“N-no,” answered Kilgariff, hesitatingly. “I suppose washtubs or anything that will hold water will do. We must use hot water to steep the plants in, but we might pour hot water into vessels in which we couldn’t heat it. Yes, Evelyn, any sort of vessel that will hold water will answer our purpose.”
“Then I’ll provide all the tanks you need, if Dorothy will give me leave to command the servant-men. I do know how.”
The leave was promptly given, and Evelyn instructed the negroes how to make staves of large proportions, and how to put them together. Three days later, with an adequate supply of these, and with a quantity of binding hoops which she had herself fashioned out of hickory saplings to the utter astonishment of her comrades, the girl manufactured a number of wooden and water-tight tanks, each capable of holding many scores of gallons.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Kilgariff asked, when the first of the tanks was set up.
“Among the whale fishermen,” she answered. “But I mustn’t tell you about that, and you mustn’t ask. But my tanks will hold oil as well as water, and I am going to make a little one for castor oil. You know we have five acres in castor beans. I reckon you two do know how to make castor oil out of them.”
“Come here, Evelyn, and sit down,” said Dorothy. “Of course we know how to extract castor oil from the beans, but we don’t know where or how you got your peculiar English. Tell us about it.”
“I do not understand. Is my English not like your own?”
“In some respects, no. When you volunteered to make these tanks for us, you said, ‘I do know how,’ and now you say, ‘You do know.’ We should say, ‘I know,’ and ‘You know.’ Where did you get your peculiar usage?”
The girl flushed crimson. Presently she answered: —
“It is that I have not been taught. Pardon me. I am trying to learn. I do listen – no, I should say – I listen to your speech, and I try to speak the same. I have read books and tried to learn from them what the right speech is. Am I not learning better now? I try, or I am trying – which is it? And the big book – the dictionary – I am studying. I never saw a dictionary until I came to Wyanoke.”
“Don’t worry,” said Kilgariff, tenderly. “You speak quite well enough to make us glad to listen.”
And indeed they were glad to listen. For now that the girl had become actively busy in the laboratory, she had lost much of her shy reserve, and her conversation was full of inspiration and suggestiveness. It was obvious that while her instruction had been meagre and exceedingly irregular, she had done a world of thinking from such premises as were hers, and the thinking had been sound.
Her ways were sweet and winning, chiefly because of their utter sincerity, and they fascinated both Dorothy and Kilgariff.
“Kilgariff must marry her,” Dorothy wrote to Arthur Brent. “God evidently intended that, when he made these two; but how it is to come about, I do not at all know. Kilgariff has some foolish notions that stand in the way, but of course love will overcome them. As for Evelyn – well, she is a woman, and that is quite enough.”
Evelyn’s use of the intensives, ‘do’ and ‘did’ and the like, was not at all uniform. Often she would converse for half an hour without a lapse into that or any other of her peculiarities of speech. It was usually excitement or embarrassment or enthusiasm that brought on what Dorothy called “an attack of dialect,” and Kilgariff one day said to Dorothy: —
“The girl’s speech ‘bewrayeth her,’ as Peter’s did in the Bible.”
“How do you mean?”
“Why, it is easy and perfectly safe to infer from her speech a good deal of her life-history.”
“Go on, I am interested.”
“Well, you observe that she has almost a phenomenal gift of unconscious imitation. She has been with you for only a very brief while, yet in the main her pronunciation, her inflection, and even her choice of words are those of a young woman brought up in Virginia. She says ‘gyarden,’ ‘cyart,’ and the like, and her
a
’s are quite as broad as your own when she talks of the grass or the basket. Now when she lapses into her own dialect, there is a distinctively French note in her syntax, from which I argue that she has lived among French-speaking people for a time, catching their construction. But, on the other hand, her English is so good that I cannot think her life has been mainly passed among French-speaking people. Have you tried her in French itself?”
“Yes, and she speaks the most extraordinary French I ever heard.”
“Well, that fits in with the other facts. This morning she spoke of a hashed meat at breakfast as ‘pemmican,’ though she quickly corrected herself; she often uses Indian terms, too, by inadvertence. Then again, her accomplishments all smell of the woods. Putting all things together, I should say that she has spent a good deal of time among, or at least in frequent contact with, Canadian Frenchmen and Indians.”
“I think you are right,” said Dorothy, “and yet some part of her life has been passed in company with a well-bred and accomplished woman.”
“Your body of facts, please?” said Kilgariff.
“Her speech, for one thing; for in spite of its oddities it is mainly the speech of a cultivated woman. She never uses slang; indeed, I’m sure she knows no slang. Her constructions, though often odd, are always grammatical, and her diction is that of educated people. Then again, her scrupulous attention to personal neatness tells me much. More important still, at least in my woman’s eyes, is the fact that she perfectly knows how to make a bed and how to make the most of the little ornaments and fripperies of a room. She did not learn these things from squaws or half-breeds. Moreover, she does needlework of an exquisite delicacy which I never saw matched anywhere. That tells of a highly bred woman as an influence in her life and education.”
