The Littlest Rebel Part 22

He watched her fling herself impetuously on the knapsack. "If you find any Yankee spoons--put them under arrest. They haven't any pa.s.s like yours."

Then he turned to Cary: "Have any trouble on the road as you came along?"

The other man shook his head.

"None to speak of. We were stopped several times of course, but each time your pa.s.s let us through without delay--until we met Dudley. And now I'm worried, Colonel," he said frankly, while his eyes tried to tell the other all that he feared without putting it in words, "worried on your account. It's easy to see that the man has a grudge against you--"

"Yes, I'm afraid he has," was the thoughtful reply. "But really, Cary, you mustn't try to carry any more burdens than your own, just now. I know what you mean and what, I daresay, you'd be only too willing to do, but I can't permit it."

They were interrupted by the spectacle of Virgie standing before them with anxiously furrowed brow, a paper bag in one hand and three spoons clutched in the other.

"But Colonel Morrison," she was saying in tragic tones, "there isn't a drop of milk."

"Milk!" he cried in mock despair. "Well, dash my b.u.t.tons if I didn't forget to order a cow."

"Oh, _I_ know what to do," cried the child. Dropping her supplies and utensils she ran to the wall and climbed up.

"Hey, there, _you_" commanded the small general with an imperious gesture to the a.s.sembled troopers. "One of you men ride right over to camp and bring us back some milk--an' b.u.t.ter."

At this abrupt demand of so small a rebel on the commissary of the United States a roar of laughter went up from the troopers, though some of them had the grace to salute and so relieve the child of embarra.s.sment.

"Virgie! Virgie!" called her father, scandalized.

"It's all right, Cary," Morrison laughed. "She's only starting in at giving orders a little earlier than most women.

"Never you mind, Miss Brigadier," he comforted. "We'll have all those luxuries next time, or when I come to see you in Richmond after the war is over. Just now we'll do the best we can. Come along."

Virgie got down from the wall and pattered up to the fire.

"Is it ready yet?" she asked with the perfect directness of seven years.

"In a minute now. Ah-hah! There she goes."

He took the pot from the fire and set it down on a rock where, presently, he brought a cupful of cold water to pour in.

"Is that to settle it?" she asked of her father.

"Yes, child--and I wish all our questions were as easily cleared up.

And now--to the attack."

"Right-o. Virgie--pa.s.s the beautiful, hand painted china and let's fill up. This one for your daddy--you can put the sugar in. Only don't burn those precious fingers."

Virgie carried the steaming cup to her father and put it in his hands with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"This is better than our old belt supper, Daddy, isn't it?" she said, with a flirt of her tangled curls. "Anyway--it _smells_ nicer."

She was back at the sugar bag at once, digging out spoonfuls for Morrison's coffee.

"Thank you, Miss Cary, I am indeed obliged to you. Now do sit down and _eat_. No, not another word till you've eaten two whole biscuits!"

For several ecstatic moments the child munched her biscuits. It had been a long time since she had eaten anything so delicious, although if those same biscuits had appeared on the Cary table a month ago they would have probably been scorned. But eager as her appet.i.te was it did not stop the active workings of her mind and she presently was struck by an idea which tried to force itself out through a mouthful of biscuit--with the usual amusing results.

"_Virginia!_" admonished her father.

Morrison laughed out like a boy and slapped his knee.

"Suppose we swallow--and try again."

Virgie, thus adjured, concentrated her mind on the task--gulped, blinked, swallowed with pathetically straining eyes, and then smiled triumphantly.

"Excuse me, Daddy. I guess I wasn't very polite."

"Apology accepted. What were you going to say?"

The child looked up with a sweetly serious look in her eyes that the two men recognized as the forerunner of true womanly thought for others.

"I was only goin' to ask the Colonel if he didn't think his men out there would like some of these _heavingly_ things to eat?" she said plaintively. "It must be terrible--jus' to look on!"

"Well, bless your little heart," the Northerner cried. "But don't you worry about the boys. They'll have theirs when they get back to camp. Go on and eat, Virgie. Stuff in another biscuit. And, look! By Jupiter.

_b.u.t.ter!_"

Evidently Trooper O'Connell during the past twenty-four hours had foraged or blarneyed most successfully for out of the knapsack which he had left behind Morrison suddenly produced a small earthenware jam jar in which was something now indubitably liquid in form but none the less sweet, yellow, appetizing b.u.t.ter. Pouring a little on a biscuit he held it out to her, speculating on what she would say.

The tot took it hungrily and raised it to her lips, her eyes s.h.i.+ning and her face glowing with antic.i.p.ation. Then she paused and, with a little cry of vexation over her selfishness, held out the biscuit to her father.

"Here, Daddy," she said. "You take this--because you tried to bring me somethin' good to eat yesterday."

The father threw a look at Morrison and caught Virgie to him in a swift embrace.

"No, dear," he said. "Eat your nice b.u.t.tered biscuit and thank the good Lord for it. Your father will get more fun out of seeing you eat that little bit than he would out of owning a whole cellar of big stone crocks jam full. Do you know--I think when we get up to Richmond you'll have to write a letter to the Colonel--a nice long letter, thanking him for all he's done. Won't you?"

There was a pause for a moment as the child looked over at Morrison, revolving the thought in her mind.

The Union officer had pa.s.sed into a sudden reverie, the hand holding his coffee cup hanging listlessly over his knee. He was thinking of another little girl, and one as dear to him as this man's child was to her father. He was wondering if the fortunes of war would ever let him see her face again or hear her voice--or feel her chubby arms around his neck. She was very, very far away--well cared for, it was true, but he knew only too well that it would need but one malignant leaden missile to make her future life as full of hards.h.i.+ps as those which the little tot beside him was pa.s.sing through to-day. So much, at least, for the ordinary chances of war--he was beginning to wonder how much had been added to these perils by the matter of the pa.s.s and whether his superiors would see the situation as it had appeared to his eyes.

Into this sad reverie Virgie's soft voice entered with a gentleness which roused but did not startle him. When she spoke, it seemed as if some subtle thought-current between their minds had put the subject of his dreams into the child's mind.

"Do you reckon," the child said, curiously, "that Gertrude is havin'

_her_ supper now?"

The Union officer looked up with eyes that mutely blessed her.

"Yes, dear, I was thinking of her--and her mother."

Again he was silent for a s.p.a.ce, and when he spoke, his voice was dreamy, tender, as he seemed to look with unseeing eyes far into the Northland where dwelt the people of his heart.

"Do you know, Cary, this war for us, the men, may be a h.e.l.l, but what is it for those we leave at home? The women! Who wait--and watch--and too often watch in vain. _We_ have the excitement of it--the rush--the battles--and we think that ours is the harder part when, in reality, we make our loved ones' lives a deeper, blacker h.e.l.l than our own. Theirs to watch and listen with the love hunger in their hearts, month in, month out and often without a word! Theirs to starve on the crusts of hope! Waiting--always waiting! Hunting the papers for the thing they dread to find; a name among the missing. A name among the dead! Good Heaven! When I think of it sometimes--" Morrison dropped his head between his clenched fists and groaned.