Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
CIVIL WAR STORIES BY WARREN LEE GOSS
=IN THE NAVY=, (7th Thousand) Illustrated, 399 Pages, =A Story of naval
adventures during the Civil war=.
“_The Marine Journal_” says of it: “The author, takes as usual for
his fiction, a foundation of reality, and therefore the story reads
like a transcript of real life. There are many dramatic scenes, such
as the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac, and the reader
follows the adventures of the two heroes with a keen interest that
must make the story popular especially at the present time.”
=TOM CLIFTON, A story of adventures in Grant and Sherman’s armies.=
(13th Thousand) Illustrated, 480 pages. 12mo. Cloth.
“_The Detroit Free Press_” says of it, “The book is the very epitome
of what the young soldiers, who helped to save the Union, felt,
endured and enjoyed. It is wholesome, stimulating to patriotism and
manhood, noble in tone, unstained by any hint of sectionalism, full
of good feeling; the work of a hero who himself did what he saw and
relates.”
=JACK ALDEN: Adventures in the Virginia Campaigns, 1861-65.= (12th
Thousand) Illustrated, 404 pages.
“_The New York Nation_” says of it: “It is an unusually interesting
story. Its pictures of scenes and incidents of army life, from the
march of the 6th Massachusetts regiment through Baltimore to the
surrender at Appomattox, are among the best that we can remember to
have read.”
=JED. A boy’s adventures in the army.= (28th Thousand) Illustrated, 402
pages. 12mo. Cloth.
“_The Boston Beacon_” among other complimentary remarks about this
book says: “Of all the many stories of the Civil War that have been
published--and their name is legion--it is not possible to mention
one which for sturdy realism, intensity of interest, and range of
narrative, can compare with Jed.”
=A LIFE OF GRANT FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.= Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth.
“_The Christian Advocate_” (_Cincinnati_) says of it: “One of the
best lives of U. S. Grant that we have seen--clear, circumstantial,
but without undue and fulsome praise. The chapters telling of the
clouds of misfortune and suffering over the close of his life are
pathetic in the extreme.”
=THE BOY’S LIFE OF GENERAL SHERIDAN.= Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth.
The “_Living Church_” (_Milwaukee_) says of it: “The story of the
dashing officer in his war career and also afterwards--in his
campaigns among the Indians, form a thrilling story of American
leadership. The book contains a thorough review in thrilling language
of the various campaigns in which Sheridan made his mark.”
Order from your bookseller. Send for Catalogue.
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY, NEW YORK
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Frontis._ “I GRIPPED MY NERVE AND SHUT MY TEETH. COULD
I REACH A PLACE OF SAFETY?”--Page 111.]
* * * * *
JED’S BOY
A STORY OF ADVENTURES IN
THE GREAT WORLD WAR
BY
WARREN LEE GOSS
AUTHOR OF “JED,” “JACK ALDEN,” “TOM CLIFTON,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
* * * * *
DEDICATED
TO THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
OF THE GREAT WORLD WAR
PREFACE
During the progress of the Great War, the writer has been often
requested by his boy friends and others, both by letter and verbally,
to write a book like “Jed” (“A Boy’s Adventures in the Army, ’61-’65”)
depicting the scenes of this later war. Some of them have even
suggested that he recreate some of the characters therein. To do this,
of course, was a logical impossibility, since those not killed in that
story would be too old for military service. Prompted, however, by
that demand, he has taken a nephew of Jed as the hero of this story.
Incited by his mother’s patriotism, and her recital of her brother
Jed’s heroism, he enlists and serves his country on the battlefields of
France.
The author’s main purpose in writing this book, as with his other
books, is to stimulate a true spirit of Americanism. Patriotism thrives
best where it is best nourished, and is not a plant of accidental
growth. The Posts of the Grand Army of the Republic through their
exercises on Memorial and other patriotic days, and their teachings of
patriotism in the public schools, have been springs of liberty flowing
throughout the land nourishing a love of country in our youth. That all
this has borne fruit is shown by the spirit in which the boys of to-day
have sprung to the defence of human liberty in the great conflict of
their own time.
We have been privileged to see the last shreds of hatred left over from
our Civil War burned away in a fervor of patriotism, that has sent the
sons of the Gray shoulder to shoulder with the sons of the Blue to the
defence of liberty on the fields of France and Belgium.
If the writer has made clear that the young manhood of America has the
same spirit to-day as had their fathers, in our great conflict of the
sixties, and as had the Nathan Hales of the Revolution, he will have
satisfied his own aspirations.
