Part 16

“He was account to her,” flamed up the girl, suddenly; “he was account to her, to her and to everybody else. He was the fust soldier that ‘listed, and he’s account to everybody.”

The old woman had raised her head in astonishment at her daughter’s first outbreak, and was evidently about to reply sharply; but the girl’s flushed face and flashing eyes awed and silenced her.

“Well, well, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ against him,” she said, presently.

“Yes, you air--you’re always sayin’ somethin’ against him--and so is everybody else--and they ain’t fitten to tie his shoes. Why don’t they say it to his face! There ain’t one of ‘em as dares it, and he’s the best soldier in the comp’ny, an’ I’m jest as proud of it as if he was my own.”

The old woman was evidently bound to defend herself. She said:

“It don’t lay in your mouth to take up for him, Vashti Mills; for you’re the one as has gone up and down and abused him scandalous.”

“Yes, and I know I did,” said the girl, springing up excitedly and tossing her arms and tearing at her ribbons. “An’ I told him to his face too, and that’s the only good thing about it. I knowed it was a lie when I told him, and he knowed it was a lie too, and he knowed I knowed it was a lie--what’s more--and I’m glad he did--fo’ God I’m glad he did. He could ‘a’ whipped the whole company an’ he jest wouldn’t--an’ that’s God’s truth--God’s fatal truth.”

The next instant she was on her knees hunting for something on the floor, in an agony of tears; and as her father, aroused by the noise, rose and asked a question, she sprang up and rushed out of the door.

The sound of an axe was already coming through the darkness across the gum thickets from Mrs. Stanley’s, telling that preparation was being made for Darby’s last breakfast. It might have told more, however, by its long continuance; for it meant that Little Darby was cutting his mother a supply of wood to last till his return. Inside, the old woman, thin and faded, was rubbing his musket.

*****

The sun was just rising above the pines, filling the little bottom between the cabins with a sort of rosy light, and making the dewy bushes and weeds sparkle with jewel-strung gossamer webs, when Little Darby, with his musket in his hand, stepped for the last time out of the low door. He had been the first soldier in the district to enlist, he must be on time. He paused just long enough to give one swift glance around the little clearing, and then set out along the path at his old swinging pace. At the edge of the pines he turned and glanced back. His mother was standing in the door, but whether she saw him or not he could not tell. He waved his hand to her, but she did not wave back, her eyes were failing somewhat. The next instant he disappeared in the pines.

He had crossed the little stream on the old log and passed the point where he had met Vashti the evening before, when he thought he heard something fall a little ahead of him. It could not have been a squirrel, for it did not move after it fell. His old hunter’s instinct caused him to look keenly down the path as he turned the clump of bushes which stopped his view; but he saw no squirrel or other moving thing. The only thing he saw was a little brown something with a curious spot on it lying in the path some little way ahead. As he came nearer it, he saw that it was a small parcel not as big as a man’s fist. Someone had evidently dropped it the evening before. He picked it up and examined it as he strode along. It was a little case or wallet made of some brown stuff, such as women carry needles and thread in, and it was tied up with a bit of red, white and blue string, the Confederate colors, on the end of which was sewed a small bow of pink ribbon. He untied it. It was what it looked to be: a roughly made little needle-case such as women use, tolerably well stocked with sewing materials, and it had something hard and almost square in a separate pocket. Darby opened this, and his gun almost slipped from his hand. Inside was the Testament he had given back to Vashti the evening before. He stopped stock-still, and gazed at it in amazement, turning it over in his hand. He recognized the bow of pink ribbon as one like that which she had had on her dress the evening before. She must have dropped it. Then it came to him that she must have given it to one of her brothers, and a pang shot through his heart. But how did it get where he found it? He was too keen a woodsman not to know that no footstep had gone before his on that path that morning. It was a mystery too deep for him, and after puzzling over it a while he tied the parcel up again as nearly like what it had been before as he could, and determined to give it to one of the Mills boys when he reached the Cross-roads. He unbuttoned his jacket and put it into the little inner pocket, and then rebuttoning it carefully, stepped out again more briskly than before.

