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The Lieutenant in command raised his hat with the greatest gallantry.
“Good morning, Miss. From the city, I suppose?” he inquired.
“Yes,” she answered in tones as even as if speaking in a parlor; “fortunately, I am at last from the city. I have been trying to get away ever since it seemed hopeless that our people would not redeem it soon.”
The conversation thus opened was carried on by Rachel giving copious and disparaging information concerning the “Yankees,” and the Lieutenant listening in admiration to the musical accents, interrupting but rarely to interject a question or a favorable comment. He was as little critical as ardent young men are apt to be of the statements of captivating young women, and Rachel’s spirits rose as she saw that the worst she had to fear from this enemy was an excess of devotion. The story of her aunt at Murfreesboro received unhesitating acceptance, and nothing but imperative scouting orders prevented his escorting her to the town. He would, however, send a non-commissioned officer with her, who would see that she was not molested by any one. He requested permission to call upon her at her aunt’s, which Rachel was compelled to grant, for lack of any ready excuse for such a contingency. With this, and many smiles and bows, they parted.
All the afternoon she rode through camps of men in gray and butternut, as she had ridden through those of men in blue in the morning. In these, as in the others, she heard gay songs, dance music and laughter, and saw thousands of merry boys rollicking in the sunshine at games of ball and other sports, with the joyous earnestness of a school-house playground. She tried, but in vain, to realize that in a few days these thoughtless youths would be the demons of the battle-field.
Just before dusk she came to the top of a low limestone ridge, and saw, three miles away, the lights of Murfreesboro. At that moment Fortner appeared, jogging leisurely toward her, mounted on a splendid horse.
“O there’s my Cousin Jim!” she exclaimed gleefully, “coming to meet me. Sergeant, I am deeply obliged to you and to your Lieutenant, for your company, and I will try to show my appreciation of it in the future in some way more substantial than words. You need not go any farther with me. I know that you and your horse are very tired. Good by.”
The Sergeant was only too glad of this release, which gave him an opportunity to get back to camp, to enjoy some good cheer that he knew was there, and bidding a hasty good-night, he left at a trot.
Fortner and Rachel rode on slowly up the pike, traversing the ground that was soon to run red with the blood of thousands.
They talked of the fearful probabilities of the next few days, and halted for some minutes on the bridge across Stone River, to study the wonderfully picturesque scene spread out before them. The dusk was just closing down. The scowling darkness seemed to catch around woods and trees and houses, and grow into monsters of vast and somber bulk, swelling and spreading like the “gin” which escaped from the copper can, in the “Arabian Nights,” until they touched each other, coalesced and covered the whole land. Far away, at the edge of the valley, the tops of the hills rose, distinctly lighted by the last rays of the dying day, as if some strip of country resisting to the last the invasion of the dark monsters.
A half-mile in front of the bridge was the town of Murfreesboro. Bright lights streamed from thousands of windows and from bonfires in the streets. Church bells rang out the glad acclaim of Christmas from a score of steeples. The happy voices of childhood singing Christmas carols; the laughter of youths and maidens strolling arm in arm through the streets; the cheery songs of merry-making negroes; silver-throated bands, with throbbing drums and gently-complaining flutes, playing martial airs; long lines of gleaming camp-fires, stretching over the undulating valley and rising hills like necklaces of burning jewels on the breast of night,—this was what held them silent and motionless.
Rachel at last spoke:
“It is like a scene of enchantment. It is more wonderful than anything I ever read of.”
“Yes’m, hit’s mouty strikin’ now, an’ when ye think how hit’ll all be changed in a little while ter more misery then thar is this side o’ hell, hit becomes all the more strikin’. Hit seems ter me somethin’ like what I’ve heered ‘em read ‘bout in the Bible, whar they went on feastin’ an’ singin’, an’ dancin’ an’ frolickin’, an’ the like, an’ at midnight the inimy broke through the walls of ther city, an’ put ‘em all ter the sword, even while they wuz settin’ round thar tables, with ther drinkin’ cups in ther hands.”
