The Littlest Rebel Part 31

"_Once?_" echoed the General, surprised. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. She drew herself up proudly, forgetting the poor, tattered dress, and her clear eyes rested fearlessly on two others that read through them down into the pure whiteness of her soul.

"_Think!_" said the quiet voice again, while the perspiration started out on the forehead of more than one listener. "And remember what your father said just now. When was it?"

Again the fearless eyes of the child, the Littlest Rebel of them all, rose to the gaze of the man whose iron heel was crus.h.i.+ng them into the ground and she made her answer--as crystal clear and truthful as if she stood before the Throne on the last great day.

"When--when Daddy came through the woods an'--an' put my mamma in the ground."

There was a silence. No one moved. Outside in the trees and bushes the song the summer insects were singing suddenly burst upon, their ears and the myriad noises of the camp, hitherto unnoticed, became a veritable clamor, so complete was the stillness in the room. Everyone except, perhaps, the child herself realized the vital importance of her answer and now that it had been given the crisis had pa.s.sed. The Littlest Rebel had put an end to questioning. An audible sigh went up from everyone except the man behind the desk.

This one turned his head slowly towards the Confederate prisoner.

"Captain Cary, is this true?"

"Yes, General," came the straightforward answer. "I went to your nearest post with a flag of truce and asked permission to go to my dead wife. I was refused. I went _without_ permission."

General Grant rose to his feet. Centering the other's eyes with his own he spoke to him as one officer speaks to another when he expects the truth and nothing but the truth.

"And you give me your word, as a soldier and a gentleman, that once--once _only_--you wore a Federal uniform and that because of the burial of your wife?"

"I do," answered Herbert Cary, a rebel to the last. "And that was the only cause in heaven or h.e.l.l that could have _induced_ me to wear it!"

For a moment the Commander of the Army of the Potomac surveyed the still defiant prisoner, then turned his back and walked to the window where he tossed away a much chewed cigar, meantime thinking out his last a.n.a.lysis.

Here was a man who had been hunted tirelessly month after month as a rebel spy. It was true that he was a spy and true that he had worn a uniform of blue. Yet the fact had been established--by the spotless honesty of a little child--that he had worn the uniform only so that he might reach his home and bury his dead. And--went on the cool, quiet mind--since the man was _not_ a spy how could a Union officer be executed for a.s.sisting a _spy_ to escape?

Coming back to his desk again the General picked out another smoke, felt of it thoughtfully, sniffed at it, then raised his quiet eyes.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison," he said in clear, incisive tones, "_go back to your command!_"

Five words. Five short, plain words, yet they made all the difference between a firing squad and a chance at life again. There was a silence--then a gasp from Morrison's dry throat. At the sound of his t.i.tle--at the sound of that blessed order which, by right of supreme power, instantly restored him to his rank, the Union officer leaped to his feet with a cry of joy. But it was not even for those around him in that little room to know the wonderful vista of happiness which opened up again before the eyes which only a moment ago had been doomed to close in the sleep of a disgraceful death.

The General's hand went up in a gesture which checked his grat.i.tude.

"The _next_ time you are forced to decide between military duty and humanity--think twice!"

He turned to his desk and took up a small piece of paper, crumpled and torn.

"Captain Cary," he said, "I sincerely regret that I cannot honor the pa.s.s as given you by Colonel Morrison," and he turned the paper over, "but I do honor the pa.s.s of your General--R.E. Lee."

He folded the paper and held it out to Cary who came forward as if in a dream. Then the General turned his back again and began to rummage on his desk. The incident was closed.

But there was a rush of bare, childish feet sand before he could escape Virgie's brown little arms were round him and her dimpled chin was pressed against his waist.

The General made no effort to release himself but looked down on her with a softer light in his face than any of his men had seen there in many months.

"And as for you, young lady, the next time you pervert my officers and upset the discipline of the Federal Army--well, I don't know _what_ I'll do with you."

He looked down into her face and read there a wistful feminine appeal for outward and visible reconciliation.

"Oh, well," he said with mock resignation, "I suppose I've got to do it," and he stooped and kissed her. Then he took up his campaign hat and walked towards the door.

Behind him the child in her tattered dress and bare brown legs stood still and threw out her arms to him in a last soft-voiced good-by.

"Thank you, Gen'ral," called the Littlest Rebel, with the light of heaven in her eyes. "Thank you for Daddy and Colonel Morrison and _me_.

You're another mighty good d.a.m.n Yankee!"

And then, with a cry of surpa.s.sing joy and love, she rushed back to where the two men waited for her on their knees.

CHAPTER X

In the shade of a fringe of trees that edged the river bank a troop of cavalry was drawn up in one long, thin line. Knee to knee, the silent, blue-coated riders sat, waiting, waiting--not for a charge upon the enemy, or orders for a foray through an already harried land. They waited for a leader--a man who had led them through the heat and cold, through peaceful valleys and the b.l.o.o.d.y ruck of battle; a man whom they loved and trusted, fearing him only when they s.h.i.+rked a duty or disobeyed the iron laws of war.

This man had been taken from them, himself a servant who had disobeyed these laws, his sword dishonored, his shoulder straps ripped off before their eyes. And now the troopers waited--and for what? An order had come which put them on review, a long thin line of hors.e.m.e.n waiting on the river bank, while the sun beat down on the parched red fields, and the waters of the muddy James lazed by as they murmured their sad, low song.

The troopers were silent--waiting. A horse stamped idly in the dust, and a saber rattled against a booted leg. A whisper ran down the line. The eyes of the men turned slowly at the sight of a single rider who advanced from the distant Union camp. He did not take the dusty road which swept in a wide, half-circle to where the waiting troopers sat in line, but jumped a low worm-fence and came straight across the fields.

An officer he was, erect in his saddle, chin up and shoulders squared.

On his shoulders his straps had been replaced, and his saber rattled against his thigh to the rise and fall of his horse's stride.

Straight on he came till he checked his mount before the center of the waiting line, and the troopers knew that Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison had once more come into his own.

Their sabers rasped from out the scabbards and rose in a joyous, swift salute, while Morrison's once dishonored sword acknowledged it.

"_'Tention_ ..._company!_"

The long line stiffened and waited for their officer to speak; yet the voice was not the voice of an officer in command, but that of a comrade and a friend.

"Thank you, boys! It's good to be back again." He swallowed something in his throat and struggled manfully to speak in even tones. "I must ask you to be quiet--and not to--"

He stopped. Again his troop had disobeyed him--disobeyed him to a man. A shout went up, deep, joyous and uncontrolled, its echoes pulsing out across the hot, red fields till it reached the distant camp; and Grant looked up from a war map's crisscross lines, grunted, and lit a fresh cigar.

And Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison sat his horse before his cheering line of men, silent, happy, while two tears rolled, unheeded, down his cheek--a soldier and a man!

His tenderness to a little child had torn him from his saddle and doomed him to disgrace and death; and then, one line from her baby lips had mounted him again and set him before his troopers on parade.

"_It was when ... Daddy came through the woods ... and put my mamma ...

in the ground_."

Two lives she had held--in her little hands--and had saved them both with a dozen words of simple, unfaltering truth.