It was perhaps an hour later that the Mills boys set out for the Cross-roads. Their father and mother went with them; but Vashti did not go. She had “been out to look for the cow,” and got in only just before they left, still clad in her yesterday’s finery; but it was wet and bedraggled with the soaking dew. When they were gone she sat down in the door, limp and dejected.

More than once during the morning the girl rose and started down the path as if she would follow them and see the company set out on its march, but each time she came back and sat down again in the door, remaining there for a good while as if in thought.

Once she went over almost to Mrs. Stanley’s, then turned back and sat down again.

So the morning passed, and the first thing she knew, her father and mother had returned. The company had started. They were to march to the bridge that night. She heard them talking over the appearance that they had made; the speech of the captain; the cheers that went up as they marched off--the enthusiasm of the crowd. Her father was in much excitement. Suddenly she seized her sun-bonnet and slipped out of the house and across the clearing, and the next instant she was flying down the path through the pines. She knew the road they had taken, and a path that would strike it several miles lower down. She ran like a deer, up hill and down, availing herself of every short cut, until, about an hour after she started, she came out on the road. Fortunately for her, the delays incident to getting any body of new troops on the march had detained the company, and a moment’s inspection of the road showed her that they had not yet passed. Clambering up a bank, she concealed herself and lay down. In a few moments she heard the noise they made in the distance, and she was still panting from her haste when they came along, the soldiers marching in order, as if still on parade, and a considerable company of friends attending them. Not a man, however, dreamed that, flat on her face in the bushes, lay a girl peering down at them with her breath held, but with a heart which beat so loud to her own ears that she felt they must hear it. Least of all did Darby Stanley, marching erect and tall in front, for all the sore heart in his bosom, know that her eyes were on him as long as she could see him.

When Vashti brought up the cow that night it was later than usual. It perhaps was fortunate for her that the change made by the absence of the boys prevented any questioning. After all the excitement her mother was in a fit of despondency. Her father sat in the door looking straight before him, as silent as the pine on which his vacant gaze was fixed. Even when the little cooking they had was through with and his supper was offered him, he never spoke. He ate in silence and then took his seat again. Even Mrs. Mills’s complaining about the cow straying so far brought no word from him any more than from Vashti. He sat silent as before, his long legs stretched out toward the fire. The glow of the embers fell on the rough, thin face and lit it up, bringing out the features and making them suddenly clear-cut and strong. It might have been only the fire, but there seemed the glow of something more, and the eyes burnt back under the shaggy brows. The two women likewise were silent, the elder now and then casting a glance at her husband. She offered him his pipe, but he said nothing, and silence fell as before.

Presently she could stand it no longer. “I de-clar, Vashti,” she said, “I believe your pappy takes it most harder than I does.”

The girl made some answer about the boys. It was hardly intended for him to hear, but he rose suddenly, and walking to the door, took down from the two dogwood forks above it his old, long, single-barrelled gun, and turning to his wife said, “Git me my coat, old woman; by Gawd, I’m a-gwine.” The two women were both on their feet in a second. Their faces were white and their hands were clenched under the sudden stress, their breath came fast. The older woman was the first to speak.

“What in the worl’ ken you do, Cove Mills, ole an’ puny as you is, an’ got the rheumatiz all the time, too?”

“I ken pint a gun,” said the old man, doggedly, “an’ I’m a-gwine.”

“An’ what in the worl’ is a-goin’ to become of us, an’ that cow got to runnin’ away so, I’m afeared all the time she’ll git in the mash?” Her tone was querulous, but it was not positive, and when her husband said again, “I’m a-gwine,” she said no more, and all the time she was getting together the few things which Cove would take.