“To think what a storm is about to break upon this scene of happiness and mirth-making!” said Rachel, with a shudder.
“Yes, an’ they seem ter want ter do the very things thet’ll show ther contempt o’ righteousness, an’ provoke the wrath o’ the Lord. Thar, where ye see thet house, all lit up from the basement ter the look-out on the ruf, is whar one o’ the most ‘ristocratic families in all Tennessee lives. There datter is bein’ married to-night, an’ Major-Gineral Polk, the biggest gun in all these ‘ere parts, next ter ole Bragg, an’ who is also ‘Piscopalian Bishop o’ Tennessee, does the splicin’. They’ve got ther parlors, whar they’ll dance, carpeted with ‘Merican flags, so thet the young bucks an’ gals kin show ther despisery of the banner thet wuz good enough for ther fathers, by trampin’ over hit all night. But we’ll show hit ter ‘em in a day or two whar they won’t feel like cuttin’ pigeon-wings over hit. Ye jes stand still an’ see the salvation o’ the Lord.”
“I hope we will,” said Rachel, her horror of the storm that was about to break giving away to indignation at the treatment of her country’s flag. “Shan’t we go on? My long ride has made me very tired and very hungry, and I know my horse is the same.”
Shortly after crossing the river they passed a large tent, with a number of others clustered around it. All were festooned with Rebel flags, and brilliantly lighted. A band came up in front of the principal one and played the “Bonnie Blue Flag.”
“Thet’s ole Gineral Bragg’s headquarters,” explained Fortner. “He’s the king bee of all the Rebels in these heah parts, an’ they think he kin ‘bout make the sun stand still ef he wants ter.”
They cantered on into the town, and going more slowly through the great public square and the more crowded streets, came at last to a modest house, standing on a corner, and nearly hidden by vines and shrubbery.
A peculiar knock caused the door to open quickly, and before Rachel was hardly aware of it, she was standing inside a comfortable room, so well lighted that her eyes took some little time to get used to such a change.
When they did so she saw that she was in the presence of a slender, elderly woman, whose face charmed her.
“This is yer Aunt Debby Brill,” said Fortner, dryly, “who ye came so fur ter see, an’ who’s bin ‘spectin’ ye quite anxiously.”
“Ye’re very welcome, my dear,” said Aunt Debby, after a moment’s inspection which seemed to be entirely satisfactory. “Jest lay off yer things thar on the bed, an’ come out ter supper. I know ye’re sharp-set. A ride from Nashville sech a day ez this is mouty good for the appetite, an’ we’ve hed supper waitin’ ye.”
Hastily throwing off her hat and gloves, she sat down with the rest, to a homely but excellent supper, which they all ate in silence. During the meal a muscular, well knit man of thirty entered.
“All clar, outside, Bill?” asked Fortner.
“All clar,” replied the man. “Everybody’s off on a high o’ some kind.”
Bill sat down and ate with the rest, until he satisfied his hunger, and then rising he felt along the hewed logs which formed the walls, until he found a splinter to serve as a tooth-pick. Using this for a minute industriously, he threw it into the fire and asked:
“Well?”
“Well,” answered Fortner. “I reckon hit’s ez sartin ez anything kin well be thet Wheeler’s and Morgan’s cavalry hez been sent off inter Kentucky, and ez thet’s what Ole rosy’s been waitin’ fur, now’s the time fur him ter put in his best licks. Ye’d better start afore midnight fur Nashville. Ye’ll hev this news, an’ alos thet thar’s been no change in the location o’ the Rebels, ‘cept thet Polk’s an’ Kirby Smith’s corps are both heah at Murfreesboro, with a strong brigade at Stewart’s creek, an’ another at Lavergne. Ye’d better fallin with Boscall’s rijiment, which’ll go out ter Lavergne to-night, ter relieve one o’ the rijiments thar. Ye’d better not try to git back heah ag’in tell arter the battle. Good by. God bless ye. Miss, ye’d better git ter bed now, ez soon ez possible, an’ rest yerself fur what’s comin’. We’ll need every mite an’ grain of our strength.”