W. L. G.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE TRAMP BOY 1
II. WORKING ON THE FARM 9
III. IMPENDING WAR CLOUDS 15
IV. WITH THE COLORS 22
V. FROM CAMP TO TRANSPORT 31
VI. IN BEAUTIFUL FRANCE 43
VII. IN THE TRENCHES 53
VIII. “WHO COMES THERE?” 64
IX. A CALL RETURNED 73
X. IN REST BILLET 83
XI. A SIX WEEKS’ HIKE THROUGH FRANCE 91
XII. ON THE BATTLE LINES 99
XIII. IN THE TIDE OF BATTLE 106
XIV. THE CROIX DE GUERRE 114
XV. ON LEAVE OF ABSENCE 120
XVI. A STRANGE DESERTION 128
XVII. ANOTHER DESERTER 136
XVIII. A RAID ON THE ENEMY 143
XIX. THE GERMAN PEACE STORM 151
XX. AN ADVENTURE OF ARMS 161
XXI. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY 169
XXII. HELD BY THE ENEMY 176
XXIII. A HAZARD OF FORTUNE 183
XXIV. LOOSE AMONG THE BOCHES 190
XXV. AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER 198
XXVI. A HOSPITAL CASE 208
XXVII. THE MIX-UP OF BATTLE 217
XXVIII. A MYSTERY SOLVED 224
XXIX. THE SUPREME SACRIFICE 230
* * * * *
JED’S BOY
CHAPTER I THE TRAMP BOY
It was November, in the year 1914. The snow had come with the gloom of
twilight, and an angry wind whistled over the Western Massachusetts
hills.
I was then a lad, trying to fill his father’s place on the farm. I had
just finished milking when I heard Bill Jenkins, our hired man, call
out in rasping tones, “No, there’s no work for you here, I tell you!”
Turning, I saw at the barnyard gate the person to whom Bill had spoken.
He was a tall slim boy apparently near my own age, fourteen.
“What is it, Bill?” I said; “what does he want?”
“You run along with your milkin’ pail,” said Bill. “I’ll ’tend to him.
You don’t know nothin’ ’bout dealin’ with tramps.”
I repeated my question, and the boy answered, “I am looking for work.”
“An’ I told you there’s no work here for you,” said Bill roughly. “An’
if you can’t understand such plain words as them air, you’ll have to
get a dictionary.”
“Can’t I stay here over night?” persisted the boy. “I can pay for my
lodging. It’s getting dark, and these parts are strange to me.”
There was something in the high-pitched voice that told me the lad
was weak as well as cold, and the trembling tones appealed to me more
strongly than the request itself. There was, too, a peculiar accent in
them that excited my curiosity. So before Bill could again interfere I
answered,
“Yes, you can stay; and if there is no other bed, you can sleep with
me. I am sure mother will be willing.”
“You are soft and foolish. You don’t understand folks that go traipsing
’round the country,” growled Bill. But ignoring his protests I led the
way to the house, with the strange boy following.
When we reached the kitchen and the lights were brought, Bill, with a
surly air, carried the pail to the milk room. Mother coming in saw the
boy and asked, “Who is this, David?”
“A boy who wants to stay all night, Mother,” I replied, “and I have
invited him to sleep with me. Can he?”
“What’s your name?” asked mother, turning to the boy and looking him
over with an inquiring glance that meant more than words.
“Jonathan Nickerson--they call me Jot for short. That is not my whole
name, only a part of it. My father is ’way off, I don’t know just
where, and my mother is dead; I couldn’t agree with the folks she has
been staying with, so I must find work or go hungry.” As he spoke of
his mother, his voice grew husky as though he were keeping back the
tears.
There was a straightforwardness in his answer that pleased mother,
as I knew it would, for she liked direct answers to questions. This
may account for her keeping Bill Jenkins in her service most of the
time since the Civil War, where he had served as a drummer for three
months. He had appeared at her father’s door, ragged and disgusted with
military life, after the battle of Bull Run, from which he had beaten
his way with some of the rest of those who had got back to Washington.
Mother looked at the boy keenly from over her spectacles, but made no
remarks, while I summed him up, as follows: He was very dark, thin in
feature and in person, his eyes dark and bright, chin prominent; and
notwithstanding thin-patched clothes and apparent weakness, there was a
manner of independence and decision that cannot be expressed in words.
“Come here, Mother!” I said, turning to another room.
“What do you want now?” asked mother.
“Don’t turn him away in the cold and dark,” I pleaded. “Suppose I had
no place to sleep tonight, out in the wind and snow.”
“He looks clean, if he is patched and darned, and seems a decent boy,”
she said in an undertone, as though thinking aloud, and then added,
“Yes, David, he can sleep in the ell bedroom. It is cold there, but
there are plenty of good comforters, and I guess he can put up with it,
if we can; and as our Master said, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it to the
least--’” and she left the quotation unended.
Supper was ready, and mother said to the boy, “Yes, you can stay here
tonight, and if you have not had your supper, sit up to the table with
us.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he replied sturdily, “but I have no money to pay
for my supper--only enough to pay for my lodging--only twenty five
cents at that.
“I did not say anything about pay,” said mother; “you are welcome to
your supper.”
“Mother told me never to take anything without paying in some way for
it,” he protested; “and I am not very hungry.”
Mother gave him another searching look, as if to learn whether there
was any purpose back of his words, and then as though satisfied, said
with softening voice, “Never mind about that, my boy; if you are not
afraid of work, you may pay for your supper and breakfast too. There is
plenty to do here.”
When he asked for a place to wash, and had gone to the kitchen sink for
that purpose, mother remarked, “The pail is empty and the pump doesn’t
work; so you must go to the well for some water.”
