Kitabı oku: «Si Klegg, Book 1», sayfa 10

Yazı tipi:

"The gentleman seems to have something on his mind," grinned Shorty. "Mebbe his dinner didn't set well."

"Shorty?" inquired Si, "how does a Wagon Master rank? Seems to me nobody lower'n a Brigadier-General should dare talk to me that way."

"Dunno," answered Shorty, doubtfully. "Seems as if I'd heard some of them Wagon Masters rank as Kurnels. He swears like one."

"Corporal!" shouted the Wagon Master with infinite scorn. "Measly $2-a-month water toter for the camp-guard, order me!" and he went off into a rolling stream of choice "army language."

"He must certainly be a Kurnel," said Shorty.

"Here," continued the Wagon Master, "if you don't want them two shoat-brands jerked offen you, jump in and get them wagons acrost. That's what you were sent to do. Hump yourself, if you know what's good for you. I've done all I can. Now it's your turn."

Dazed and awed by the man's authoritativeness the boys ran down to the water to see what was the trouble.

They found the usual difficulty in Southern crossings. The stupid tinkerers with the road had sought to prevent it running down into the stream by laying a log at the edge of the water. This was an enormous one two feet in diameter, with a chuckhole before it, formed by the efforts of the teams to mount the log. The heavily laden ammunition wagon had its hub below the top of the log, whence no amount of mule-power could extricate it.

Si, with Indiana commonsense, saw that the only help was to push the wagon back and lay a pile of poles to make a gradual ascent. He and the rest laid their carefully polished muskets on dry leaves at the side, pulled off their white gloves, and sending two men to hunt thru the wagons for axes to cut the poles. Si and Shorty roused up the stupid teamsters to unhitch the mules and get them behind the wagon to pull it back. Alas for their carefully brushed pantaloons and well-blackened shoes, which did not last a minute in the splashing mud.

The Wagon Master had in the meanwhile laid in a fresh supply of epithets and had a fresh batch to swear at. He stood up on the bank and yelled profane injunctions at the soldiers like a Mississippi River Mate at a boat landing. They would not work fast enough for him, nor do the right thing.

The storm at last burst. November storms in Tennessee are like the charge of a pack of wolves upon a herd of buffalo. There are wild, furious rushes, alternating with calmer intervals. The rain came down for a few minutes as if it would beat the face off the earth, and the stream swelled into a muddy torrent. Si's paper collar and cuffs at once became pulpy paste, and his boiled shirt a clammy rag. In spite of this his temper rose to the boiling point as he struggled thru the sweeping rush of muddy water to get the other wagons out of the road and the ammunition wagon pulled back a little ways to allow the poles to be piled in front of it.

The dashing downpour did not check the Wagon Master's flow of profanity. He only yelled the louder to make himself heard above the roar. The rain stopped for a few minutes as suddenly as it had begun and Col. McTarnaghan came up with all his parade finery drenched and dripping like the feathers of a prize rooster in a rainy barnyard. His Irish temper was at the steaming point, and he was in search of something to vent it on.

"You blab-mouthed son of a thief," he shouted at the Wagon Master, "what are you ordering my men around for? They are sent here to order you, not you to order them. Shut that ugly potato trap of yours and get down to work, or I'll wear my saber out on you. Get down there and put your own shoulders to the wheels, you misbegotten villain. Get down there into the water, I tell you. Corporal, see that he does his juty!"

The Wagon Master slunk down the hill, where Shorty grabbed him by the collar and yanked him over to help push one of the wagons back. The other boys had meanwhile found axes, cut down and trimmed up some pine poles and were piling them into the chuckhole under Si's practical guidance. A double team was put on the ammunition wagon, and the rest of Co. Q came up wet, mad and panting. A rope was found and stretched ahead of the mules, on which the company lined itself, the Colonel took his place on the bank and gave the word, and with a mighty effort the wagon was dragged up the hill. Some other heavily loaded ammunition wagons followed. The whole regiment was now up, and the bigger part of it lined on the rope so that these wagons came up more easily, even tho the rain resumed its wicked pounding upon the clay soil.