Chapter XIX. The Battle of Stone River
O, wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North,
With your hands and your feet, and your raiment all red?
And wherefore doth your rout, send forth a joyous shout?
And whence be the grapes of the wine-press that ye tread?
O, evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit,
And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we tred;
For we trampled on the throng, of the haughty and the strong,
Who sat in the high places and slew the saints of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They are here—they rush on—we are broken—we are gone—
Our left is borne before them like stubble in the blast.
O, Lord, put forth thy might!
O, Lord, defend the right!
Stand back to back, in
God’s name! and fight it to the last.
—“Battle of Naseby.”
The celebration of Christmas in the camps around Nashville was abruptly terminated by the reception of orders to march in the morning, with full haversacks and cartridge-boxes. The next day all the roads leading southward became as rivers flowing armed men. Endless streams of blue, thickly glinted everywhere with bright and ominous steel, wound around the hills, poured over the plains, and spread out into angry lakes wherever a Rebel outpost checked the flow for a few minutes.
Four thousand troopers under the heroic Stanley—the foam-crest on the war-billow—dashed on in advance. Twelve thousand steadily-moving infantry under the luckless McCook, poured down the Franklin turnpike, miles away to the right; twelve thousand more streamed down the Murfreesboro pike on the left, with the banner of the over-weighted Crittenden, while grand old Thomas, he whose trumpets never sounded forth retreat, but always called to victory, moved steadfast as a glacier in the center, with as many more, a sure support and help to those on either hand.
The mighty war-wave rolling up the broad plateau of the Cumberland was fifteen miles wide now. It would be less than a third of that when it gathered itself together for its mortal dash upon the rocks of rebellion at Murfreesboro.
It was Friday morning that the wave began rolling southward. All day Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday it rolled steadily onward, sweeping before it the enemy’s pickets and outposts as dry sand by an incoming tide. Monday evening the leading divisions stood upon the ridge where Rachel and Fortner had stood, and looked as they did upon the lights of Murfreesboro, two miles away.
“Two days from to-morrow is New Year’s,” said Kent Edwards. “Dear Festival of Egg-Nogg! how sweet are thy memories. I hope the Tennessee hens are doing their duty this Winter, so that we’ll have no trouble finding eggs when we get into Murfreesboro to-morrow.”
“We are likely to be so busy tendering the compliments of the season to Mr. Bragg,” said Harry, lightly, “that we will probably have but little time to make calls upon the lady-hens who keep open nests.”
“We all may be where we’ll need lots o’ cold water more than anything else,” said Abe grimly.
“Well,” said Kent blithely, “if I’m to be made a sweet little angel I don’t know any day that I would rather have for my promotion to date from. It would have a very proper look to put in the full year here on earth, and start in with the new one in a world of superior attractions.”
“Well, I declare, if here isn’t Dr. Denslow,” said Harry, delightedly, as he recognized a horseman, who rode up to them. “How did you come here? We thought you were permanently stationed at the grand hospital.”
“So I was,” replied the Doctor. “So I was, at least so far as general orders could do it. But I felt that I could not be away from my boys at this supreme moment, an I am here, though the irregular way in which I detached myself from my post may require explanation at a court-martial. Anyhow, it is a grateful relief to be away from the smell of chloride of lime, and get a breath of fresh air that is not mingled with the groans of a ward-full of sick men. It looks,” he continued, with a comprehensive glance at the firmament of Rebel camp-fires that made Murfreesboro seem the center of a ruddy Milky-way, “as if the climax is at last at hand. Bragg, like the worm, will at last turn, and after a year of footraces we’ll have a fight which will settle who is the superfluous cat in this alley. There is certainly one too many.”
