The Cavalier | Page 7

Ferry?"
"Suppose it wasn't either."
"I knew it! I knew it was her! Ah, you rogue, you know it was her!"
"Well, that might depend on who 'her' is." We had reached the

cross-roads and he was turning south.
"Look!" he said, and gave the glance and smile of the lady in the
curtained wagon so perfectly that I cackled like a small boy. "Oh, you
know that, do you? I dare you to say she didn't bring it!"
"I give you my word I don't know!" called I as the distance grew
between us. "And I give you my word I don't care!" he crowed back as
we galloped apart. His speech was two or three words longer, but they
are inappropriate at the end of a chapter, and I expurgate.

V
EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN, TWENTY
On entering Hazlehurst I observed all about the railway-station a
surprising amount of quartermaster's stores. A large part were cases of
boots and shoes. Laden with such goods, a train of shabby box-cars
stood facing south, its beggarly wood-burner engine sniffing and
weeping, while the cork-legged conductor helped all hands wood up.
Though homely, the picture was a stirring one. Up through the blue
summer morning came the sun, bringing to mind the words of the
dying Mirabeau, "If that is not God, at least it's his first cousin."
Even in the character of the goods there was eloquence, and not a
drollery in the scene, not even an ugliness, but was touched, was rife,
with the woe of a war whose burning walls were falling in on us. And
outward, too, upon others; a few up-ended cottonbales leaned against
each other ragged and idle, while women and babes starved for want of
them in far-away Lancaster.
One of the cars furthest from the engine had no freight proper, only a
number of trunks; and these were nearly hidden by the widely
crinolined flounces of an elegant elderly lady who sat on the middle
one. And now she, too, was hidden, and the wide doorway in the side
of the car more than filled, by the fashionable gowns of three girls. On
the ground below there stood a lieutenant in a homemade gray uniform,

and at his back half a dozen big, slouching, barefoot boys squirted
tobacco juice and gazed at the ladies. The officer scanned me, spoke to
the ladies, scanned me again, and threw up an arm. "Ho--o! Come here!
Hullo! Come here--if you please."
If he had not said please he should have ho'd and hullo'd in vain, but at
that word I turned. Before I had covered half the distance I read New
Orleans! my dear, dear old New Orleans! in every line of those ladies'
draperies, and at twenty-five yards I saw one noble family likeness in
all four of their sweet faces. Oh, but those three maidens were fair! and
I could name each by her name at a glance: Camille, Cécile, Estelle;
eighteen, nineteen, twenty!
There was a hush of attention among them as the lieutenant and I
saluted. His left hand was gone at the wrist and the sleeve pinned back
on itself. He asked my name; I told him. In the car there was a stir of
deepening interest. I inquired if he was the post-quartermaster here. He
was.
"Ain't you Major Harper's quartermaster-sergeant?" he asked.
"I am his clerk." In the car a flash of joy and then great decorum.
As he handed me a writing he glowed kindly. It proved to be from
Major Harper; a requisition upon this officer for shoes and clothing; not
for a brigade, regiment or company, but for me alone, from hat to shoes.
I tendered it back silently, and saw that he knew its purport already
from the Major, and that the ladies knew it from him. The good fellow
looked quite happy a moment, but then reddened as they joyfully
crowded the car's doorway to see me fitted!
"We can select out sev'l pair--" he began, but heard a puerile titter and
lost his nerve. "Now, you boys that ain't got any business here, jest clair
out!--Go! I tell you, aw I'll--" The boys loitered off toward the engine.
"We can select out sev'l si-izes," he drawled, uncovering a box, "and fit
you ove' in my office. You ain't so pow'ful long nor so pow'ful slim,
but these-yeh gov'ment contrac's they seldom ev' allow fo' anybody so
slim in the waist bein' so long in the, eh,--so, eh,--so long f'om thah

down. But yet still, if you'll jest light off yo' hoss and come and look
into this-yeh box--"
Hmm! yes! I wouldn't have got off my horse and leaned over that box
to save the Confederacy. "I thank you, Lieutenant, but I can't stop. If
you'll hand