Wading around thru the whirling water. Si had discovered, to his discomfiture, that there was a narrow, crooked reef that had to be kept to. There were deep overturning holes on either side. Into one of these Si had gone, to come again floundering and spurting muddy water from his mouth.

Shorty noted the place and took the first opportunity to crowd the Wagon Master into it.

A wagon loaded with crackers and pork missed the reef and went over hopelessly on its side, to the rage of Col. McTamaghan.

"Lave it there; lave it there, ye blithering numbskulls," he yelled, "Unhitch those mules and get 'em out. The pork and wagon we can get when the water goes down. If another wagon goes over Oi'll rejuce it every mother's son of yez, and tie yez up by the thumbs besides."

Si and Shorty waded around to unhitch the struggling mules, and then, taking poles in hand to steady themselves, took their stations in the stream where they could head the mules right.

Thru the beating storm and the growing darkness, the wagons were, one by one, laboriously worked over until, as midnight approached, only three or four remained on the other side. Chilled to the bone, and almost dropping with fatigue from hours of standing in the deep water running like a mill race. Si called Al Klapp, Sib Ball and Jesse Langley to take their poles and act as guides.

Al Klapp had it in for the sutlers. He was a worm that was ready to turn. He had seen some previous service, and had never gone to the Paymaster's table but to see the most of his $13 a month swept away by the sutler's remorseless hand. He and Jesse got the remaining army wagons over all right. The last wagon was a four-horse team belonging to a sutler.

The fire of long-watched-for vengeance gleamed in Al's eye as he made out its character in the dim light. It reached the center of the stream, when over it went in the rushing current of muddy water.

Al and Jesse busied themselves unhooking the struggling mules.

The Colonel raged. "Lave it there! Lave it there!" he yelled after exhausting his plentiful stock of Irish expletives. "But we must lave a guard with it. Capt. Sidney Hyde, your company has been doing less than any other. Detail a Sergeant and 10 men to stand guard here until tomorrow, and put them two thick-headed oudmahouns in the creek on guard with them. Make them stand double tricks.

"All right. It was worth it," said Al Klapp, as the Sergeant put him on post, with the water running in rivulets from his clothes. "It'll take a whole lot of skinning for the sutlers to get even for the dose I've given one of them."

"B'yes, yoi've done just splendid," said the Colonel, coming over to where Si and Shorty were sitting wringing the water and mud from their pantaloons and blouses. "You're hayroes, both of yez. Take a wee drap from my canteen. It'll kape yez from catching cold."

"No, thankee, Kurnel," said Si, blushing with delight, and forgetting his fatigue and discomfort, in this condescension and praise from his commanding officer. "I'm a Good Templar."

"Sinsible b'y," said the Colonel approvingly, and handing his canteen to Shorty.

"I'm mightily afraid of catching cold," said Shorty, reaching eagerly for the canteen, and modestly turning his back on the Colonel that he might not see how deep his draft.

"Should think you were," mused the Colonel, hefting the lightened vessel. "Bugler, sound the assembly and let's get back to camp."

The next day the number of rusty muskets, dilapidated accouterments and quantity of soiled clothes in the camp of the 200th Ind. was only equaled by the number of unutterably weary and disgusted boys.

CHAPTER XXII. A NIGHT OF SONG

HOME-SICKNESS AND ITS OUTPOURING IN MUSIC

IT WAS Sunday again, and the 200th Ind. still lingered near Nashville. For some inscrutible reason known only to the commanding officers the brigade had been for nearly a week in camp on the banks of the swift running Cumberland. They had been bright, sunshiny days, the last two of them. Much rain in the hill country had swollen the swift waters of the Cumberland and they fiercely clamored their devious way to the broad Ohio. The gentle roar as the rippling wavelets dashed against the rock bound shores sounded almost surf-life, but to Si, who had never heard the salt waves play hide-and-go-seek on the pebbly beach, the Cumberland's angry flood sang only songs of home on the Wabash. He had seen the Wabash raging in flood time and had helped to yank many a head of stock from its engulfing fury. He had seen the Ohio, too, when she ran bank full with her arched center carrying the Spring floods and hundreds of acres of good soil down to the continent-dividing Mississippi, and on out to sea. His strong arms and stout muscles had piloted many a boat-load of boys and girls through the Wabash eddies and rapids during the Spring rise, and as he stood now, looking over the vast width of this dreary waste of waters, a great wave of home-sickness swept over him.