“The sooner it comes the better,” said Harry firmly. “It has to be sometime, and I’m getting very anxious for an end to this eternal marching and countermarching.”
“My winsome little feet,” Kent Edwards put in plaintively, “are knobby as a burglar-proof safe, with corns and bunions, all of them more tender than a maiden’s heart, and painful as a mistake in a poker hand. They’re the ripe fruit of the thousands of miles of side hills I’ve had to tramp over because of Mr. Bragg’s retiring disposition. Now, if he’s got the spirit of a man he’ll come out from under the bed and fight me.”
“O, he’ll come out—he’ll come out—never you fear,” said Abe, sardonic as usual. “He’s got a day or two’s leisure now to attend to this business. A hundred thousand of him will come out. They’ll swarm out o’ them cedar thickets there like grass-hoppers out of a timothy field.”
“Boys,” said Harry, returning after a few minutes’ absence, “the Colonel says we’ll go into camp right here, just as we stand. Kent, I’ll take the canteens and hunt up water, if you and Abe will break some cedar boughs for the bed, and get the wood to cook supper with.”
“All right,” responded Kent, “I’ll go after the boughs.”
“That puts me in for the wood,” grumbled Abe. “And, I don’t suppose there’s a fence inside of a mile, and if there is there’s not a popular rail in it.”
“And, Doctor,” continued Harry, flinging the canteens over his shoulder, “you’ll stay and take a cup of coffee and sleep with us to-night, won’t you? The trains are all far behind, and the hospital wagon must be miles away.”
“Seems to me that I’ve heard something of the impropriety of visiting your friends just about mealtime,” said the Doctor quizzically, “but a cup of coffee just now has more charms for me than rigid etiquette, so I’ll thankfully accept your kind invitation. Some day I’ll reciprocate with liberality in doses of quinine.”
In less time than that taken by well-appointed kitchens to furnish “Hot Meals to Order” the four were sitting on their blankets around a comfortable fire of rails and cedar logs, eating hard bread and broiled fat pork, and drinking strong black coffee, which the magic of the open air had transmuted into delightfully delicate and relishable viands.
“You are indebted to me,” said Dr. Denslow, as he finished the last crumb and drop of his portion of the food, “for the accession to your company at this needful time, of a tower of strength in the person of Lieutenant Jacob Alspaugh.”
Abe groaned; the Doctor looked at him with well-feigned astonishment, and continued:
“That gore-hungry patriot, as you know, has been home several months on recruiting duty, by virtue of a certificate which he wheedled out of old Moxon. At last, when he couldn’t keep away any longer, he started back, but he carefully restrained his natural impetuosity in rushing to the tented field, and his journey from Sardis to Nashville was a fine specimen of easy deliberation. There was not a sign of ungentlemanly hurry in any part of it. He came into my ward at Nashville with violent symptoms of a half-dozen speedily fatal diseases. I was cruel enough to see a coincidence in this attack and the general marching orders, and I prescribed for his ailments a thorough course of open air exercise. To be sure that my prescription would be taken I had the Provost-Marshal interest himself in my patient’s case, and the result was that Alspaugh joined the regiment, and so far has found it difficult to get away from it. It’s the unexpected that happens, the French say, and there is a bare possibility that he may do the country some service by the accidental discharge of his duty.”
“The possibility is too remote to waste time considering,” said Harry.
They lay down together upon a bed made by spreading their overcoats and blankets upon the springy cedar boughts, and all but Harry were soon fast asleep. Though fully as weary as they he could not sleep for hours. He was dominated by a feeling that a crisis in his fate was at hand, and as he lay and looked at the stars every possible shape that that fate could take drifted across his mind, even as the endlessly-varying cloud-shapes swept—now languidly, now hurriedly—across the domed sky above him. And as the moon and the stars shone through or around each of the clouds, making the lighter ones masses of translucent glory, and gilding the edges of even the blackest with silvery promise, so the thoughts of Rachel Bond suffused with some brightness every possible happening to him. If he achieved anything the achievement would have for its chief value that it won her commendation; if he fell, the blackness of death would be gilded by her knowledge that he died a brave man’s death for her sweet sake.
