Read Ebook: Trotwood's Monthly Vol. I No. 2 November 1905 by Various Moore John Trotwood Editor

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Ebook has 552 lines and 43279 words, and 12 pages

er. D'ye know I had an idee that he wanted ter put her out o' the way? So I steps back over the mount'in an into the cabin whur they all sleeps--all 'leven on 'em. But ye know I couldn't kiss 'er good-bye, seein' 'er sleepin' thar so sweet?" He struck savagely at his eyes with his big-knuckled fist. "But I fetched this--I've jined fur the war an' I wants my own gun--don't like ther blunderbusses you-uns shoots. This un's a Deckerd--been thro' ther Revolushun, an' with Ole Hickory at New 'leans. It's fittin' fur it to fit ag'in fur the Union. Thar--see!" and he pointed the gun high up at the limb of a big oak.

The General saw nothing until the great flint and steel snapped together like the jaws of an alligator, and he had a tender but headless fox squirrel for his breakfast, cooked, later, by Solomon's own hand. "An' I don't shoot ther innards out, nurther," he growled.

"You needn't lose him, Major," chuckled the general, as he pulled off a succulent hind limb, roasted on a green stick-spittle over a pit of coals. The Major having the mate of it in his own mouth, could not speak, but nodded vigorously.

"'Pint 'em ter bury ther dead--they're nat'ul born pallbearers. I've seed lots o' folks that was."

When old Tecumseh Sherman heard of this he offered to promote Solomon to a corporalcy:

"Nun--no," said Solomon, "then I'd hafter wear boots an' a unerform. An' say, them thar unerforms you-uns wear meks you-uns look jes lak them little flyin' stink-ants that swarms out in the spring. God didn't inten' no two fol'ks ter be alike. Es fur boots, they fus' jes make yer feet tender an' then wears out. I've got on a pa'r thet nurver wears out."

He figured next in a horse race with a Kentucky regiment which was first unwise enough to cast aspersions on the speed of Ajax and then bold enough to back them with the long green. It was a great race run between two lines of howling blue. "Nurver bet agin natur'," said Solomon dryly, as he pocketed all the money of the Republic which the unwise Kentuckians had. "Ajax is by natur' a horse an' your'n ain't."

For a week after that the Tenth indulged in vain and effeminate luxuries.

Spring brought the fighting and the tragedy--of the latter, Solomon was the ink.

They made him color-bearer--he was so strong, and it was so easy to see him in his coon-skin cap, his Deckerd strapped to his back. For he would not lay it down even while carrying the flag. At Resaca he took the colors through balls which came thick enough to stop a bluebird. Mines cut the tail from his cap, a buck-and-ball cleared one foot of bunions, and canister carried his canteen bodily from his body; but in the thick of it he yelled out savagely at the General: "Say, thar, Gen'l, get out o' thar on that hoss! You mout get 'im hurt!"

He spent the next week nursing the wounded enemy: "For ain't they our brothers?" he asked, and the scoffers in blue were silent.

A beautiful valley beyond Resaca and Solomon had never seen such rich land. A grand mansion in the valley and Solomon had never seen such a house. The General had pitched his camp near by. A thousand other camps dotted the valleys and hills. A hundred battle flags fluttered from their staffs. There was planning, priming; trenches crept across the hills in the night, like mole-paths in a garden, and the valleys were billowed with them, cannon crowned and picketed with steel. They would give little Joe his death blow.

Solomon stood sentinel that night by the big house on the lawn. It was never the color-bearer's duty to stand sentinel--but "Yer see, Gen'l, Ajax is stalled right over thar beyant, an' them brothers o' our'n from Kentucky loves a good hoss."

It was past midnight and the army was asleep. There was a light suspiciously faint in the window of the big house. Solomon slipped up and peeped in through a blind slat, awry. He stepped back blushing, ashamed that he had peeped. He picked up his Deckerd. The light went out and the door opened silently and a handsome man dressed in citizens' clothes kissed a Beautiful One good-bye. Then he slipped out into the dark and mounted a horse hid so securely as to surprise Solomon, with his keen mountain eyes.

"Halt, thar, brother, an' gin the countersign."

Pistol shots buzzing from the cylinder of Colt, and that quick grapple of horse hoofs in the gravel which tells of a rowel driven in suddenly; then the sound of a flying horse through the lane.

Silence, then quaintly as if talking to himself: "A cyclone spiked with hell-fire! Solomon, yer nurver had so narrow a shave--yer'll be keerful ther nex' time yer brother a gatlin'-gun buckled to a thoroughbred."

The girl clutched the window--white and with eyes lit with flashes of the weird starlight. It seemed a half hour to Solomon before he heard her give a rippling, cut-off laugh, and the dawn sprang to her cheeks as the starlight went out of her eyes. High up on the mountain she had seen what Solomon had not--a splinter of light leap out of the heart of the mountain beyond the picket lines. Solomon was still watching her--so strangely fascinated that he had not noticed the blood running down his arm. She closed the window with a happy laugh, and Solomon felt that it was now night--all around him.

And so the spell of the big house was upon Solomon and he begged to stand guard next day. It was early and he stood silent before the splendor of the house, the marble steps, the big, hooded gables, then--

"God! she's comin'!"