After all, Si was only a kid of a boy, like thousands of his comrades.' True, he was past his majority a few months, but his environment from youth to his enlistment had so sheltered him that he was a boy at heart.

"The like precurse of fierce events and prologue to the omen coming on" had as yet made small impression upon him. Grim visaged war had not frightened him much up to that time. He was to get his regenerating baptism of blood at Murfreesboro a few weeks later. Just now Si Klegg was simply a boy grown big, a little over fat, fond of mother's cooking, mother's nice clean feather beds, mother's mothering, if the truth must be told. He had never in his life before been three nights from under the roof of the comfortable old house in which he was born. He had now been wearing the blue uniform of the Union a little more than three months, and had not felt mother's work-hardened hands smoothing his rebellious hair or seen her face or heard a prayer like she could make in all that three months.

"Shucks!" he said fretfully to himself as he looked back at the droning, half asleep brigade camp, and then off to the north, across the boiling yellow flood of waters that tumbled past the rocks far below him.

"A feller sure does git tired of doin' nothin'."

Lusty, young, and bred to an active life, Si, while he did not really crave hustle and bustle, was yet wedded to "keeping things moving." He had already forgotten the fierce suffering of his early marching—it seemed three years to him instead of three months back; he had forgotten the graybacks, the wet nights, the foraging expeditions, the extra guard duty and all that. There had been two days of soft Autumn sunshine in a camp that was almost ideal. Everything was cleaned up, mended up, and the men had washed and barbered themselves into almost dude-like neatness. Their heaviest duties had been lazy camp guard duty, which Shorty, growing indolent, had declared to be "dumned foolishness," and the only excitement offered came from returning foraging parties. There was no lurking enemy to fear, for the country had been cleared of guerrillas, and in very truth the ease and quietness of the days of inactivity was almost demoralizing the men.

There had been no Sunday services. The 200th Ind. was sprawled out on the ground in its several hundred attitudes of ease, and those with whom they were brigaded were just as carelessly disposed.

As Si sauntered aimlessly back to look for Shorty, the early twilight began to close in as the sun slid down behind the distant hills. Campfires began to glow as belated foragers prepared their suppers, and the gentle hum of voices came pleasantly to the ear, punctuated by laughter, often boisterous, but quite as often just the babbling, cheery laugh of carefree boys.

Si felt—well, Si was just plain homesick for mother and the girls, and one particular girl, whose front name was Annabel, and he almost felt as though he didn't care who knew it.

The air was redolent with the odor of frying meat. Mingled with this were vagrant whiffs of cooking potatoes, onions, chickens, and the fragrance of coffee steaming to blackest strength, all telling tales of skillful and successful foraging, and it all reminded Si of home and the odors in his mother's kitchen.

Si couldn't find Shorty, so he hunched down, silent and alone, beside his tent, a prey to the blue devils. It would soon be Christmas at home. He could see the great apple bins in the cellar; the pumpkins in the hay in the barn; the turkeys roosting above the woodshed; the yards of encased sausages in the attic; he could even smell the mince meat seasoning in the great stone jar; the honey in the bee cellar; the huge fruit cake in the milk pan in the pantry; since he could remember he seen and smelled all these, with 57 varieties of preserves, "jells," marmalades, and fruit-butters thrown in for good measure at Christmas time. He had even contemplated with equanimity all these 21 Christmases, the dose of "blue pills" that inevitably followed over-feeding at Mother Klegg's, and now on his 22d Christmas he might be providing a target for a rebel bullet.