He listened awhile to the mournful whinny of the mules; to the sound of artillery rolling up the resonant pike; to the crashing of newly-arrived regiments through the cedars as they made their camps in line-of-battle; to little spurts of firing between the nervous pickets, and at last fell asleep to dream that he was returning to Sardis, maimed but honor-crowned, to claim Rachel as his exultant bride.
The Christmas forenoon was quite well-advanced before the fatigue of Rachel Bond’s long ride was sufficiently abated to allow her to awaken. Then a soft hum of voices impressed itself upon her drowsy senses, and she opened her eyes with the idea that there were several persons in the room engaged in conversation. But she saw that there was only Aunt Debby, seated in a low rocking-chair by the lazily burning fire, and reading aloud from a large Bible that lay open upon her knees. The reading was slow and difficult, as of one but little used to it, and many of the longer words were patiently spelled out. But this labored picking the way along the rugged path of knowledge, stumbling and halting at the nouns, and verbs, and surmounting the polysyllables a letter at a time, seemed to give the reader a deeper feeling of the value and meaning of each word, than is usually gained by the more facile scholar. As Rachel listened she became aware that Aunt Debby was reading that wonderful twelfth chapter of St. Luke, richest of all chapters in hopes and promises and loving counsel for the lowly and oppressed. She had reached the thirty-fifth verse, and read onward with a passionate earnestness and understanding that made every word have a new revelation to Rachel:
“Let your loins be girded up, and your lights burning;
“And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord when he
will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh they
may open unto him immediately.
“Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall find
watching; verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make
them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.
“And if ye shall come in the second watch, or come in the third
watch, and shall find them so, blessed are those servants.
“And this now that if the good man of the house had known what the
hour the thief would come he would have watched, and not suffered
his house to be broken through.
“Be ye therefore ready also, for the Son of Man cometh at an hour
when ye think not.”
Rachel stirred a little, and Aunt Debby looked up and closed the book.
“I’m afeared I’ve roused ye up too soon,” she said, coming toward the bed with a look of real concern upon her sad, sweet face. “I raylly didn’t intend ter. I jest opened the book ter read teh promise ‘bout our Father heedin’ even a sparrer’s fall, an’ forgot ‘bout our Father heedin’ even a sparrer’s fall, an’ forgot, an’ read on; an’ when I read, I must read out loud, ter git the good of hit. Some folks pretend they kin understand jest ez well when they read ter themselves. Mebbe they kin.”
“O, no,” replied Rachel cheerfully, “you didn’t disturb me in the least. It was time that I got up, and I was glad to hear you read. I’m only troubled with the fear that I’ve overslept myself, and missed the duty that I was intended for.”
“Make yourself easy on that ‘ere score. Ye’ll not be needed to-day, nor likely to-morrow. Some things hev come up ter change Jim’s plans.”
“I am very sorry,” said Rachel, sitting up in the bed and tossing back her long, silken mane with a single quick, masterful motion. “I wished to go immediately about what I am expected to do. I can do anything better than wait.”
Aunt Debby came impulsively to the bedside, threw an arm around Rachel’s neck, and kissed her on the forehead. “I love ye, honey,” she said with admiring tenderness. “Ye’ ‘re sich ez all women orter be. Ye ‘ll make heroes of yer husband and sons. Ye ‘ve yit ter l’arn though, thet the most of a woman’s life, an’ the hardest part of hit, is ter wait.”