While these three were at dinner that day, the negro head-man – for even in his enforced absence Arthur Brent would not commit his authority over his negroes to the brutal instincts of any overseer – came to the door and asked to speak with “Mis’ Dorothy.”
“Bring me a decanter and a glass, Elsie,” said Dorothy to the chief serving-maid. She poured a dram into the glass, and handed it to the girl.
“Take that out to Uncle Joe,” she said, “and tell him to come in after he has drunk it.”
It was a peculiarity of the plantation negro in Virginia that he never refused a dram from “the gre’t house,” and yet that he never drank to excess. Those negroes that served about the house in one capacity or another were always supplied with money – the proceeds of “tips” – and could have bought liquor at will. Yet none of them ever formed the drink habit.
When Uncle Joe came into the dining-room, he had a number of matters concerning which he desired instruction. When these affairs had been disposed of, and Dorothy had directed him to slaughter a shoat on the following morning, the mistress asked: —
“How about the young mare, Uncle Joe? Are you ever going to have her broken?”
“Well, you see, Missus, Dick’s de only pusson on de plantation what dars to tackle dat dar mar’, an’ Dick he’s done gone off to de wah wid Mahstah. ‘Sides dat, de mar’ she done trowed Dick hisse’f tree times. Dey simply ain’t no doin’ nuffin’ wid dat dar mar’, Missus. I reckon de only ting to do wid her is to sell her to de artillery, whah dey don’ ax no odds o’ no hoss whatsomever. She’s five year ole, an’ as strong as two mules, an’ nobody ain’t never been able to break her yit.”
“Poor creature!” said Evelyn. “May I try what I can do with her, Dorothy?”
“You, little Missus?” broke in Joe. “
You
try to tackle de iron-gray mar’? Why, she’d mash you like a potato wid her foh-feet, an’ den turn roun’ an’ kick you to kingdom come wid de hind par.”
“May I try, Dorothy?” the girl calmly asked again, quite ignoring Uncle Joe’s prophecies of evil.
“Hadn’t you better let some of the men or boys break her first?”
“No. To me it is plain they have done too much of that already. Let me have her as she is. Have her brought up to the house, Uncle Joe, soon after dinner, with nothing on her but a halter.”
“Why, little Mis’, you don’ know – ”
“Do precisely as I tell you,” interrupted the girl, who could be very imperious when so minded.
When the mare was brought, she was striking viciously at the negro who led her. With ears laid back close to her head, and with the whites of her eyes showing menacingly, she was striking out with her hoofs as if intent upon committing homicide without further delay.
“Turn her loose, Ben,” said the girl, who sat idly in the porch as if she had no task on her hands. “Then go away from her, and make all the rest go away, too – ” motioning toward the gang of little negroes who had assembled, “to see de iron-gray mar’ kill little Missie.”
When all were gone, Evelyn began nibbling at a sugar lump. Presently, after the mare had discovered that she was quite free and that her tormentors were gone, Evelyn held out her hand with the sugar lump in its palm. The animal was obviously unfamiliar with sugar lumps, but she had the curiosity which is commonly – perhaps erroneously – attributed to her sex. So, as Evelyn sat on the bench and made no motion indicative of any purpose to seize the halter, the animal presently became interested in the extended hand. Little by little, and with occasional snortings and recessions, she approached the girl. Finally, finding that the extended hand was not moved, she nosed the sugar lump, and then with her long, flexible tongue, swept it into her mouth.
Evelyn did not withdraw the hand at once, but held it extended till the mare had got the full flavour of the sweet. Meanwhile, she cooed to the animal soothingly, and, after a little, she produced a second sugar lump and laid it upon the extended palm. This time, as the mare took the dainty, Evelyn, still talking soothingly, ventured with her other hand to stroke the beast’s silky nose, caressingly. There was a shrinking back on the part of the timid creature, but the lure of the sugar was enticing, and after once the gentle hand had stroked the mare’s face, she seemed rather to welcome than to resent the caress.
Thus, little by little, did the girl establish relations of amity between herself and the spirited mare. After a while, Evelyn quitted her seat, went out upon the lawn, and with a sugar-lump bribe tempted the animal to approach her. Then she stroked its head and neck and sides, gradually giving it to understand that she meant no harm and accustoming it to the pleasant touch of her hands. Finally she stroked its legs vigorously, and lifted one foot after another, examining each.
By this time the mare seemed to have concluded that the young woman, who talked ceaselessly in her cooing, contralto voice, was an altogether pleasant acquaintance. Wherever the girl went, around the grounds, the mare followed, nosing her and seemingly soliciting her attention.
