CHAPTER XIX
"BOB"
At daybreak the roll of martial drums startled Jeanne into wakefulness.
"What is it?" she cried, springing from the couch.
"The drummers are beating the reveille," answered the calm voice of Bobwho was already up. "That means that it is time to get up. You needn'tbe in a hurry, however. There are two hours yet until breakfast."
"But you are dressing," said Jeanne. "I will too."
"I always get up when the regiment does," answered Bob. "But you aredifferent. You are a guest."
"What are you?" asked Jeanne curiously.
"The Colonel's daughter, and the child of the regiment. What is your name?"
"Jeanne Vance. I live in New York city."
"That is a long way from here," said Bob. "Do you mind telling me why youcame down here?"
"I think I should like to," replied Jeanne gazing at the trim figure ofthe girl admiringly. She was clad in a suit of gray cloth consistingof a skirt and close fitting jacket with epaulets upon the shoulders.A cap of the same material was perched jauntily upon her raven blackhair. Her face, piquant and sparkling, was tanned a healthy brown throughwhich the red of her cheeks glowed brightly. Jeanne thought that shehad never seen a more charming girl, and, rebel though she knew she was,she felt her heart drawn toward her.
"Yes, I think that I should like to tell you," she repeated, and thenas rapidly as possible she told of her mission and the events that hadfollowed its execution.
Bob listened attentively.
"It was awfully mean in your aunt to treat you the way she did," shecommented as Jeanne finished her story. "You are a brave girl even if youare a Yankee, and I like you. Father says there are some nice ones, butI reckon that they haven't so awfully many brave ones among them, or wewouldn't be whipping them so."
"Whipping them?" cried Jeanne aghast. "What do you mean by whipping them?We were doing all the whipping the last I knew anything about it."
"Well, you certainly haven't heard the news lately then," rejoined Bob."If you had, you would have learned that General Bragg had invadedTennessee and Kentucky and that the Confederates have both those statesback again. I tell you the Yankees are just 'skedaddling' before him."
"It can't be true," wailed Jeanne. "Kentucky and Tennessee both taken fromus when we fought so hard to get them? Surely it is not true!"
"But it is," asserted Bob positively. "And that is not the greatest news:General Lee has not only driven McClellan from in front of Richmond, buthe has invaded Maryland and we expect to hear at any time that Washingtonhas fallen into our hands."
"Is it true?" asked Jeanne again turning so pale that Bob thought she wasgoing to faint.
"Here, drink this!" Bob tipped up her canteen of water to Jeanne's lips."I did not know that Yankees cared so much for such things."
"Cared for such things," echoed Jeanne indignantly. "Of course we care.How could any one hear that the Capital is menaced and not care? But thetraitors will never succeed in taking it. Never! I know our people. Theywill defend it with their lives, and drive the treacherous miscreants,who would dare profane by their touch, back to where they belong."
"We are not traitors," flashed Bob. "We have a right to secede if we wantto. The Capital belongs as much to us as it does to you, anyway."
"It doesn't," cried Jeanne angrily. "It belongs to the North because theNorth is trying to uphold the Government left to us by our great and goodWashington."
"Your great and good Washington," sneered Bob. "Washington belonged tous, I'd have you know. He was a Virginian, and let me tell you, that if ithadn't been for Southerners there never would have been any United Statesanyway."
"There would too," flashed back Jeanne. "My great-grandfather foughtin the Revolution, and there were plenty who fought that were notSoutherners."
"And who led them, pray?" demanded Bob. "Why, George Washington, aSoutherner. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Thomas Jefferson, aSoutherner. Who got up the Constitution? Why James Madison, a Southerner.And mind you, Jeanne Vance, this country couldn't be run at firstexcept by Southerners. Out of the first five presidents, four wereSoutherners."
"Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe," and Jeanne counted themon her fingers. "John Adams was a Massachusetts man."
"Phew!" and Bob's lips curled scornfully. "And the people were so sickof him that they only let him stay in four years. They were glad enoughto get back to us. I am sure that I don't wonder. I don't see how theycould stand a New Englander."
"I'm afraid that you'll have to," said Jeanne, wrathfully. "They are thebest people in the world. One of them is worth a dozen Southerners."
"He isn't," blazed Bob. "He----"
"Why, what does this mean?" cried a voice from without the tent. "Bob,is that the way you treat a guest? I am surprised."
"It's dad!" exclaimed Bob, rapidly untying the flap of the tent. "Come in."
To Jeanne's surprise she saluted her father military fashion instead ofkissing him. The gentleman entered--a tall, black-haired, black-eyed manof splendid military bearing and courtly mien. His eyes were twinkling,but he spoke to his daughter in rather a stern tone.
"Is this the way to entertain a guest, my child? I suppose that this isthe young lady that Johnson brought in last night."
"Yes," answered Bob, in a shamefaced way. "She is a Yankee, and we werequarreling. I don't know how it began. Do you?" to Jeanne.
"No," answered Jeanne. "I don't."
"I am ashamed of myself," said Bob, impulsively. "I ought to haveremembered that you were my guest. If you will forgive me this time Iwon't do it any more."
"I was wrong too," said Jeanne, humbly. "We'll forgive each other."
Bob hesitated a moment and then leaned toward her.
"There!" said the Colonel, as the girls kissed. "That's better. Leave itto the men to settle the differences of the country. It is not pleasantto see girls quarrel. Introduce the little lady to me, Bob."
"Jeanne, this is my father, Colonel Peyton," said Bob. "Dad, this isJeanne Vance, from New York city. And she is a brave girl, if she is aYankee. You must get her to tell you all about her adventures."