In her fervid state of mind Rachel responded electrically to this loving advance, made at the moment of all others when she felt most in need of sympathy and love. She put her strong arms around Aunt Debby, and held her for a moment close to her heart. From that moment the two women became of one accord. Womanlike, they sought relief from their high tension in light, irrelevant talk and care for the trifling details of their surroundings. Aunt Debby brought water and towels for Rachel’s toilet, and fluttered around her, solicitous, helpful and motherly, and Rachel, weary of long companionship with men, delighted in the restfulness of association once more with a gentle, sweet-minded woman.
The heavy riding-habit was entirely too cumbersome for indoor wear, and Rachel put on instead one of Aunt Debby’s “linsey” gowns, that hung from a peg, and laughed at the prim, demure mountain girl she saw in the glass. After a good breakfast had still farther raised her spirits she ventured upon a little pleasantry about the dramatic possibilities of a young lady who could assume different characters with such facility.
The day passed quietly, with Rachel studying such of the Christmas festivities as were visible from the window, and from time to time exchanging personal history with Aunt Debby. She learned that the latter had left her home in Rockcastle Mountains with the Union Army in the previous Spring, and gone on to Chattanooga, to assist her nephew, Fortner, in obtaining the required information when Mitchell’s army advanced against that place in the Summer. When the army retreated to the Ohio, in September, she had come as far back as Murfreesboro, and there stopped to await the army’s return, which she was confident would not be long delayed.
“How brave and devoted you have been,” said Rachel warmly, as Aunt Debby concluded her modestly-told story. “No man could have done better.”
“No, honey,” replied the elder woman, with her wan face coloring faintly, “I’ve done nothin’ but my plain duty, ez I seed hit. I’ve done nothin’ ter what THEY would’ve done had n’t they been taken from me afore they had a chance. Like one who speaks ter us in the Book, I’ve been in journeyin’s often, in peril of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in weariness an’ painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger an’ thirst, in fastings often, in cold an’ nakedness, but he warns us not ter glory in these things, but in those which consarn our infirmities.”
“How great should be your reward!”
“Don’t speak of reward. I only want my freedom when I’ve ‘arned hit—the freedom ter leave an ‘arth on which I’ve been left behind, an’ go whar my husband an’ son are waitin’ fur me.”
She rose and paced the floor, with her face and eyes shining.
“Have you no fear of death whatever?” asked Rachel in amazement.
“Fear of death! Child, why should I fear death? Why should I fear death, more than the unborn child fears birth? Both are the same. Hit can’t be fur ter thet other world whar THEY wait fur me. Hit is not even ez a journey ter the next town—hit’s only one little step though the curtain o’ green grass an’ violets on a sunny hillside—only one little step.”
She turned abruptly, and going back to her chair by the fireside, seated herself in it, and clasping her knees with her hands, rocked back and forth, and sang in a low, sweet croon:
“Oh, the rapturous, transporting scene,
That rises ter my sight;
Sweet fields arrayed in livin’ green,
An’ rivers of delight.
“All o’er those wide, extended plains
Shines one eternal day;
Thar God, the Son, forever reigns,
An scatters night away.
“No chillin’ winds or poisonous breath
Kin reach thet healthful shore;
Sickness an’ sorrow, pain an’ death,
Are felt an’ feared no more.”
After dark Fortner came in. Both women studied his face eagerly as he walked up to the fire.
“Nothin’ yet, honey,” he said to Aunt Debby, and “Nothin’ yet, Miss,” to Rachel, and after a little stay went out.
