The man crawled up through the scuttle hole and disappeared; then drew
the ladder after him and closed the trap, while Virgie tiptoed to the
table and slipped into a seat.
The cabin was now in semi-darkness, except for a shaft of sunlight
entering through the jagged wound from the cannon-shot above the door;
and it fell on the quaint, brown head of little Miss Virginia Cary, and
the placid form of Susan Jemima, perching opposite, in serene contempt
of the coming of a conquering host.
The jingling clank of sabers grew louder to the listeners' ears, through
the rumble of pounding hoofs; a bugle's note came winnowing across the
fields, and Virgie leaned forward with a confidential whisper to her
doll:
"Susan Jemima, I wouldn't tell anybody else--no, not for anything--but I
cert'n'y am awful scared!"
There came a scurrying rush, a command to halt, and a rustling,
scraping noise of dismounting men; a pause, and the sharp, loud rap of a
saber hilt against the door. Virgie breathed hard, but made no answer.
"Open up!" called a voice outside, but the little rebel closed her lips
and sat staring at Susan Jemima across the table. A silence followed,
short, yet filled with dread; then came a low-toned order and the crash
of carbine butts on the stout oak door. For a time it resisted
hopefully, then slowly its top sagged in, with a groaning, grating
protest from its rusty hinges; it swayed, collapsed in a cloud of
dust--and the enemy swept over it.
They came with a rush; in the lead an officer, a naked saber in his
fist, followed by a squad of grim-faced troopers, each with his carbine
cocked and ready for discharge. Yet, as suddenly as they had come, they
halted now at the sight of a little lady, seated at table, eating
berries, as calmly as though the dogs of war had never even growled.
A wondering silence followed, till broken by a piping voice, in grave
but courteous reproof:
"I--I don't think you are very polite."
The officer in command was forced to smile.
"I'm sorry, my dear," he apologized; "but am afraid, this time, I can't
quite help it." He glanced at the door of the adjoining room and turned
to his waiting men, though speaking in an undertone: "He's in there, I
guess. Don't fire if you can help it--on account of the baby. Now then!
Steady, boys! Advance!"
He led the way, six troopers following, while the rest remained behind
to guard the cabin's open door. Virgie slowly turned her head, with eyes
that watched the officer's every move; then presently she called:
"Hey, there! That's _my_ room--an' don't you-all bother any of my
things, either!"
This one command, at least, was implicitly obeyed, for in a moment the
disappointed squad returned. The carbine butts were grounded; the
troopers stood at orderly attention, while their officer stepped toward
the table.
"What's your name, little monkey?"
Virgie raised her eyes in swift reproach.
"I don't like to be called a monkey. It--it isn't respectful."
The Union soldier laughed.
"O-ho! I see." He touched his hat and made her a sweeping bow. "A
thousand pardons, Mademoiselle." He shot his sword into its scabbard,
and laughed again. "Might I inquire as to what you are called by
your--er--justly respectful relatives and friends?"
"Virgie," she answered simply.
"Ah," he approved, "and a very pretty name! Virgie what?"
"My whole name is Miss Virginia Houston Gary."
The soldier started, glanced at his troopers, then back to the child
again:
"Is Herbert Cary your father?"
He waited for her answer, and got it, straight from a baby's shoulder:
"_Mister_ Herbert Cary is--yes, sir."
The enemy smiled and made her another bow.
"I stand corrected. Where is your father now?"
Virgie hesitated.
"I--I don't know."
The voice of her inquisitor took on a sterner tone:
"Is he here?--hiding somewhere? Tell me!"
Her little heart was pounding, horribly, and the hot blood came into her
cheeks; but she looked him squarely in the face, and lied--for General
Lee:
"No, sir. Daddy _was_ here--but he's gone away."
