Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863 -- Fiction; Pennsylvania -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; War stories
The latch did not yield. The door was locked! Emmeline shook it,
pressed her body against it, and called again. It seemed to her
suddenly that everything was mysteriously still, that the woods beyond
the house were strangely dark, and that the sky was very far above her.
"Where are you?" she called. When no answer came, she ran down the
slope to the barn.
The horse and the old-fashioned buggy were gone. Returning to the
house, Emmeline sat down on the bench beside the door and thought.
"They are over at the Watsons'," she said aloud, with great relief.
"They drove over for something. They will soon be back again."
At that moment Emmeline remembered her luncheon. When she had eaten the
last crumb, she felt better. She rose and started across the fields to
the Watsons'. But there only deaf Grandmother Watson was at home. She
had seen nothing of Emmeline's grandparents, and had evidently heard no
unusual sound. Emmeline started back across the fields. It seemed to
her much later than it was. Surely they would have to come back before
night! The cows would have to be milked, the chickens fed. Probably
they would be back by now!
Then on a rising bit of land, Emmeline stood still. The Emmitsburg Road
was again filled with troops. Apparently all the armies of the world
were once more gathered there; but these were new troops, marching in
the same direction as the others had gone. She could distinguish the
mounted officers, the box-like caissons, the great cannon, all moving
swiftly.
Across the fields drifted urgent cries. With trembling, Emmeline ran on.
But the farmhouse was still deserted. Again Emmeline tried the door.
There was a window above the shed into which she could climb, but she
was afraid to enter alone. Again she heard the booming of cannon. It
grew heavier, more ominous.
Perhaps her grandparents had gone to the Hollingers', to the south. She
could reach the Hollingers' by a circuitous route through the fields.
Again she set forth. She was now too tired to walk rapidly, and her
journey consumed almost an hour. But the Hollinger house was also
deserted. Too frightened to cry, Emmeline started back once more to her
grandfather's farm. She was footsore and exhausted by the heat; she
gasped with weariness. The heavy roaring sound of the cannon filled the
air and deafened her. She remembered those fixed, staring eyes of the
soldiers who had marched by.
Suddenly fear of the enemy oppressed her. She remembered stories she
had heard about the cruelty in prisons, about the burning of houses,
the torturing of women and children. She thought with aching heart of
her mother and her home. How patiently she would sit by Bertha's bed,
how obedient she would be!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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