As for Vashti, she seemed suddenly revivified; she moved about with a new step, swift, supple, silent, her head up, a new light in her face, and her eyes, as they turned now and then on her father, filled with a new fire. She did not talk much. “I’ll a-teck care o’ us all,” she said once; and once again, when her mother gave something like a moan, she supported her with a word about “the only ones as gives three from one family.” It was a word in season, for the mother caught the spirit, and a moment later declared, with a new tone in her voice, that that was better than Mrs. Stanley, and still they were better off than she, for they still had two left to help each other, while she had not a soul.

“I’ll teck care o’ us all,” repeated the girl once more.

It was only a few things that Cove Mills took with him that morning, when he set out in the darkness to overtake the company before they should break camp--hardly his old game-bag half full; for the equipment of the boys had stripped the little cabin of everything that could be of use. He might only have seemed to be going hunting, as he slung down the path with his old long-barrelled gun in his hand and his game-bag over his shoulder, and disappeared in the darkness from the eyes of the two women standing in the cabin door.

The next morning Mrs. Mills paid Mrs. Stanley the first visit she had paid on that side the branch since the day, three years before, when Cove and the boys had the row with Little Darby. It might have seemed accidental, but Mrs. Stanley was the first person in the district to know that all the Mills men were gone to the army. She went over again, from time to time, for it was not a period to keep up open hostilities, and she was younger than Mrs. Stanley and better off; but Vashti never went, and Mrs. Stanley never asked after her or came.

The company in which Little Darby and the Millses had enlisted was one of the many hundred infantry companies which joined and were merged in the Confederate army. It was in no way particularly signalized by anything that it did. It was commanded by the gentleman who did most toward getting it up; and the officers were gentlemen. The seventy odd men who made the rank and file were of all classes, from the sons of the oldest and wealthiest planters in the neighborhood to Little Darby and the dwellers in the district. The war was very different from what those who went into it expected it to be. Until it had gone on some time it seemed mainly marching and camping and staying in camp, quite uselessly as seemed to many, and drilling and doing nothing. Much of the time--especially later on--was given to marching and getting food; but drilling and camp duties at first took up most of it. This was especially hard on the poorer men, no one knew what it was to them. Some moped, some fell sick. Of the former class was Little Darby. He was too strong to be sickly as one of the Mills boys was, who died of fever in hospital only three months after they went in, and too silent to be as the other, who was jolly and could dance and sing a good song and was soon very popular in the company; more popular even than Old Cove, who was popular in several rights, as being about the oldest man in the company and as having a sort of dry wit when he was in a good humor, which he generally was. Little Darby was hardly distinguished at all, unless by the fact that he was somewhat taller than most of his comrades and somewhat more taciturn. He was only a common soldier of a common class in an ordinary infantry company, such a company as was common in the army. He still had the little wallet which he had picked up in the path that morning he left home. He had asked both of the Mills boys vaguely if they ever had owned such a piece of property, but they had not, and when old Cove told him that he had not either, he had contented himself and carried it about with him somewhat elaborately wrapped up and tied in an old piece of oilcloth and in his inside jacket pocket for safety, with a vague feeling that some day he might find the owner or return it. He was never on specially good terms with the Millses. Indeed, there was always a trace of coolness between them and him. He could not give it to them. Now and then he untied and unwrapped it in a secret place and read a little in the Testament, but that was all. He never touched a needle or so much as a pin, and when he untied the parcel he generally counted them to see that they were all there.

So the war went on, with battles coming a little oftener and food growing ever a little scarcer; but the company was about as before, nothing particular--what with killing and fever a little thinned, a good deal faded; and Little Darby just one in a crowd, marching with the rest, sleeping with the rest, fighting with the rest, starving with the rest. He was hardly known for a long time, except for his silence, outside of his mess. Men were fighting and getting killed or wounded constantly; as for him, he was never touched; and as he did what he was ordered silently and was silent when he got through, there was no one to sing his praise. Even when he was sent out on the skirmish line as a sharp-shooter, if he did anything no one knew it. He would disappear over a crest, or in a wood, and reappear as silent as if he were hunting in the swamps of the district; clean his gun; cut up wood; eat what he could get, and sit by the fire and listen to the talk, as silent awake as asleep.