It was but a poor, little house even when the wistaria vine covered it, wall and roof, and the bees hummed among its cl.u.s.ters of violet blossoms; but now the wistaria bush was only a tangle of twisted wires hung upon it, and the little weather-stained cabin looked bare and poor enough. As the young fellow stood in the door looking out with the evening light upon him, his tall, straight figure filled it as if it had been a frame. He stood perfectly motionless for some minutes, gazing across the gum thickets before him.

The sun had set only about a half-hour and the light was still lingering on the under edges of the clouds in the west and made a sort of glow in the little yard before him, as it did in front of the cabin on the other hill. His eye first swept the well-known horizon, taking in the thickets below him and the heavy pines on either side where it was already dusk, and then rested on the little cabin opposite. Whether he saw it or not, one could hardly have told, for his face wore a reminiscent look.

Figures moved backward and forward over there, came out and went in, without his look changing. Even Vashti, faintly distinguishable in her gay dress, came out and pa.s.sed down the hill alone, without his expression changing. It was, perhaps, fifteen minutes later that he seemed to awake, and after a look over his shoulder stepped from the door into the yard. His mother was cooking, and he strolled down the path across the little clearing and entered the pines. Insensibly his pace quickened--he strode along the dusky path with as firm a step as if it were broad daylight. A quarter of a mile below the path crossed the little stream and joined the path from Cove Mills's place, which he used to take when he went to school. He crossed at the old log and turned down the path through the little clearing there. The next moment he stood face to face with Vashti Mills. Whether he was surprised or not no one could have told, for he said not a word, and his face was in the shadow, though Vashti's was toward the clearing and the light from the sky was on it. Her hat was in her hand. He stood still, but did not stand aside to let her pa.s.s, until she made an imperious little gesture and stepped as if she would have pa.s.sed around him. Then he stood aside. But she did not appear in a hurry to avail herself of the freedom offered, she simply looked at him. He took off his cap sheepishly enough, and said, "Good-evenin'."

"Good-evenin'," she said, and then, as the pause became embarra.s.sing, she said, "Hear you're agoin' away to-morrer?"

"Yes--to-morrer mornin'."

"When you're acomin' back?" she asked, after a pause in which she had been twisting the pink string of her hat.

"Don't know--may be never." Had he been looking at her he might have seen the change which his words brought to her face; she lifted her eyes to his face for the first time since the half defiant glance she had given him when they met, and they had a strange light in them, but at the moment he was looking at a bow on her dress which had been pulled loose. He put out his hand and touched it and said:

"You're a-losin' yer bow," and as she found a pin and fastened it again, he added, "An' I don' know as anybody keers."

An overpowering impulse changed her and forced her to say: "I don't know as anybody does either; I know as I don't."

The look on his face smote her, and the spark died out of her eyes as he said, slowly: "No, I knowed you didn'! I don't know as anybody does, exceptin' my old woman. Maybe she will a little. I jist wanted to tell you that I wouldn't a' fit them boys if they hadn't a' pushed me so hard, and I wan't afeared to fight your old man, I jist wouldn't--that's all."

What answer she might have made to this was prevented by him; for he suddenly held out his hand with something in it, saying, "Here."

She instinctively reached out to take whatever it was, and he placed in her hand a book which she recognized as the little Testament which she had won as a prize at school and had given him when they went to school together. It was the only book she had ever possessed as her very own.

"I brought this thinking as how maybe you might 'a'-wanted--me to keep it," he was going to say; but he checked himself and said: "might 'a'-wanted it back."

Before she could recover from the surprise of finding the book in her hand her own, he was gone. The words only came to her clearly as his retreating footsteps grew fainter and his tall figure faded in the darkening light. She made a hasty step or two after him, then checked herself and listened intently to see if he were not returning, and then, as only the katydids answered, threw herself flat on the ground and grovelled in the darkness.

There were few houses in the district or in the county where lights did not burn all that night. The gleam of the fire in Mrs. Stanley's little house could be seen all night from the door of the Mills cabin, as the candle by which Mrs. Mills complained while she and Vashti sewed, could be faintly seen from Little Darby's house. The two Mills boys slept stretched out on the one bed in the little centre-room.

While the women sewed and talked fitfully by the single tallow candle, and old Cove dozed in a chair with his long legs stretched out toward the fire and the two shining barrels of his sons' muskets resting against his knees, where they had slipped from his hands when he had finished rubbing them.

The younger woman did most of the sewing. Her fingers were suppler than her mother's, and she scarcely spoke except to answer the latter's querulous questions. Presently a rooster crowed somewhere in the distance, and almost immediately another crowed in answer closer at hand.