The enemy was looking at her, intently, and his handsome, piercing eyes,
grew most uncomfortable. She hung for an instant between success and
sobbing failure, till a bubble from Mother Eve rose up in her youthful
blood and burst into a spray of perfect feminine deceit. She did not try
to add to her simple statement, but began to eat her berries, calmly, as
though the subject were completely closed.
"Which way did he go?" the officer demanded, and she pointed with her
spoon.
"Down by the spring--through the blackberry patch."
The soldier was half-convinced. He stood for a moment, looking at the
floor, then asked her sharply, suddenly:
"If your father had gone, then why did you lock that door?"
She faltered, but only for an instant.
"'Cause I thought you might be--_niggers_."
The man before her clenched his hands, as he thought of that new-born,
hideous danger menacing the South.
"I see," he answered gently; "_yes_, I see." He turned away, but, even
as he turned, his eye was caught by the double-doored cupboard against
the wall. "What do you keep in there?" he asked; and the child smiled
faintly, a trifle sadly, in reply:
"We _used_ to keep things to eat--when we had any."
He noted her mild evasion, and pushed the point.
"What is in it now?"
"Tin pans."
"Anything else?"
"Er--yes, sir."
He caught his breath and stepped a little nearer, bending till his face
was close to hers.
"What?"
"Colonel Mosby," declared the mite, with a most emphatic nod; "an' you
better look out, too!"
The officer laughed as he turned to his grinning squad.
"Bright little youngster! Still, I think we'll have a look." He dropped
his air of amusement, growing stern again. "Now, men! Ready!"
They swung into line and faced the cupboard, the muzzles of their
carbines trained upon it, while their leader advanced, swung open the
doors, and quickly stepped aside.
On the bottom shelf, as Virgie had declared, were a few disconsolate tin
pans; yet tacked to the door was a picture print of Mosby--that dreaded
guerrilla whose very name was a bugaboo in the Union lines.
The littlest rebel flung back her head and laughed.
"My, but you looked funny!" she cried to the somewhat disconcerted
officer, pointing at him with her spoon. "If a mouse had jumped out, I
reckon it would have scared you mos' to death."
The officer's cheeks flushed red, in spite of his every effort at
control; nor was he assisted by the knowledge that his men were
tittering behind his back. He turned upon them sharply.
"That will do," he said, and gave a brusque command: "Corporal, deploy
your men and make a thorough search outside. Examine the ground around
the spring--and report!"
"Yes, sir," returned Corporal Dudley saluting and dropping his hand
across his mouth to choke off an exclamation of anger. Then he snarled
at his men, to ease the pain of thwarted vengeance: "_'Tention! Right
face! Forward! March!_"
The squad trooped out across the broken door, leaving their commanding
officer alone with his rebel prisoner.
"Now, Virgie," he asked, in a kindly tone, though holding her eyes with
his, "do you mean to tell me--cross your heart--that you are here, just
by yourself?"
"Er--no, sir." As he opened his lips to speak, she pointed to her doll.
"Me an' Susan Jemima."
"Well, that's a fact," he laughed. "Hanged if I'm not losing all my
social polish." He gallantly removed his hat, bowed gravely to the cedar
stick, and shook its hand. "Charmed to make your acquaintance, Miss
Susan, believe me. My own name is Morrison--Lieutenant-Colonel
Morrison--at your service." He turned to the little mother with a smile
that showed a row of white and even teeth. "And now," he said, "since we
are all informally introduced, suppose we have a quiet, comfortable
chat." He paused, but she made no answer. "Well? Aren't you going to ask
me to have some breakfast?"
Virgie cast a troubled gaze into the plate before her.
"Er--no, sir."
"What? Why not?"
She faltered, and answered slowly:
"'Cause--'cause you're one of the damn Yankees."
"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the soldier, shocked to hear a baby's lips
profaned. "Little girls shouldn't use such words. Why, Virgie!"
She raised her eyes, clear, fearless, filled with vindicating innocence.
"Well, it's your _name_, isn't it? _Everybody_ calls you that."
