The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Essential Winston Churchill Collection - Winston Churchill страница 248
Название: The Essential Winston Churchill Collection
Автор: Winston Churchill
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Контркультура
isbn: 9781456613488
isbn:
Then the stranger stepped across the limestone gutter and walked up to the Colonel's horse, He was still smoking. This move, too, was surprising enough, It argued even more assurance. Stephen listened intently.
"Colonel Blair, my name is Grant," he said briefly.
The Colonel faced quickly about, and held out his gloved hand cordially, "Captain Ulysses Grant," said he; "of the old army?"
Mr. Grant nodded.
"I wanted to wish you luck," he said.
"Thank you, Grant," answered the Colonel. "But you? Where are you living now?"
"I moved to Illinois after I left here," replied Mr. Grant, as quietly as before, "and have been in Galena, in the Leather business there. I went down to Springfield with the company they organized in Galena, to be of any help I could. They made me a clerk in the adjutant general's office of the state I ruled blanks, and made out forms for a while." He paused, as if to let the humble character of this position sink into the Colonel's comprehension. "Then they found out that I'd been quartermaster and commissary, and knew something about military orders Now I'm a state mustering officer. I came down to Belleville to muster in a regiment, which wasn't ready. And so I ran over here to see what you fellows were doing."
If this humble account had been delivered volubly, and in another tone, it is probable that the citizen-colonel would not have listened, since the events of that day were to crown his work of a winter. But Mr. Grant possessed a manner of holding attention.. It was very evident, however; that Colonel Blair had other things to think of. Nevertheless he said kindly:
"Aren't you going in, Grant?"
"I can't afford to go in as a captain of volunteers," was the calm reply: "I served nine years in the regular army and I think I can command a regiment."
The Colonel, whose attention was called away at that moment, did not reply. Mr. Grant moved off up the street. Some of the younger officers who were there, laughed as they followed his retreating figure.
"Command a regiment!" cried one, a lieutenant whom Stephen recognized as having been a bookkeeper at Edwards, James, & Doddington's, and whose stiff blue uniform coat creased awkwardly. "I guess I'm about as fit to command a regiment as Grant is."
"That man's forty years old, if he's a day," put in another. "I remember when he came here to St. Louis in '54, played out. He'd resigned from the army on the Pacific Coast. He put up a log cabin down on the Gravois Road, and there he lived in the hardest luck of any man I ever saw until last year. You remember him, Joe."
"Yep," said Joe. "I spotted him by the El Sol cigar. He used to bring a load of wood to the city once in a while, and then he'd go over to the Planters' House, or somewhere else, and smoke one of these long fellows, and sit against the wall as silent as a wooden Indian. After that he came up to the city without his family and went into real estate one winter. But he didn't make it go. Curious, it is just a year ago this month than he went over to Illinois. He's an honest fellow, and hard working enough, but he don't know how. He's just a dead failure."
"Command a regiment!" laughed the first, again, as of this in particular had struck his sense of humor. "I guess he won't get a regiment in a hurry, There's lots of those military carpet-baggers hanging around for good jobs now."
"He might fool you fellows yet," said the one caller, though his tone was not one of conviction. "I understand he had a first-rate record an the Mexican War."
Just then an aide rode up, and the Colonel gave a sharp command which put an end to this desultory talk. As the First Regiment took up the march, the words "Camp Jackson" ran from mouth to mouth on the sidewalks. Catching fire, Stephen ran with the crowd, and leaping on passing street car, was borne cityward with the drums of the coming hosts beating in his ears.
In the city, shutters were going up on the stores. The streets were filled with, restless citizens seeking news, and drays were halted here and there on the corners, the white eyes and frenzied calls of the negro drivers betraying their excitement. While Stephen related to his mother the events of the morning, Hester burned the dinner. It lay; still untouched, on the table when the throbbing of drums sent them to the front steps. Sigel's regiment had swung into the street, drawing in its wake a seething crowd.
Three persons came out of the big house next door. One was Anna Brinsmade; and there was her father, his white hairs uncovered. The third was Jack. His sister was cringing to him appealingly, and he struggling in her grasp. Out of his coat pocket hung the curved butt of a pepperbox revolver.
"Let me go, Anne!" he cried. "Do you think I can stay here while my people are shot down by a lot of damned Dutchman?"
"John," said Mr. Brinsmade, sternly, "I cannot let you join a mob. I cannot let you shoot at men who carry the Union flag."
"You cannot prevent me, sir," shouted the young man, in a frenzy. "When foreigners take our flag for them own, it is time for us to shoot them down."
Wrenching himself free, he ran down the steps and up the street ahead of the regiment. Then the soldiers and the noisy crowd were upon them and while these were passing the two stood there as in a dream. After that silence fell upon the street, and Mr. Brinsmade turned and went back into the house, his head bowed as in prayer. Stephen and his mother drew back, but Anne saw them.
"He is a rebel," she faltered. "It will break my father's heart."
She looked at Stephen appealingly, unashamed of the tears in her eyes. Then she, too went in.
"I cannot stay here mother," he said.
As he slammed the gate, Anne ran down the steps calling his name. He paused, and she caught his sleeve.
"I knew you would go," she said, "I knew you would go. Oh, Stephen, you have a cool head. Try to keep Jack--out of mischief."
He left her standing on the pavement. But when he reached the corner and looked back he saw that she had gone in at his own little gate to meet his mother. Then he walked rapidly westward. Now and again he was stopped by feverish questions, but at length he reached the top of the second ridge from the river, along which crowded Eighteenth Street now runs. There stood the new double mansion Mr. Spencer Catherwood had built two years before on the outskirts of the town, with the wall at the side, and the brick stable and stable yard. As Stephen approached it, the thought came to him how little this world's goods avail in times of trouble. One of the big Catherwood boys was in the blue marching regiment that day, and had been told by his father never again to darken his doors. Another was in Clarence Colfax's company of dragoons, and still another had fled southward the night after Sumter.
Stephen stopped at the crest of the hill, in the white dust of the new-turned street, to gaze westward. Clouds were gathering in the sky, but the sun still shone brightly, Half way up the rise two blue lines had crawled, followed by black splotches, and at the southwest was the glint of the sun on rifle barrels. Directed by a genius in the art of war, the regiments were closing about Camp Jackson.
As he stood there meditating and paying no attention СКАЧАТЬ