"Thar's the second rooster-crow, it's gittin' erlong toward the mornin'," said the elder woman.

The young girl made no answer, but a moment later rose and, laying aside the thing she was sewing, walked to the low door and stepped out into the night. When she returned and picked up her sewing again, her mother said:

"I de-clar, Vashti, you drinks mo' water than anybody I ever see."

To which she made no answer.

"Air they a-stirrin' over at Mis's Stanley's?" asked the mother.

"They ain't a-been to bed," said the girl, quietly; and then, as if a sudden thought had struck her, she hitched her chair nearer the door which she had left open, and sat facing it as she sewed on the brown thing she was working on a small bow which she took from her dress.

"I de-clar, I don't see what old Mis's Stanley is actually a-gwine to do," broke out Mrs. Mills, suddenly, and when Vashti did not feel called on to try to enlighten her she added, "Do you?"

"Same as other folks, I s'pose," said the girl, quietly.

"Other folks has somebody--somebody to take keer on 'em. I've got your pappy now; but she ain't got n.o.body but little Darby--and when he's gone what will she do?"

For answer Vashti only hitched her chair a little nearer the door and sewed on almost in darkness. "Not that he was much account to her, ner to anybody else, except for goin' aroun' a-fightin' and a-fussin'."

"He was account to her," flamed up the girl, suddenly; "he was account to her, to her and to everybody else. He was the fust soldier that 'listed, and he's account to everybody."

The old woman had raised her head in astonishment at her daughter's first outbreak, and was evidently about to reply sharply; but the girl's flushed face and flashing eyes awed and silenced her.

"Well, well, I ain't sayin' nothin' against him," she said, presently.

"Yes, you air--you're always sayin' somethin' against him--and so is everybody else--and they ain't fitten to tie his shoes. Why don't they say it to his face! There ain't one of 'em as dares it, and he's the best soldier in the comp'ny, an' I'm jest as proud of it as if he was my own."

The old woman was evidently bound to defend herself. She said:

"It don't lay in your mouth to take up for him, Vashti Mills; for you're the one as has gone up and down and abused him scandalous."

"Yes, and I know I did," said the girl, springing up excitedly and tossing her arms and tearing at her ribbons. "An' I told him to his face too, and that's the only good thing about it. I knowed it was a lie when I told him, and he knowed it was a lie too, and he knowed I knowed it was a lie--what's more--and I'm glad he did--fo' G.o.d I'm glad he did.

He could 'a' whipped the whole company an' he jest wouldn't--an' that's G.o.d's truth--G.o.d's fatal truth."

The next instant she was on her knees hunting for something on the floor, in an agony of tears; and as her father, aroused by the noise, rose and asked a question, she sprang up and rushed out of the door.

The sound of an axe was already coming through the darkness across the gum thickets from Mrs. Stanley's, telling that preparation was being made for Darby's last breakfast. It might have told more, however, by its long continuance; for it meant that Little Darby was cutting his mother a supply of wood to last till his return. Inside, the old woman, thin and faded, was rubbing his musket.

The sun was just rising above the pines, filling the little bottom between the cabins with a sort of rosy light, and making the dewy bushes and weeds sparkle with jewel-strung gossamer webs, when Little Darby, with his musket in his hand, stepped for the last time out of the low door. He had been the first soldier in the district to enlist, he must be on time. He paused just long enough to give one swift glance around the little clearing, and then set out along the path at his old swinging pace. At the edge of the pines he turned and glanced back. His mother was standing in the door, but whether she saw him or not he could not tell. He waved his hand to her, but she did not wave back, her eyes were failing somewhat. The next instant he disappeared in the pines.

