The Littlest Rebel Part 32

On the dusty pike which led to Virginia's capital another rider plodded through the heat and haze. His coat, once gray, now hung in mud-stained tatters about his form, but beneath his battered campaign hat his thin, pale features were smoothed by a smile of happiness.

Behind his saddle, one hand gripped tightly in a rent in the soiled gray coat, sat still another Rebel--the smallest of them all--her tiny legs stretched out almost straight on the horse's wide, fat back.

"Daddy--how far is it to Richmon' now?"

The rider turned his head and pointed north.

"It's close now, honey. See that line of hills? That's Richmond. A mile or two and we'll be at home."

Again they plodded on, past fields of shriveled corn whose stalks stood silently in parched and wilted lines--lines that were like the ranks of the doomed Confederacy--its stalks erect, yet sapped of the juice of life. Where orchards once had flourished their rotted branches now hid mouths of rifle pits, and low, red clay entrenchments stretched across the fields.

"Daddy," broke out a piping voice, "don't you think we'd better make this Yankee horse get up a little? 'Cause--'cause somethin' _else_ might happen before we get there."

"It's all right, Virgie," her father answered, with a pat on her small, brown knee. "These lines are ours, and I reckon we are safe at last."

They were. Two Rebels on a Yankee horse soon made their triumphant entry into Richmond. They pa.s.sed through Rockets, by the half-deserted wharves on the river bank where a crippled gunboat lay, then clattered over the cobble stones up Main Street till they reached the Square. On the State House the Stars and Bars still floated; but the travelers did not pause. Northward they turned, then westward again, till they stopped at last before a silent, stately mansion, the headquarters of their General--General Lee.

Before the open door two sentries stood, but as Cary and his charge dismounted an orderly came down the steps and out of the iron gate. A word or two from Cary and the orderly disappeared into the house, returning soon with word that the visitors would be received--at once.

Up the stone steps went Virgie, holding tightly to her father's hand, for now, as she neared her General, her little heart was pounding, and her breath came eagerly and fast.

On the threshold of a dim and shaded room they paused and looked. He sat there, at a table strewn with war maps and reports--a tall gray man in a coat of gray--the soldier and the gentleman.

As father and child came in he rose to meet them, looking at the two with eyes that seemed to hold the sadness and the tenderness of all the world.

He knew their story; in fact, he had bent his every effort to the saving of Cary's life. He had sent a courier to the camp of General Grant below the city, asking a stay of sentence till the facts in the case were cleared; and only a half hour before his courier had returned with news of the prisoner's release.

And now, as he advanced and gave a courtly welcome to his trusted scout, the hand of the Littlest Rebel once more went up in salute to a superior officer.

"Gen'ral," she said, as she stole a glance at her father's smiling face, "I've brought him back--with--with the pa.s.s you gave me, sir."

And the General stooped--six feet of him--till his lips were on a level with Virgie's lips; then folded her closely into his great gray arms.

THE END