"Um--yes," he admitted, striving to check the twitching of his lips; "I
suppose they do--south of Washington. But don't you know we are just
like other people?" She shook her head. "Oh, yes, we are. Why, _I_ have
a little girl at home--not any bigger than you."
"Have you?" asked Virgie, her budding racial prejudice at war with
youthful curiosity. "What's her name?"
"Gertrude," he answered softly, tenderly. "Gertrude Morrison. Would you
like to see her picture?"
"Yes," said the little rebel, and stepped across the gulf which had lain
between her and her enemy. "You can sit down if you want to. Jus' put
Susan Jemima on the table."
"Thank you," returned her visitor, obeying instructions, seating himself
and loosening the upper buttons of his coat. On his neck, suspended by
a chain, was a silver locket containing the miniature of a plump and
pretty child. It had lain there since the war began, through many a
bivouac, many a weary march, and even in the charge he could feel it
tapping against his breast; so now, as he held it out to Virgie, the
father's hand was trembling.
"There she is. My Gertrude--my little Gertrude."
Virgie leaned forward eagerly.
"Oh!" she said, in unaffected admiration, "She's _mighty_ pretty.
She's--" The child stopped suddenly, and raised her eyes. "An' she's
fat, too. I reckon Gertrude gets lots to eat, doesn't she?"
"Why, yes," agreed the father, thinking of his comfortable Northern
home; "of course. Don't you?"
Virgie weighed the question thoughtfully before she spoke.
"Sometimes--when Daddy gets through the lines and brings it to me."
The soldier started violently, wrenched back from the selfish dream of
happiness that rose as he looked at the picture of his child.
"What! Is _that_ why your father comes?"
"Yes, sir."
"I didn't know! I thought he came--"
He rose to his feet and turned away, his thoughts atumble, a pang of
parental pity gnawing at his heart; then he wheeled and faced her,
asking, with a break in his husky voice:
"And at other times--what do you eat, then?"
She made a quaint, depreciating gesture toward the appointments of her
breakfast table.
"Blackberries--an'--an' coffee made out of aco'ns."
Again the troubled conqueror turned away.
"Oh, it's a shame!" he muttered between his teeth. "A wicked shame!"
He stood for a moment, silently, till Virgie spoke and jarred him with
another confidence.
"My cousin Norris told me that the Yankees have bread every day; an'
tea--an' milk--an' everything. _An' butter!_"
This last-named article of common diet was mentioned with an air of
reverential awe; and, somehow, it hurt the well-fed Union officer far
more than had she made some direct accusation against the invading
armies of the North.
"Don't, Virgie--please," he murmured softly. "There are some things we
just can't bear to listen to--even in times of war." He sighed and
dropped into his former seat, striving gently to change the subject.
"You have lived here--always?"
"Oh, no," she assured him, with a lift of her small, patrician brows.
"_This_ is the overseer's house. _Our_ house used to be up on the hill,
in the grove."
"_Used_ to be--?"
"Yes, sir. But--but the Yankees burnt it up."
Morrison's fist came down on the table with a crash. He remembered now
his raid of some months before upon this same plantation, so unfamiliar
in its present neglected state. Again he looked into the fearless eyes
of a Southern gentlewoman who mocked him while her lover husband swam
the river and escaped. Again he saw the mansion wrapped in flame and
smoke--the work of a drunken fiend in his own command. Yes, he
remembered now; too well; then he turned to the child and spoke:
"Tell me about it. Won't you?"
She nodded, wriggled from her chair, and stood beside the table.
"Oh, it was a long time ago--a month, maybe--an' they came after our
horses. Mamma an' me were all by ourselves--'ceptin' Uncle Billy and
Sally Ann. An' we were dreadful scared--an' we hid in the ice house."
She paused. Her listener had leaned his elbow on the table, his hand
across his eyes.
"Yes, dear. Go on."