"I am sure that I shall be pleased to hear them," said the Colonel,affecting not to notice Jeanne's start of surprise as she heard his name."Do you girls know that it is breakfast time?"
"Mercy!" cried Bob. "Have the drums beaten the call? I did not hear them.Did you ever! We've been two hours talking and--quarreling," she added,in a lower tone.
"Yes; there was a time when I thought that it would be coffee and pistolsfor two," laughed the father. "Come, let us have breakfast. I will hearthe little lady's story while we eat."
Jeanne looked about her with curious eyes as they emerged from the tent.Everywhere there were tents that were arranged with military precisionback of a parade-ground which formed the front. First were the tents ofthe men arranged by companies. Next after the tents of the men came thoseof the commissioned officers of the companies. These faced on streetswhich ran at right angles with the company streets. Still back of thesewere the tents of the Colonel and his staff. The flag-staff at the edgeof the parade-ground, and immediately in front of the Colonel's tent,sported a Confederate flag that waved gaily in the breeze. In the rearof all were found the Quartermaster's and Sutler's departments. Dick hadoften written about the soldiers doing their own cooking but here thecamp seemed filled with negroes who bustled about cooking and waitingupon the soldiers as if they had been in their own dining-rooms.
"We are here awaiting orders," said the Colonel, when Jeanne had toldhim her story, "but we expect to leave soon for Jackson. There are anumber of Federals in that vicinity. It seems to me that your best planwould be to remain with us until we reach Jackson where I will try to getyou to your own side. They will assist you to get home. That is where youought to be."
"And where I wish to be," said Jeanne. "You are very kind, Colonel Peyton.Kinder than my own people were, and yet you know tha
t I am a Yankee."
"I am treating you as I would wish my own daughter treated under likecircumstances," replied the Colonel gravely. "I don't war on girls, andit seems to me that you have had rather a hard time of it. Well, we'llget you out of it as soon as possible unless you and Bob destroy eachother in your quarrels." And he looked at them with a humorous twinklein his eye.
"We won't quarrel any more," decided Bob. "We have had our say and we feelbetter. Don't we, Jeanne?"
"Ye-es," said Jeanne hesitatingly. "Only I didn't say all I wanted to."
"Never mind," laughed Colonel Peyton. "I've no doubt but that you willhave the opportunity yet. Did Bob tell you how she came to be with me?"
"No; how was it?"
"I ran away," said Bob, her mouth full of chicken. "I have no mother.Nobody but dad. So when the war broke out, and he went into it I made upmy mind that I would go too. Dad sold off our darkies and sent me to staywith Aunt Betty in Mobile. I stood it just as long as I could, then Itook Jack, my horse, and struck out for dad. I found him finally, andnow I've been with him for six months. And I am going to stay too. Am Inot, dad?"
"Until we get to Jackson," answered her father, regarding her fondly."Then I shall send you on to Vicksburg to stay with sister Sally. Thatis the safest place in the Confederacy. Once there my mind will be easyabout you. A camp is no place for a girl."
The breakfast was finished and Colonel Peyton was about to leave them whenhe turned to Bob abruptly.
"By the way," he said, "wasn't it Mr. Vance who bought Snowball?"
"Yes; it was, dad. I wonder how Madame treats her! It seems to me thatI've heard some awful stories about the way she uses her darkies."
"When she whips them she does whip dreadfully," said Jeanne. "But I onlyknow of once that she had Snowball whipped. And you are the Colonel Peytonwho bought her?" Then she told them of Tenny, Snowball's mother.
"That was why you started when you heard my name, was it not?" asked theColonel.
"Yes, sir."
"I wondered just a little at the cause of it," remarked the officer ashe left them. "Now, girls, be good."
"I don't want to go to Vicksburg a bit," confided Bob to Jeanne as theyreentered the former's tent. "I just love soldiering. Besides I want tobe near dad. Suppose he should be wounded. He'd die if I was not rightthere to look after him. I'm not going to say anything, but it will takea regular guard to keep me with Aunt Sally."
"But if he wishes it," said Jeanne to whom her father's lightest wish waslaw. "You will have to stay then. He knows best."
"It won't be best for me to be away from him," said Bob, rebelliously."I should imagine all sorts of things were happening to him."
"Everybody who has a father or a brother in the army does that," saidJeanne sadly as she thought of Dick. "But we have to stand it, Bob,when the men and the boys will go to the war. I could not if I didn'tthink it was right. If Dick should be killed----" her voice faltered alittle--"it would be a noble death. Admiral Farragut said that there wasno nobler one than to die for one's country, and I should try not togrieve too much if he were to fall doing his duty."
"I do wish you were a Southerner," said Bob impulsively. "You feel justlike we do about those things. But, Jeanne, what if your brother hadthought that we were right and had gone to our side? What would you dothen?"
"Dick couldn't do that," cried Jeanne. "Why the place where he was bornand the way he was brought up would be against it. No; Dick couldn't be arebel."
"That's what I thought about Frank," said Bob, with bitterness. "That'sone reason that I stick so close to dad. I have, or rather had, a brothertoo, Jeanne. But he broke dad's heart and mine by going to fight with theYankees. Yet his place of birth and his raising were both against it. Iwill never forgive him," and the tears rolled down her cheeks. "And dadnever will either."
"But he is your brother," said Jeanne, pressing her hand. "If he thinkshe is right, even if he does differ with you, he is still your brother."
"Never," cried Bob, dashing the tears from her eyes. "I have no brother.Come, let's go to see the men drill."