Suddenly Si noticed that the dark had come; the fragrance of tobacco from hundreds of pipes was filling the air, and from away off in the distance the almost Indian Summer zephyrs were bringing soft rythmic sounds like—surely—yes, he caught it now, it was that mighty soother of tired hearts—

"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly.
While the billows near me roll.
While the tempest still is high."

Si shut his eyes lest the tear drops welling suddenly up fall on his uniform, not stopping to think that in the gloom they could not be seen.

Miles away the singers seemed to be when Si caught the first sounds, but as the long, swinging notes reached out in the darkness, squad after squad, company after company, regiment after regiment took up the grand old hymn until Si himself lifted up his not untuneful voice and with the thousands of others was pleading—

"Hide me, oh, my Savior hide,
'Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide.
Oh, receive my soul at last."

and the song rose and swelled out and up toward heaven, and stole away off to the horizon till the whole vast universe seemed filled with the sacred melody. As the last words and their music faded out in space. Shorty lunged down beside Si.

"Say, Pard," he began banteringly, "you've missed yer callin'. Op'ry oughter have been yer trade."

"Oh, chop off yer chin music for a minute. Shorty," broke in Si. "In the dark here it seemed most as though I was at home in the little old church with Maria and Annabel and Pap and Mother, and us all singing together, and you've busted it—ah! listen!"

From not far away a bugler had tuned up and through the fragrant night came piercingly sweet—

"I will sing you a song of that beautiful land—"

Then near at hand a strong, clear, musical tenor voice took up the second line,

"The far away home of the soul,"

and almost instantly a deep, resonant bass voice boomed in—

"Where no storms ever beat on that glittering strand
While the years of eternity roll,"

and soon a hundred voices were making melody of the spheres as they sang Philip Phillips's beautiful song.

"That was Wilse Hornbeck singin' tenor," said Si, as the song ended.

"And it was Hen Withers doin' the bass stunt," returned Shorty.

"You just oughter hear him do the ornamental on a mule whacker. Why, Si, he's an artist at cussing. Hen Withers is. Sodom and Gomorrah would git jealous of him if he planted himself near 'em, he's that wicked."

"Well, he can sing all right," grunted Si.

Just then Hen Withers, in the squad some 50 feet away broke into song again—

"Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light"

It welled up from his throat like the pipe from a church organ, and as mellow as the strains from a French horn. When the refrain rolled out fully 3,000 men were singing, yelling and shouting in frenzied fervor—

"And the Star Spangled banner.
In triumph shall wave,
O'er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave."

While Hen Withers rested on his well-earned laurels, a strong, clear voice, whose owner was probably thinking of home and the shady gloom of the walk through the grove to singing school with his sweetheart, trilled an apostrophe to the queen of light.

"Roll on, silvery moon,
Guide the traveler on his way,"

but he had it pretty much to himself, for not many knew the words, and he trailed off into

"I loved a little beauty, Bell Brandon,"

then his music died out in the night.

It was now the "tenore robusto" who chimed in bells, on a new battle song that held a mile square of camp spellbound:

"Oh, wrap the flag around me, boys,

To die were far more sweet
With freedom's starry emblem, boys.

To be my winding sheet.
In life I loved to see it wave

And follow where it led,
And now my eyes grow dim, my hands

Would clasp its last bright shred.
Oh, I had thought to meet you, boys,

On many a well-worn field
When to our starry emblem, boys,

The trait'rous foe should yield.
But now, alas, I am denied

My dearest earthly prayer,
You'll follow and you'll meet the foe,

But I shall not be there."

Wilse Hornback knew by the hush of the camp as the sound of his wonderful voice died on the far horizon that he had his laurels, too, and so he sang on while the mile square of camp went music-mad again as it sang with him—

"We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
And we'll fill the vacant ranks with a million freemen more.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."

