Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863 -- Fiction; Pennsylvania -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; War stories
Just before they reached the Evergreen Cemetery, with its tall pine
trees, Mrs. Schmidt turned old Whitey aside, and drove into a country
road that ran between pleasant fields. Some were cultivated, and others
were carpeted with daisies; on all the fences wild roses bloomed. It
was now eight o'clock, and the July sun shone hotter and hotter. Mrs.
Schmidt panted, and grew red in the face, and tried to fan herself with
her old sunbonnet.
At any other time Emmeline would have enjoyed the excursion. Before
her, but still several miles away, the two Round Tops rose against the
hazy horizon. The Emmitsburg Road which they traveled lay between two
long ridges of varying height, named Cemetery Ridge and Seminary Ridge.
Presently they would turn to the west, and cross Seminary Ridge. Beyond
it, about half a mile, lay Emmeline's grandfather's farm, where she was
always welcomed with great joy, and where there was good fishing, and
a little calf, and a litter of new kittens, and the companionship of a
venturesome girl, Ellen Watson by name, from the next farm.
But Emmeline did not want to go to Round Top, and she did not care to
see the kittens and the calf; she wanted to stay in Gettysburg. Eliza
Batterson would stay, and would have a hundred boastful things to tell
her. It was bitterly disappointing to be sent away. If Bertha had not
been there to be taken care of she might have stayed. She agreed with
Mrs. Bannon that Bertha could rise if she would.
The little Schmidts made no sound on the journey. Terrified by their
mother's fright, they huddled in their various uncomfortable positions
in the body of the wagon. Once Emmeline, hearing a gentle whimper,
looked round, and saw that a chair had fallen upon Betsy, and that she
looked out from between the rungs as if from a cage. Scrambling back
to rescue her, Emmeline observed a long line of wagons like their own
coming from Gettysburg.
Giving the sleeping Carl to his mother, Emmeline now took the reins
herself, and in the pleasure of managing old Whitey forgot that she was
an aggrieved and disappointed person. She clucked sharply to him and
switched him with the reins. When all methods of hurrying his lagging
gait proved futile, she proposed that she and the older children should
walk, and thus relieve him for a while of their weight. Only Mrs.
Schmidt remained in the cart, with Carl in her arms.
"We are emigrants," said Emmeline, forgetting her disappointment for a
moment. "We are emigrants marching o'er the plains. We--"
Then Emmeline stopped, and all the little Schmidts stopped, and old
Whitey lifted his head.
"What is that noise over there, say?" asked Mrs. Schmidt.
"Listen!" commanded Emmeline.
"What is that noise?" demanded Mrs. Schmidt in a louder tone.
"Listen!" commanded Emmeline more sharply.
Old Whitey lifted his head a little higher. Away to the north, beyond
the seminary building, toward the dim line of blue hills on the
horizon, there was a sharp crack! crack! crack!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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