and
gently remind us that 'the way of transgressors is hard;' for he can't
help seeing the truth of the proverb in both of us."
"I didn't know that things had become particularly hard with you," said
Deck.
"Orly is as wild as a goat, Deck. Don't mind what he says," interposed
Sandy.
"Or what Sandy says," interjected the younger of the two.
"Our company has not been mustered in yet, and of course we could not
draw pay or rations," added Sandy, who felt called upon to defend his
father and the "cause" from the implied censure of his brother. "Father
spent all the ready money he had to pay for rations and tents, and some
other things the Confederate government will furnish, and will pay him
back for all he has expended. That is the reason why my mother is so
short of money just now."
"That's all very good as far as it goes; but I don't believe the
Confederate government has got any more money than the Bank of England;
and it will be a long day before father gets his money back. We were
nearly starved when we left the company."
"But we did not desert, as some folks say we did," added Sandy, who was
in favor of putting the best foot forward. "Father sent us home when we
spoke of leaving, and he gave us a sort of furlough, in so many words.
If he could hear you talk, Orly, he would be ashamed of you."
"As I have been of him more than once," said the younger in a low tone,
as though he did not feel fully justified in speaking in that manner of
his father, who had a gross failing, which had recently been gaining
upon him.
Sandy heard the remark; and he was disgusted, though he could not deny
the justness of it. He had been ashamed of his father, but his inborn
pride did not permit him to say so outside of the family. If he had been
as plain-spoken as his brother, he might have informed Deck, who was the
only listener to the conversation, that the furlough had grown out of a
quarrel between Captain Titus and his older son.
The captain had always been what is known as a moderate drinker, but the
habit had grown upon him after he went to Kentucky. Some of the Home
Guard had been shot at while engaged in foraging among the farmers for
food in the outskirts of the county-seat where the company was encamped,
and it became a dangerous pursuit, as even the commander of the company
would not authorize it; for in the status of the body it was nothing but
plundering.
Sandy noticed that his father had his whiskey ration in increased
proportions, and he knew that it cost money. He and Orly were not half
fed, and the father lived on his favorite beverage. It provoked him to
wrath, and in a fit of desperation he spoke out to him as plainly as
Orly could have done it. The quarrel followed; and when Sandy declared
that he and his brother would leave the company, he had driven them from
his presence, and ordered them not to return. This was the furlough, "in
so many words," as Sandy put it.
Perhaps the approach of the squadron of cavalry was a relief to Sandy
Lyon, for it put an end to the conversation of a disagreeable nature to
him. He realized the truth of nearly all that Orly had said in regard to
the desperate situation of the Home Guard, and the family of its
commander; but his pride was still superior to the groans of his
stomach.
"Mother and the girls are going back to Derry as soon as she can get
money enough to pay the bills," said Orly in a low voice.
"I am ashamed of you, Orly!" protested Sandy, who had heard the remark;
for the bugle of the battalion had ceased its blast at that moment. "You
have no business to tell family secrets like that."
"Confound your family secrets!" exclaimed his brother. "I don't want to
quarrel with you, my brother, as father has done with Uncle Noah; but I
am not in favor of starving to death for the benefit of the Southern
Confederacy. You have too much family pride when it don't pay, Sandy.
You said that our sister Mabel should not go out to work in the family
of Dr. Falkirk, when mother said she might."
"Dr. Falkirk might have got a nigger woman to do his housework, instead
of paying double wages to Mabel," replied Sandy.
"That is nothing to do with the question. Mabel's wages have been all we
had to live on since we got home," returned Orly, letting out more of
the secrets of the family without any compunction.
"I wish you would hold your tongue, Orly," added Sandy fretfully.
"I said what I did for a purpose; but I shall have to stop now, for the
squadron is nearly here," replied Orly. "When can I see you again,
Deck?"
"Almost any time when I am not at drill, or absent on an errand, as I
have been to-day. You will find me at the camp or the house," replied
Deck, as he rode forward to a point where he could fall into his
position in his company.
"Why, there is Uncle Noah at the head of the column!" said Sandy, as the
squadron came near enough for him to recognize the familiar face of his
relative, even in the midst of his present unwonted surroundings. "He
looks like an officer."
"He is what people have been calling him since he came to Kentucky, and
is now actually Major Lyon," replied Deck, whom the boys had followed.
"But are you not an officer, Deck?" asked Orly.
"Not at all; Artie and I are high privates. They wanted to make us both
sergeants; but after we had talked with father, we declined all
positions," replied Deck, as he fell into his place.
It is time to give something of the history of the two families who had
emigrated to Kentucky, the family secrets of one of which had been so
freely revealed to Deck by the young Home Guardsman with Union
aspirations.