When supper was ended, Jonathan asked, “May I try to fix your pump,
m’am?”
Mother hesitated, glanced at Bill, and then replied with a smile, “Yes,
you may try. At any rate you can’t make it any worse than it has been,
since Bill fussed with it.”
Jonathan went to work with his jackknife and such tools as were at
hand. He had not more than started, however, when Bill came in with an
armful of wood for the kitchen stove. Stopping at the pump he said in
his dictatorial tones, “You can’t do nothin’ with that pump! I’ve tried
it, an’ I tell you it’s past mending by any botch or boy. An’ I tell
Miss Stark it will be cheaper to buy a new one, by gosh! For I put in a
half a day tryin’ to fix it.”
Jonathan, without reply, kept on with his mending and, to our surprise,
after half an hour had the pump working.
“Where did you learn to fix pumps?” mother inquired in a pleased manner.
“Our pump got out of order once, and the man who fixed it explained its
working to me, and I have learned about them otherwise since.”
“That pump,” said the disgruntled Bill, “will be out of order again as
quick as scat, or I miss my guess.”
“You see,” said Jot, ignoring Bill, “that piece of leather is a valve
and must fit quite tight. When the air is pumped out, the water comes
up to fill the partial vacuum. All I have done is to limber and adjust
the valve so that it fits tighter.”
“My!” said mother trying the pump, “it works quite well, and it does
not matter where you learned it; you have earned your supper and
breakfast too, for we would have had to send to Chester for a man to
repair it, besides the inconvenience of waiting.”
The next morning mother asked Jot what pay he would want to do the
chores and other light work about the place. “I will work a month,” he
replied, “and you shall say how much I am worth.”
The answer pleased mother since it seemed to insure faithful service.
Thus it was that Jonathan Nickerson came to work on the Stark farm.
My father, Captain David Stark, had been a soldier in the Civil War. He
had enlisted when only sixteen years of age and, by military aptitude
and bravery, had won a captain’s commission, before he was twenty-one.
Over the mantel of our front room, secluded from light and flies except
when we had company, hung a sword which had been presented to him, so
its inscription read, by his admiring officers and men.
He had married my mother some years younger than he, quite late in
life, and I was their only child. He had died before I remembered much
about him.
One day Jot noticed the sword and read its inscription. He removed his
hat reverently and said: “I would like to be a brave soldier like him.
My mother’s only brother, Lieutenant Jedediah Hoskins, was killed while
leading a charge, just before the surrender at Appomattox. She was but
a little child when that occurred, but she had his back pay and other
property to help us, and often called me Jed’s Boy, hoping that I would
be like him.”
Jonathan, or Jot as we began to call him, was careful and handy; he
repaired locks, and even put in running order a disregarded mowing
machine that Bill, who didn’t like “new fangled farming,” declared was
good for nothing. We soon began to regard him as one of the family, and
mother liked him because, as she said, he was both honest and careful
and “had not a lazy bone in his body.”
Bill usually read the weekly newspaper in the evening, sometimes
commenting aloud on what he read. One evening while reading he looked
up exclaiming, “Gosh!”
“What is it, Bill,” I asked, “anybody dead?”
“Matter! The Germans are marching on Paris”, he answered, “and there
has been the all-firedest fightin’ you ever heard tell of.” Then Bill
read aloud the news of the first fighting in the Great World War.
“I believe,” he concluded excitedly, “that I shall have to go myself
and help lick them consarned Dutch.”
“I wouldn’t,” said mother with a gleam of fun in her eyes, for she
liked to tease Bill, “You might wear yourself out, as you did at Bull
Run, scampering back.”
“Well,” acknowledged Bill with a grimace, “I am getting old, and I like
farmin’ a consarned sight better than I do fightin’; but when I read
’bout them Germans tryin’ to run over everybody, it makes my dander
rise, darned if it don’t!” And Bill was not the only one of us who felt
that way.
Then we got Bill to tell us about his experience in the Bull Run
campaign. So he gave his version of that battle--even the running away,
which, however does not concern this narrative.
“Didn’t you think it a shame,” asked mother, “to run away?”
“Well,” admitted Bill, “as a matter of glory it was, but as we fightin’
fellers see it then, it looked like common sense, plagued if it didn’t!
A man will get sca’t at things he ain’t used to. Them fellers that run
wouldn’t do it again--if the other fellers didn’t. I wouldn’t wonder if
I would stand to the rack an’ take the fodder that was coming, myself,
if I was in another fight. And then my time was most eout, and I was
all the time thinkin’ ’twas best to go home on my legs instead of in a
box, when my time was up.”
“Were you scared, Bill?” I asked.
“Gosh, yes! the fust of it, my hair stood up so straight that I thought
it would take my hat off. But I had spunk to stand it, in spite of
being sca’t--’till the others run. D’ yo’ know that I think it takes
more courage f’r a sca’t man to stand fire, than it does for a brave
man.”
And I have since learned, from experience, that it is indeed a brave
man who, being frightened, still keeps his place in battle.