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Page 10
The youth, considering himself as separated from the others,
was saddened by the blithe and merry speeches that went from
rank to rank. The company wags all made their best endeavors.
The regiment tramped to the tune of laughter.
The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting
sarcasms aimed at the tall one.
And it was not long before all the men seemed to forget their mission.
Whole brigades grinned in unison, and regiments laughed.
A rather fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard.
He planned to load his knapsack upon it. He was escaping with
his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed
the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl,
with pink cheeks and shining eyes, stood like a dauntless statue.
The observant regiment, standing at rest in the roadway, whooped
at once, and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden.
The men became so engrossed in this affair that they entirely
ceased to remember their own large war. They jeered the
piratical private, and called attention to various defects in his
personal appearance; and they were wildly enthusiastic in support
of the young girl.
To her, from some distance, came bold advice. "Hit him with a stick."
There were crows and catcalls showered upon him when he retreated
without the horse. The regiment rejoiced at his downfall. Loud and
vociferous congratulations were showered upon the maiden,
who stood panting and regarding the troops with defiance.
At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the fragments
went into the fields to camp. Tents sprang up like strange plants.
Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.
The youth kept from intercourse with his companions as much as
circumstances would allow him. In the evening he wandered a few
paces into the gloom. From this little distance the many fires,
with the black forms of men passing to and fro before the
crimson rays, made weird and satanic effects.
He lay down in the grass. The blades pressed tenderly against
his cheek. The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop.
The liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel
vast pity for himself. There was a caress in the soft winds;
and the whole mood of the darkness, he thought, was one of
sympathy for himself in his distress.
He wished, without reserve, that he was at home again making the
endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the
fields, from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house.
He remembered he had so often cursed the brindle cow and her
mates, and had sometimes flung milking stools. But, from his
present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each
of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass
buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them.
He told himself that he was not formed for a soldier. And he
mused seriously upon the radical differences between himself and
those men who were dodging implike around the fires.
As he mused thus he heard the rustle of grass, and, upon turning
his head, discovered the loud soldier. He called out, "Oh, Wilson!"
The latter approached and looked down. "Why, hello, Henry; is it you?
What are you doing here?"
"Oh, thinking," said the youth.
The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe. "You're getting
blue my boy. You're looking thundering peek-ed. What the dickens
is wrong with you?"
"Oh, nothing," said the youth.
The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the
anticipated fight. "Oh, we've got 'em now!" As he spoke
his boyish face was wreathed in a gleeful smile, and his
voice had an exultant ring. "We've got 'em now. At last,
by the eternal thunders, we'll like 'em good!"
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