He turned--no, he was a sentinel--he could not run. She wore white--fluffy and airy in the warm June morning. Above--

"Molasses candy hair," said Solomon, licking his mouth, "an', oh, Lord, Black-Eyed-Susan eyes!"

He thought again of running. Then of the wild fawn that once ran to meet him, off in the mountain woods, so innocent that it knew not that death dwelt with man.

He slipped behind a tree. Never before had he been ashamed of his bare feet. He peeped out--she was still coming--no, she had come, and he turned pale and his knees trembled, for there she stood smiling as only an angel could, and holding something out to him:

"I know you must be hungry, and it is so good of you to guard our house. Now, please let me serve you your breakfast."

Off came his coon-skin cap. Her smile, her eyes made him homesick. He saw the summer lightning playing at midnight around the peaks of Tiger Head. Then tears welled which made him hate himself--him a soldier of the Tenth--and he slipped farther around the tree. She was serious instantly, and her beautiful eyes had sized him up--gratitude, homesickness, all--and when she peeped around the tree again--after awhile, and he had had time to brace himself, she laughed a musical, comrady laugh, and--

"Now, please don't be offended, for I should love so much to be your friend."

Again the homesickness. That laugh, that voice--it was the silver ripple of Telulah Falls under the white stars of the mountain. That meant home and Dinah Mariah. Trembling, dazed and choking with the swelling that made him wish to do something--to do something grand for once in his life, he tried to speak, but ended in bringing his Deckerd to present arms. She laughed, saluting him in turn with a saucy military flash of her pretty hand.

"Miss--Miss"--

"Nellie," she said, sympathetically, helping him out.

"Do they--breed 'em--all like you-uns down here?"

She laughed and handed him the plate. Solomon knew the ham, but did not know what the rolls and the orange were. His hand touched hers--he fumbled and dropped the plate: "God, but I thort I--I teched fire!"

"Oh!" and the hurt look made Solomon wish to fight something for her sake--"but I'll soon be back with more." She turned with a pretty gesture.

"Don't--don't," he called, "send it by a nigger. Who can eat with a angel lookin'?" She laughed so heartily at this that Solomon was soon himself. When she brought him another plate he forgot everything except he had seen her, that at last into his life something had come. He wished very much to impress her--to say something grand, but everything he tried to say ended in a brag--so unusual for Solomon:

"I was heah las' night a-guardin' you-uns, an' I come mighty nigh killin' a man."

"Oh!"--and the fun went out of her eyes. "I am so grateful to you. Did--did--he hurt you when he fired?"

All the brag went out of him. Not for the world would he have her know that.

"No--but--it was a narrow shave."

"I am so glad--you see he--was--my brother."

"Sho' nuff?" and Solomon guffawed. Somehow it relieved him so to know he was only a brother. "Wal, now, how strange! But the Gen'l was tellin' us 'bout a Johnny Scout in here, a tall feller in citizens' clothes. Oh, he's played the devil with us. He knows our plans better'n we do. We 'low we s'prise little Joe at Dug's Gap, but little Joe s'prises us. Then we 'low we'll trap him at Resaca an' swing round on his flank. But he come nigh trappin' us. We laid for him mighty keerful at New Hope an' saunt Howard to turn his flank. He turned our'n. It's all that'r scout, and so the Gen'l sed when he saunt me out las' night: "Solomon, shoot anything in citizens' clothes that tries to buck our lines. Kill him fust an' ax him whur he's goin' after'uds." So when he steps out las' night--that brother er your'n--I was right thar watchin', an' I flung up my old Deckerd an' I drawed a bead on him--it was all so plain, him outlined in the starlight. But he looked so han'sum a-settin a hoss so lak Ajax thet I sed: "No, I'll not shoot him--he's somebody's brother. An' sho' nuff he was your'n!"

The girl turned white, then pink. Tears came to her eyes, the sight of which made Solomon's jaws set in stern decision. He pitied her, thinking of Dinah Mariah--his sister. He swelled savagely: "Say, but don't you cry. I'll lick arry man that 'ud hurt yo' brother!"

"That is so sweet of you," she said softly.

"Then I fetched my piece down an' axed him fur the countersign an'--wal," he nodded his head up and down meaningly--"I got it!" He rolled up his sleeve and showed the red furrow of another across his arm.

"Oh, I am so sorry--do--do come in and let mamma and me dress it."

Solomon laughed: "Now, don't bother 'bout it, Miss--yo' bein' sorry has already cured it. I'd have it dressed but Gen'l 'ud find out an' say I was a fool fur not shootin'."

But she dressed it--she and a stately White-haired one, bringing the salve and bandages out to his beat; and when they had finished and the smarting pain had ceased, Solomon belonged to them.

Then came the strange change in Solomon. He did not know what it meant. Why he put on the uniform, the cavalry boots and the big spurs. Why he wanted to strut and swell in the pride of his six feet three, when the old General blurted out:

"Solomon, damned if you ain't real handsome--what's come over you?"

"Gen'l--Gen'l, I dunno--but I finds myse'f struttin' jes like a wood-cock in the spring."

"Oho," laughed the General, "look out, Solomon."

That was all open--seen of all men. But secretly, silently, painfully--in the depths of his great soul something stirred within him that he told to no man, for he knew not what it was. What it did he knew: "God, it lifts me out o' the clay o' myse'f!"

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