He had crossed the little stream on the old log and pa.s.sed the point where he had met Vashti the evening before, when he thought he heard something fall a little ahead of him. It could not have been a squirrel, for it did not move after it fell. His old hunter's instinct caused him to look keenly down the path as he turned the clump of bushes which stopped his view; but he saw no squirrel or other moving thing. The only thing he saw was a little brown something with a curious spot on it lying in the path some little way ahead. As he came nearer it, he saw that it was a small parcel not as big as a man's fist. Someone had evidently dropped it the evening before. He picked it up and examined it as he strode along. It was a little case or wallet made of some brown stuff, such as women carry needles and thread in, and it was tied up with a bit of red, white and blue string, the Confederate colors, on the end of which was sewed a small bow of pink ribbon. He untied it. It was what it looked to be: a roughly made little needle-case such as women use, tolerably well stocked with sewing materials, and it had something hard and almost square in a separate pocket. Darby opened this, and his gun almost slipped from his hand. Inside was the Testament he had given back to Vashti the evening before. He stopped stock-still, and gazed at it in amazement, turning it over in his hand. He recognized the bow of pink ribbon as one like that which she had had on her dress the evening before. She must have dropped it. Then it came to him that she must have given it to one of her brothers, and a pang shot through his heart. But how did it get where he found it? He was too keen a woodsman not to know that no footstep had gone before his on that path that morning. It was a mystery too deep for him, and after puzzling over it a while he tied the parcel up again as nearly like what it had been before as he could, and determined to give it to one of the Mills boys when he reached the Cross-roads. He unb.u.t.toned his jacket and put it into the little inner pocket, and then reb.u.t.toning it carefully, stepped out again more briskly than before.

It was perhaps an hour later that the Mills boys set out for the Cross-roads. Their father and mother went with them; but Vashti did not go. She had "been out to look for the cow," and got in only just before they left, still clad in her yesterday's finery; but it was wet and bedraggled with the soaking dew. When they were gone she sat down in the door, limp and dejected.

More than once during the morning the girl rose and started down the path as if she would follow them and see the company set out on its march, but each time she came back and sat down again in the door, remaining there for a good while as if in thought.

Once she went over almost to Mrs. Stanley's, then turned back and sat down again.

So the morning pa.s.sed, and the first thing she knew, her father and mother had returned. The company had started. They were to march to the bridge that night. She heard them talking over the appearance that they had made; the speech of the captain; the cheers that went up as they marched off--the enthusiasm of the crowd. Her father was in much excitement. Suddenly she seized her sun-bonnet and slipped out of the house and across the clearing, and the next instant she was flying down the path through the pines. She knew the road they had taken, and a path that would strike it several miles lower down. She ran like a deer, up hill and down, availing herself of every short cut, until, about an hour after she started, she came out on the road. Fortunately for her, the delays incident to getting any body of new troops on the march had detained the company, and a moment's inspection of the road showed her that they had not yet pa.s.sed. Clambering up a bank, she concealed herself and lay down. In a few moments she heard the noise they made in the distance, and she was still panting from her haste when they came along, the soldiers marching in order, as if still on parade, and a considerable company of friends attending them. Not a man, however, dreamed that, flat on her face in the bushes, lay a girl peering down at them with her breath held, but with a heart which beat so loud to her own ears that she felt they must hear it. Least of all did Darby Stanley, marching erect and tall in front, for all the sore heart in his bosom, know that her eyes were on him as long as she could see him.

When Vashti brought up the cow that night it was later than usual. It perhaps was fortunate for her that the change made by the absence of the boys prevented any questioning. After all the excitement her mother was in a fit of despondency. Her father sat in the door looking straight before him, as silent as the pine on which his vacant gaze was fixed.

Even when the little cooking they had was through with and his supper was offered him, he never spoke. He ate in silence and then took his seat again. Even Mrs. Mills's complaining about the cow straying so far brought no word from him any more than from Vashti. He sat silent as before, his long legs stretched out toward the fire. The glow of the embers fell on the rough, thin face and lit it up, bringing out the features and making them suddenly clear-cut and strong. It might have been only the fire, but there seemed the glow of something more, and the eyes burnt back under the s.h.a.ggy brows. The two women likewise were silent, the elder now and then casting a glance at her husband. She offered him his pipe, but he said nothing, and silence fell as before.

Presently she could stand it no longer. "I de-clar, Vashti," she said, "I believe your pappy takes it most harder than I does."

The girl made some answer about the boys. It was hardly intended for him to hear, but he rose suddenly, and walking to the door, took down from the two dogwood forks above it his old, long, single-barrelled gun, and turning to his wife said, "Git me my coat, old woman; by Gawd, I'm a-gwine." The two women were both on their feet in a second. Their faces were white and their hands were clenched under the sudden stress, their breath came fast. The older woman was the first to speak.

"What in the worl' ken you do, Cove Mills, ole an' puny as you is, an'

got the rheumatiz all the time, too?"

"I ken pint a gun," said the old man, doggedly, "an' I'm a-gwine."

"An' what in the worl' is a-goin' to become of us, an' that cow got to runnin' away so, I'm afeared all the time she'll git in the mash?" Her tone was querulous, but it was not positive, and when her husband said again, "I'm a-gwine," she said no more, and all the time she was getting together the few things which Cove would take.