The Long Roll Part 81

Sairy rose, stepped from the porch, and turned the drying apples. Coming back, she touched the girl on the shoulder--very gently. "They're all fools, Christianna. Once I met a woman who did not know her thimble finger. I thought that beat all! But it's hard to match the men."

"You've put me out!" said Tom. "Where was I? Oh--At first, before I came up with the Army, I missed her dreadfully. Billy reminds me of her at times.--It's near roll call, and I must stop. G.o.d bless you both.

Allan."

Tom folded the letter with trembling hands, laid it carefully atop of the others in the tin box, and took off and wiped his gla.s.ses. "Yes, if a letter didn't come every two weeks I'd go plumb crazy! I've got to hear him say 'dear Tom' that often, anyhow--"

Christianna rose, pulling her sunbonnet over her eyes. "Thank you, Mrs.

Cole an' Mr. Cole. I thought I'd like to hear. Now I'll be going back up the mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother is ploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely china asters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 't Richmond--like a great sweet white cup, an' they had pink c.r.a.pe myrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. Thunder Run's so far away. Good mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good mahnin', Mr. Cole."

The slight homespun figure disappeared around the bend of the road.

Sairy sewed in silence. Tom went back to the newspaper. The yellow cat slept on, the bees buzzed and droned, the sweet mountain air brushed through the trees, a robin sang. Half an hour pa.s.sed. Tom raised his head. "I hear some one coming!" He reached for the tobacco box.

It proved to be an old well-loved country doctor, on a white horse, with his saddle bags before him. Sairy hurried out, too, to the gate.

"Doctor, I want to ask you something about Tom--" "Psha, I'm all right,"

said Tom. "Won't you get down and set a little, doctor?"

The doctor would and did, and after he had prescribed for the tollgate keeper a two hours' nap every day and not to get too excited over war news, Tom read him Allan's letter, and they got into a hot discussion of the next battle. Sairy turned the drying apples, brushed away the bees, and brought fresh water from the well, then sat down again with her mending. "Doctor, how's the girl at Three Oaks?"

The doctor came back from Maryland to his own county and to the fold which he tended without sleep, without rest, and with little pay save in loving hearts. "Miriam Cleave? She's better, Mrs. Cole, she's better!"

"I'm mighty glad to hear it," said Sairy. "'T ain't a decline, then?"

"No, no! Just shock on shock coming to a delicate child. Her mother will bring her through. And there's a great woman."

"That's so, that's so!" a.s.sented Tom cordially. "A great woman."

Sairy nodded, drawing her thread across a bit of beeswax. "For once you are both right. He isn't there now, doctor?"

"No. He wasn't there but a week or two."

"You don't--"

"No, Tom. I don't know where he has gone. They have some land in the far south, down somewhere on the Gulf. He may have gone there."

"I reckon," said Tom, "he couldn't stand it in Virginia. All the earth beginnin' to tremble under marchin' feet and everybody askin', 'Where's the army to-day?' I reckon he couldn't stand it. I couldn't. Allan don't believe he did it, an' I don't believe it either."

"Nor I," said Sairy.

"He came up here," said Tom, "just as quiet an' grave an' simple as you or me. An' he sat there in his lawyer's clothes, with his back to that thar pillar, an' he told Sairy an' me all about Allan. He told us how good he was an' how all the men loved him an' how valuable he was to the service. An' he said that the wound he got at Gaines's Mill wasn't so bad after all as it might have been, and that Allan would soon be rejoining. An' he said that being a scout wasn't as glorious, maybe, but it was just as necessary as being a general. An' that he had always loved Allan an' always would. An' he told us about something Allan did at McDowell and then again at Kernstown--an' Sairy cried an' so did I--"

Sairy folded her work. "I wasn't crying so much for Allan--"

"An' then he asked for a drink of water 'n we talked a little about the crops, 'n he went down the mountain. An' Sairy an' I don't believe he did it."

The doctor drew his hand downward over mouth and white beard. "Well, Mrs. Cole, I don't either. The decisions of courts and judges don't always decide. There's always a chance of an important witness called Truth having been absent. I didn't see Richard Cleave but once while he was at Three Oaks. He looked and acted then just like Richard Cleave,--only older and graver. It was beautiful to see him and his mother together." The doctor rose. "But I reckon it's as Tom says and he couldn't stand it, and has gone where he doesn't hear 'the army--the army--the army'--all day long. Mrs. Cleave hasn't said anything, and I wouldn't ask. The last time I saw her--and I think he had just gone--she looked like a woman a great artist might have met in a dream."

The doctor gazed out over the autumn sea of mountains and up at the pure serene of the heavens, and then at his old, patient white horse with the saddle bags across the saddle. "Mrs. Cole, all you've got to do is to keep Tom from getting excited. I'll be back this way the first of the week and I'll stop again--"

Tom cleared his throat. "I don't know when Sairy an' me can pay you, doctor. I never realized till it came how war stops business. I'd about as well be keeping toll gate in the desert of Sahary."