When Rachel awoke the next morning the sky was lowering darkly. On going to the window she found a most depressing change from the scene of bright merriment she had studied the night before. A chill Winter rain was falling with dreary persistence, pattering on the dead leaves that covered the ground, and soaking into the sodden earth. A few forlorn little birds hopped wearily about, searching in vain in the dry husks and empty insect shells for the food that had once been so plentiful there. Up and down the streets, as far as she could see, men in squads or singly, under officers or without organization, plodded along dejectedly, taking the cold drench from above, and the clinging mud around their feet, with the dumb, stolid discontent characteristic of seasoned veterans. When mules and horses went by they seemed poor and shrunken. They drew their limbs and bodies together, as if to present the least surface to the inclement showers, and their labored, toilsome motion contrasted painfully with their strong, free movement on brighter days. Everything and everybody in sight added something to increase the dismalness of the view, and as Rachel continued to gaze upon it the “horrors” took possession of her. She began to brood wretchedly over her position as a spy inside the enemy’s lines, and upon all the consequences of that position.
It was late that night when Fortner came in. As he entered the two expectant women saw, by the ruddy light of the fire, that his face was set and his eyes flashing. He hung his dripping hat on a peg in the chimney, and kicked the blazing logs with his wet boots until a flood of meteor sparks flew up the throat of the fireplace. Turning, he said, without waiting to be questioned:
“Well, the hunt’s begun at last. Our folks came out’n Nashville this morning in three big armies, marchin’ on different roads, an they begun slashin’ at the Rebels wherever they could find ‘em. Thar’s been fouten at Triune an’ Lavergne, an’ all along the line. They histed the Rebels out’n ther holes everywhar, an’ druv’ em back on the jump. Wagon load arter wagon load o’ wounded’s comin’ back. I come in ahead of a long train agwine ter the hospital. Hark! ye kin heah ‘em now.”
The women listened.
They heard the ceaseless patter and swish of the gloomy rain—the gusty sighs of the wind through the shade-trees’ naked branches—louder still the rolling of heavy wheels over the rough streets; and all these were torn and rent by the shrieks of men in agony.
“Poor fellows,” said Rachel, “how they are suffering!”
“Think ruther,” said Aunt Debby calmly, “of how they’ve made others suffer. Hit’s God’s judgement on ‘em.”
Rachel turned to Fortner. “What will come next? Will this end it? Will the Rebels fall back and leave this place?”
“Hardly. This’s on’y like the fust slap in the face in a fight atween two big savage men, who’ve locked horns ter see which is the best man. Hit’s on’y a sorter limberin’ the jints fur the death rassel.”
“Yes; and what next?”
“Well, Rosy’s started fur this ‘ere place, an’ he’s bound ter come heah. Bragg’s bound he sha’n’t come heah, an’ is gittin’ his men back to defend the town.”
“What am I—what are we to do in the meanwhile?”
“Ye’re ter do nothin’, on’y stay in the house ez close ez ye kin, an’ wait tell the chance comes ter use ye. Hit may be ter-morrer, an’ hit mayn’t be fur some days. These army moves are mouty unsartin. Aunt Debby ‘ll take keer on ye, an’ ye ‘ll not be in a mite o’ danger.”
“But we’ll see you frequently?”
“Ez offen ez I kin arrange hit. I’m actin’ ez orderly an’ messenger ‘bout headquarters, but I’ll come ter ye whenever I kin git a chance, an’ keep ye posted.”
This was Friday night. All day Saturday, as long as the light lasted, Rachel stood at the window and watched with sinking heart the steady inflow of the Rebels from the north. That night she and Aunt Debby waited till midnight for Fortner, but he did not come. All day Sunday she stood at her post, and watched the unabated pouring-in on the Nashville pike. Fortner did not come that night. She was downcast, but no shade disturbed the serenity of Aunt Debby’s sweet hymning. So it was again on Monday and Tuesday. The continually-swarming multitudes weighed down her spirits like a millstone. She seemed to be encompassed by millions of armed enemies. They appeared more plentiful than the trees, or the rocks, or the leaves even. They filled the streets of the little town until it seemed impossible for another one to find standing room. Their cavalry blackened the faces of the long ranges of hills. Their artillery and wagons streamed along the roads in a never-ending train. Their camp-fires lighted up the country at night for miles, in all directions.