At last the girl tolled the mare to a horse block, and for a time stood upon it, gently stroking her silky back.
Then she made a motion as if to sit upon that shapely back. The mare shied away, perhaps remembering former attempts of the kind which she had resented as indignities. But as Evelyn did not insist upon her apparent purpose, and as the mare was by this time very much in sympathy, if not in love, with the gentle girl, she presently sidled back into position, and Evelyn seated herself upon her back, at the same time caressingly stroking the sides of her neck. She had neither saddle on which to sit securely, nor bridle with which to control her mount, but there was no need of either. The mare was nibbling grass by this time, and Evelyn permitted her to do so, letting her wander about the house grounds at will, in search of the most succulent tufts. As the supper hour drew near, the girl slipped from the animal’s back and led the way, the animal following, to the stables. There, with her own hands she filled the manger and the hay-rack, and after an affectionate farewell to her new friend, returned to the house. But first she said to Ben, the hostler: —
“Let nobody feed the mare but me. I will be at the stables in time in the morning. And let nobody touch her with a currycomb. I will myself attend to all.”
Three or four days later the high-spirited mare was Evelyn Byrd’s very humble servant indeed. The girl rode her everywhere, teaching her a number of pretty tricks, the most astonishing of which was the art of lifting a gate latch with her teeth, and letting herself and her rider through the many barriers that Virginian law accommodatingly permitted planters to erect across the public roads.
“But how did you learn all this?” asked Kilgariff, full of interest.
“Oh, I do not know. I reckon I never learned it at all. You see, the animals fight us only because they think we mean to fight them. So long as they are afraid of us, they fight, of course. When they learn that we are friendly, they are glad to be friends. Anybody can tame any animal if he goes to work in the right way. I once tamed a Canada lynx, and it became so used to me that I let it sleep on the foot of my bed. But the lynx has a great deal of sense and very little affection, while a horse has a great deal of affection and very little sense. With the lynx, I appealed to its good sense, but I did never – I mean, I never trusted its affection.
“I have treated this mare like a baby that does not understand much, but I have won its affection completely, and I trust that. The animal has so little sense that it would scare at a scrap of paper lying in the road, and go almost frantic if it saw a man pulling a buggy. But if I were on its back, it would not run or do anything that might throw me off. You see, one must know which is stronger in each animal – sense or sentiment. With a horse it is sentiment, so I curry the mare myself, talking to her all the while in a loving way, and I never let anybody else go into the stall. Another thing: a horse loves liberty better than anything else, so I have taken off the halter with which the mare used to be tied in her stall, and, as you know, I turn her loose every morning when she has finished her fodder, and she follows me up here to the house grounds where she is perfectly free to nibble grass. But she loves me so much that she often quits the grass and comes up here to the porch just to get me to rub her nose or stroke her neck. She is strong, and I am light, so she likes me to sit upon her back, as you have seen me do for an hour at a time. She doesn’t quite like a saddle yet – and neither do I. I would never use anything more than a blanket, just for the protection of my clothes, only that Dorothy thinks that people would wonder, if I should go visiting or to church riding bareback. Why do people wonder in that way, Mr. Kilgariff, about other people’s doings?”
“Upon my word, I don’t know, unless it is that we are all like the Pharisee in the parable, and want to emphasise our own superiority by criticising others.”
“But why shouldn’t the others criticise, too? The ways of the people they criticise are no more different from their ways, than their ways are different from those of the people they criticise. I confess I don’t quite understand.”
“Neither do I, Evelyn, except that it is the habit of people to set up their own ways as a standard and model, and to regard every departure from them as a barbarism. If it were not an accepted fact that the Venus of Milo is the most perfect exemplification we have of feminine beauty, and that it is the fashion to go into raptures over that piece of sculpture, I imagine that nine fashionable women in every ten would ridicule the way in which her hair is done up, simply because they do not do up theirs in the same way.”
“Yes, I know,” answered the girl, dreamily, and as if in a reverie. “That was the trouble in the circus.”
“In the circus? What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Don’t ask me.”
IX
THE GREAT WAR GAME
ALL this while the war was going on tremendously and Kilgariff was chafing at the restraint of a wound which forbade him to bear his part in it.
As we have seen, General Grant had crossed into the Wilderness with a double strategic purpose. He had hoped to turn Lee’s right flank and compel the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Failing in that, he had hoped, with his enormously superior numbers, to crush and destroy Lee’s army in battle.
He had failed in that purpose also. By his promptitude and vigour in assailing Grant’s army in flank, Lee had compelled his adversary to abandon his flanking purpose, and to withdraw his advance columns over a distance of more than ten miles in order to reinforce his sorely beset divisions in the Wilderness and to save his own army from the destruction he had hoped to inflict upon his adversary.