The child had been standing opposite, with Susan Jemima and the
acorn-coffee pot between them; but gradually she began to edge a little
nearer, till presently she stood beside him, fingering a shiny button on
his coat.
"An' the blue boys ate up everything we had--an' took our corn. An' when
they went away from our house, they--a man set it on fire. But another
man got real mad with him, an'--an' shot him. _I_ know, 'cause Uncle
Billy put him in the ground." She paused, then sank her voice to a
whisper of mysterious dread, "An'--_an' I saw him!_"
"Don't think about it, Virgie," begged Morrison, slipping his arm about
the mite, and trying not to put his own beloved ones in the little
rebel's place. "What happened then?"
"We came to live here," said Virgie; "but Mamma got sick. Oh, she got
terrible sick--an' one night Daddy came through, and put her in the
ground, too. But _he_ says she's jus' asleep."
The soldier started. Mrs. Cary dead? This poor tot motherless? He drew
the baby closer to him, stroking her hair, as her sleeping mother might
have done, and waited for the rest.
"An' las' Friday, Sally Ann went away--I don't know where--an'--"
"What?" asked Morrison. "She left you here--all by yourself?"
"Yes, sir," said the child, with a careless laugh. "But _I_ don't mind.
Sally Ann was a triflin' nigger, anyhow. You see--"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted, "what became of the old colored man
who--"
"Uncle Billy? Yes, sir. We sent him up to Richmond--to get some things,
but he can't come back--the Yankees won't let him."
"Won't they?"
"No, sir. An' Daddy's been tryin' to get me up to Richmon', where my
Aunt Margaret lives at, but he can't--'cause the Yankees are up the
river an' down the river, an'--an' everywhere--an' he can't." She
paused, as Morrison turned to her from his restless pacing up and down.
"My, but you've got fine clo'es! Daddy's clo'es are all rags--with--with
holes in 'em."
He could not answer. There was nothing for him to say, and Virgie
scorched him with another question:
"What did you come after Daddy for?"
"Oh, not because I _wanted_ to, little girl," he burst out harshly. "But
you wouldn't understand." He had turned away, and was gazing through the
open door, listening to the muttered wrath of the big black guns far
down the river. "It's war! One of the hateful, pitiful things of war! I
came because I had my orders."
"From your Gen'ral?"
He lowered his chin, regarding her in mild astonishment.
"Yes--my General."
"An' do you love _him_--like _I_ love Gen'ral Lee?"
"Yes, dear," he answered earnestly; "of course."
He wondered again to see her turn away in sober thought, tracing lines
on the dusty floor with one small brown toe; for the child was wrestling
with a problem. If a soldier had orders from his general, as she herself
might put it, "he was _bound_ to come"; but still it was hard to
reconcile such duty with the capture of her father. Therefore, she
raised her tiny chin and resorted to tactics of a purely personal
nature:
"An' didn't you know, if you hurt my daddy, I'd tell Uncle Fitz Lee on
you?"
"No," the Yankee smiled. "Is he your uncle?"
The littlest rebel regarded him with a look of positive pity for his
ignorance.
"He's _everybody's_ uncle," she stated warmly. "An' if I was to tell
him, he'd come right after you an'--an' lick the _stuffins_ out of
you."
The soldier laughed.
"My dear," he confided, with a dancing twinkle in hip eye, "to tell you
the honest truth, your Uncle Fitz has done it already--_several_ times."
"Has he?" she cried, in rapturous delight. "Oh, _has_ he?"
"He has," the enemy repeated, with vigor and conviction. "But suppose we
shift our conversation to matters a shade more pleasant. Take you, for
instance. You see--" He stopped abruptly, turning his head and listening
with keen intentness. "What's that?" he asked.
"_I_ didn't hear anything," said Virgie, breathing very fast; but she
too had heard it--a sound above them, a scraping sound, as of someone
lying flat along the rafters and shifting his position and, while she
spoke, a telltale bit of plaster fell, and broke as it struck the floor.