Chorus:

"The Union forever! Hurrah, boys. Hurrah;
Down with the traitor and up with the Star,
While we rally 'round the Flag, boys,
We'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And although they may be poor, not a man shall
be a slave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."

In the almighty hush that followed the billows of sound, some sweet-voiced fellow started Annie Laurie, and then sang—

"In the prison cell I sit"

with grand chorus accompaniment. Then Wilse Hornback started and Hen Withers joined in singing the Battle Hymn—

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,"

and oh, God of Battles! how that army of voices took up the refrain—

"Glory, glory, hallelujah,"

and tossed and flung it back and forth from hill to hill and shore to shore till it seemed as though Lee and his cohorts must have heard and quailed before the fearful prophecy and arraignment.

Then the "tenore robusto" and the "basso profundo" opened a regular concert program, more or less sprinkled with magnificent chorus: singing, as it was easy or difficult for the men to recall the words. You must rummage in the closets of memory for most of them! The Old Oaken Bucket; Nellie Gray; Anna Lisle; No, Ne'er Can Thy Home be Mine; Tramp, Tramp, Tramp; We are Coming, Father Abraham; Just as I Am; By Cold Siloam's Shady Rill—how those home-loving Sunday school young boys did sing that! It seemed incongruous, but every now and then they dropped into these old hymn tunes, which many a mother had sung her baby to sleep with in those elder and better days.

The war songs are all frazzled and torn fragments of memory now, covered with dust and oblivion, but they were great songs in and for their day. No other country ever had so many.

Laughter and badinage had long since ceased. Flat on their backs, gazing up at the stars through the pine and hemlock boughs, the boys lay quietly smoking while the "tenore robusto" assisted by the "basso profundo" and hundreds of others sang "Willie, We Have Missed You," "Just Before the Battle, Mother," "Brave Boys Are They," and the "Vacant Chair."

In a little break in the singing. Hen Withers sang a wonderful song, now almost forgotten. It was new to the boys then, but the bugler had heard it, and as Hen's magnificent voice rolled forth its fervid words the bugle caught up the high note theme, and never did the stars sing together more entrancingly than did the "wicked mule whacker" and that bugle—

"Lift up your eyes, desponding freemen.
Fling to the winds your needless fears.
He who unfurled our beauteous banner
Says it shall wave a thousand years."

On the glorious chorus a thousand voices took up the refrain in droning fashion that made one think of "The Sound of the Great Amen."

"A thousand years, my own Columbia!
Tis the glad day so long foretold!
'Tis the glad mom whose early twilight
Washington saw in times of old."

By the time Hen had sung all of the seven verses the whole brigade knew the refrain and roared it forth as a defiance to the Southern Confederacy, which took on physical vigor in the days that came after, when the 200th Ind. went into battle to come off victorious on many a fiercely contested field.

Then the tenor sang that doleful, woe begone, hope effacing, heart-string-cracking "Lorena." Some writer has said that it sung the heart right out of the Southern Confederacy.

"The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again."

As Wilse Hornbeck let his splendid voice out on the mournful cadences, Si felt his very heart strings snap, and even Shorty drew his breath hard, while some of the men simply rolled over, and burying their faces in their arms, sobbed audibly.

Wilse had not counted on losing his own nerve, but found his voice breaking on the melancholy last lines, and bounding to his feet with a petulant,

"Oh, hang it!"
"Say, darkies, hab you seen de Massa"

came dancing up from the jubilating chords of that wonderful human music box, and soon the camp was reeling giddily with the jolly, rollicking,

"Or Massa ran, ha! ha!!
The darkies stay, ho! ho!!"

Then, far in the distance a bugle sounded "lights out," and the songfest was at an end; as bugler after bugler took it up, one by one the campfires blinked out, and squad after squad sank into quiet.

"I feel a heap better somehow," remarked Si, as he crawled under his blanket.

"Dogged if I hain't had a sort of uplift, too," muttered Shorty, as he wrapped his blanket round his head. In the distance a tenor voice was singing as he kicked out his fire and got ready for bed—