After suffering a far heavier loss than he inflicted, Grant had summoned reinforcements and moved by his left flank to Spottsylvania Court House. By this movement he had again hoped to turn Lee’s right flank, place himself between the Confederates and their capital, and in that way compel the surrender or dispersal of the Army of Northern Virginia. Again he had been foiled by Lee’s alertness and by the marvellous mobility of an army that moved without a baggage-train, and whose men carried no blankets, no extra clothing, no overcoats, no canteens, no tin cups, no cooking-utensils – nothing, in fact, except their rifles and their ammunition.
Those men were on the verge of starvation all the while. Often they had no rations at all for two days or more at a time. When rations were fullest, they consisted of one, two, or three hard-tack biscuits a day for each man, and perhaps a diminutive slice of salt pork or bacon, which was eaten raw.
But these men, who had formerly fought with the courage of hope, inspired by splendid victory, were fighting now with the courage of utter despair. A great wave of religious fervour had passed over the army and the South. It took upon itself the fatalistic forms of Calvinism, for the most part. The men of the army came to believe that every event which occurs in this world was foreordained of God to occur, decreed “before ever the foundations of the world were laid.” They had not ceased to trust the genius and sagacity of Lee, but they had accepted the rule and guidance of a greater than Lee – of God Almighty himself. With a faith that was sublime even in its perversion, these men committed themselves and their cause to God, and ceased to reckon upon human probabilities as factors in the problem.
There were prayer meetings in every tent and at every bivouac fire, every day and every night. At every pause in the fighting, were it only for a few minutes, the men on the firing-line threw themselves upon their knees and besought God to crown their efforts and their arms with victory, submissively leaving it to Him to determine the where, the when, the how. And in this worship of God and this absolute dependence upon His will the men of that army learned to regard themselves personally as mere pawns upon the chess-board of the divine purpose. They came to regard their own lives as dust in the balance, to be blown away by the breath of God’s will, to be sacrificed, as fuel is, for the maintenance of a flame.
Believing firmly and without question that their cause was in God’s charge, they executed every order given to them with an indifference to personal consequences for the like of which one may search history in vain.
In his movement from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania, General Grant again failed to turn the flank of his wily adversary, and, after a prolonged endeavour to break and destroy Lee’s army there, the Federal commander again moved by his left flank, in the hope of reaching Hanover Court House in advance of the arrival there of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Again he was baffled of his purpose. Again Lee got there first, and took up a position in which, by reason of the river’s tortuous course and the conformation of the ground, Grant could not assail him without dividing his own army into three parts, no one of which could be depended upon to support either of the others.
At one point the Federal general very nearly succeeded. There was a bridge across the stream near Hanover Court House. If that could be seized, the Federal forces might cross and assail Lee’s left flank with effect. A strong column of Federals was thrown forward to possess the bridge, and for a time it looked as if they would succeed and bring the war to an end right there.
But two Confederate batteries – utterly unsupported – were thrown forward. One was Captain Pollard’s; the other was a battery from the battalion of Major Baillie Pegram. Advancing at a full run, the two batteries planted their guns at the head of the bridge, just as the Federal columns were beginning to cross it, and within five minutes the bridge had ceased to be.
Has the reader ever seen Shepard’s spirited painting called “Virginia, 1864”? The sketch from which that painting was made was drawn on this hotly contested field, the artist having three pencils carried away from his grasp by rifle bullets and half a dozen rents made in his drawing-paper while he worked.
Thus, for the third time baffled in his effort to place his army between Lee and Richmond, Grant moved again by his left flank to the neighbourhood of Cold Harbour, where one of the severest battles of the seven days’ fight between Lee and McClellan had been waged.
Again Lee discovered his purpose, and again he got there first. He seized upon a line of hills and hastily fortified them. He was now in front of Richmond and only a few miles in advance of that city’s defences. He thought it not imprudent, therefore, to call to his assistance such troops as were engaged in garrisoning the works about Richmond; thus for the first time in all that strenuous campaign having an opportunity in some small degree to make good the waste of war, by way of preparing himself to meet an enemy who had been reinforced almost daily since the beginning of the campaign, and whose army at that time outnumbered the Confederate force by more than three to one.
At Lee’s back lay the now bridgeless Chickahominy – an erratic stream which might at any moment cut him off from all possibility of retreat. If Grant could defeat him where he lay, or even seriously cripple him, the pathway of the Army of the Potomac into Richmond would be scarcely at all obstructed.
In hope of this result, Grant determined upon an assault in force. In the gray of the morning of June 3, he assailed Lee with all of impetuosity and all of force that an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men could bring to bear against an army of less than fifty thousand.
The result was disastrous in the extreme to the Federals. They marched into a very slaughter pen, where they lost about ten thousand men within twenty minutes, for the reason that Lee had previously discovered their purpose and had prepared himself to receive their onslaught