Morrison looked up, starting as he saw the outlines of the closely
fitting scuttle, for the loft was so low and shallow that he had not
suspected its presence from an outside view; but now he was certain of
the fugitive's hiding-place. Virgie watched him, trembling, growing hot
in the pit of her little stomach; yet, when he faced her, she looked him
squarely in the eye, fighting one last battle for her daddy--as hopeless
as the tottering cause of the Stars and Bars.
"You--you don't think he can fly, do you?"
"No, little Rebel," the soldier answered gently, sadly; "but there are
other ways." He glanced at the table, measuring its height with the
pitch of the ceiling, then turned to her again: "Is your father in that
loft?" She made no answer, but began to back away. "Tell me the truth.
Look at me!" Still no answer, and he took a step toward her, speaking
sternly: "Do you hear me? _Look_ at me!"
She tried; but her courage was oozing fast. She had done her best, but
now it was more than the mite could stand; so she bit her lip to stop
its quivering, and turned her head away. For a moment the man stood,
silent, wondering if it was possible that the child had been coached in
a string of lies to trade upon his tenderness of heart; then he spoke,
in a voice of mingled pity and reproach:
"And so you told me a story. And all the rest--is a story, too. Oh,
Virgie! Virgie!"
"I didn't!" she cried, the big tears breaking, out at last. "I didn't
tell you stories'. Only jus' a _little_ one--for Daddy--an' Gen'ral
Lee."
She was sobbing now, and the man looked down upon her in genuine
compassion, his own eyes swimming at her childish grief, his soldier
heart athrob and aching at the duty he must perform.
"I'm sorry, dear," he sighed, removing her doll and dragging the table
across the floor to a point directly beneath the scuttle in the ceiling.
"What are you goin' to do?" she asked in terror, following as he moved.
"Oh, what are you goin' to do?"
He did not reply. He could not; but when he placed a chair upon the
table and prepared to mount, then Virgie understood.
"You shan't! You shan't!" she cried out shrilly. "He's my daddy--and you
shan't."
She pulled at the table, and when he would have put her aside, as gently
as he could, she attacked him fiercely, in a childish storm of passion,
sobbing, striking at him with her puny fists. The soldier bowed his head
and moved away.
"Oh, I can't! I can't!" he breathed, in conscience-stricken pain. "There
_must_ be some other way; and still--"
He stood irresolute, gazing through the open door, watching his men as
they hunted for a fellow man; listening to the sounds that floated
across the stricken fields--the calls of his troopers; the locusts in
the sun-parched woods chanting their shrill, harsh litany of drought;
but more insistent still came the muffled boom of the big black guns far
down the muddy James. They called to him, these guns, in the
hoarse-tongued majesty of war, bidding him forget himself, his love, his
pity--all else, but the grim command to a marching host--a host that
must reach its goal, though it marched on a road of human hearts.
The soldier set his teeth and turned to the little rebel, deciding on
his course of action; best for her, best for the man who lay in the
loft above, though now it must seem a brutal cruelty to both.
"Well, Virgie," he said, "since you haven't told me what I want to know,
I'll have to take you--and give you to the Yankees."
He stepped toward her swiftly and caught her by the wrist. She screamed
in terror, fighting to break his hold, while the trap above them opened,
and the head and shoulders of the Southerner appeared, his pistol held
in his outstretched hand.
"Drop it, you hound!" he ordered fiercely. "Drop it!"
The Northerner released his captive, but stood unmoved as he looked into
the pistol's muzzle and the blazing eyes of the cornered scout.
"I'm sorry," he said, in quiet dignity. "I'm very sorry; but I had to
bring you out." He paused, then spoke again: "And you needn't bother
about your gun. If you'd had any ammunition, our fire would have been
returned, back yonder in the woods. The game's up, Cary. Come down!"