"I'm not doing it for pay," said the doctor. "It's just the place to stop and rest and talk, and as for giving you a bit of opinion and advice, Lord! I'm not so poor that I can't do that. If you want to give me something in return I certainly could use three pounds of dried apples."

The doctor rode on down the mountain. Tom and Sairy had a frugal dinner.

Then the former lay down to take the prescribed nap, and the latter set her washtub on a box in the yard beneath the peach trees. Tom didn't sleep long; he said every time he was about to drop off he thought he heard wheels. He came back to his split-bottomed chair on the porch, the tobacco box for the toll, the tin box with Allan's letters, and the view across the china asters of the road. The afternoon was past its height, but bright yet, with the undersong of the wind and of Thunder Run. The yellow cat had had his dinner, too, and after sauntering around the yard, and observing the robin on the locust tree again curled himself on the porch and slept.

Sairy straightened herself from the washtub. "Somebody's comin' up the road. It's a man!" She came toward the porch, wiping her hands, white and crinkled, upon her ap.r.o.n. "He's a soldier, Tom! Maybe one of the boys air come back--"

Tom rose too, quickly. He staggered and had to catch at the sapling that made the pillar. "Maybe it's--"

"No, no! no, no! Don't you think that, an' have a set-back when you find it ain't! It ain't tall enough for Allan, an' it ain't him anyhow. It _couldn't_ be."

"No, I reckon it couldn't," said Tom. "But anyhow it's one of the boys."

He was half way to the gate, Sairy after him, and they were the first to welcome Steve Dagg back to Thunder Run.

Tom Cole forgot that he had no opinion of Steve anyway. Sairy pursed her lips, but a soldier was a soldier. Steve came and sat down on the edge of the porch, beside the china asters, "Gawd! don't Thunder Run sound natural! Ya.s.s'm, I walked from Buford's, an' 't was awful hard to do, cause my foot is all sore an' gangrened. I've got a furlough till it gets well. It's awful sore. Gawd! ef Thunder Run had seen what I've seen, an' heard what I've heard, an' done what I've done, an' been through what I've been through--"

CHAPTER XLII

SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191

In Lee's tent, pitched in a grove a mile from Frederick, was held a council of war,--Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, Jeb Stuart. Lee sat beside the table, Jackson faced him, sabre across knees, Longstreet had his place a little to one side, and Stuart stood, his shoulder against the tent pole. The last-named had been speaking. He now ended with "I think I may say, sir, that hardly a rabbit has gotten past my pickets.

He's a fine fellow, Little Mac is! but he's mighty cautious, and you couldn't exactly call him swift as lightning. He's still a score of miles to the east of us, and he knows mighty little what we are about."

Jackson spoke. "General McClellan does not know if the whole army has crossed or only part of it has crossed. He does not know whether we are going to move against Washington, or move against Baltimore, or invade Pennsylvania. Always mystify, mislead, and deceive the enemy as far as possible."

Longstreet spoke. "Well, by the time he makes those twenty miles the troops should be rested and in condition. We'll have another battle and another victory."

Lee spoke, addressing Stuart. "You have done your work most skilfully, general. It is not every army that has a Jeb Stuart!" He paused, then spoke to all. "McClellan will not be up for several days. Across the river, in Virginia, are yet fourteen thousand of the enemy. I had hoped that, scattered as they are, Washington would withdraw them when it heard of our crossing. It has not done so, however. It is not well to have in our rear that entrenched camp at Harper's Ferry. It is my idea, gentlemen, that it might be possible to repeat the manoeuvre of Second Mana.s.sas."

Stonewall Jackson hitched his chair closer. Stuart chuckled joyously.

Longstreet looked dubious. "Do you mean, general, that you would again divide the army?"

Lee rested his crossed hands on the table before him. "Gentlemen, did I have the Northern generals' numbers, I, too, might be cautious. Having only Robert E. Lee's numbers, I advance another policy. It is my idea again to divide the army."

"In the enemy's country? We have not fifty-five thousand fighting strength."

"Yes, in the enemy's country. And I know that we have not fifty-five thousand fighting strength. My plan is this, gentlemen. General Stuart has proved his ability to hold all roads and mask all movements. We will form two columns, and behind the screen which his cavalry provides, one column will move north and one column will move south. By advancing toward Hagerstown the first will create the impression that Pennsylvania is to be invaded. Moreover Catoctin and South Mountain are strong defensive positions. The other column will move with expedition.

Recrossing the Potomac, it will invest and capture Harper's Ferry. That done, it will return at once into Maryland, rejoining me before McClellan is up."

Longstreet swore. "By G.o.d, that is a bold plan!--What if McClellan should learn it?"

"As against that, we must trust in General Stuart. These people must be driven out of Harper's Ferry. All our communications are threatened."

Longstreet was blunt. "Well, sir, I think it is madness. Pray don't send me on any such errand!"