Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Hush, man!" replied Gahogan. "We'll win our share of um, though we'll
have to work harder for it. We'll have to do more ourselves, an' get
less done for us in the way of tactics."
"That so, Major," whimpered a drummer, looking up from his duty of
attending to a wounded comrade. "He knowed how to put his men in the
right place, and his men knowed when they was in the right place. But
it's goin' to be uphill through the steepest part of hell the rest of
the way."
Soldiers, some of them weeping, some of them bleeding, arrived
constantly to inquire after their commander, only to be sent quietly
back to their ranks or to the rear. Around lay other men--dead
men, and senseless, groaning men--all for the present unnoticed.
Everything, except the distant pursuit of the cavalry, waited for
Waldron to die. Fitz Hugh looked on silently, with the tears of
mingled emotions in his eyes, and with hopes and hatreds expiring in
his heart. The surgeon supported the expiring victor's head, while
Chaplain Colquhoun knelt beside him, holding his hand and praying
audibly. Of a sudden the petition ceased, both bent hastily toward the
wounded man, and after what seemed a long time exchanged whispers.
Then the Chaplain rose, came slowly toward the now advancing group
of officers, his hands outspread toward heaven in an attitude of
benediction, and tears running down his haggard white face.
"I trust, dear friends," he said, in a tremulous voice, "that all is
well with our brother and commander. His last words were, 'God is with
us.'"
"Oh! but, man, _that_ isn't well," broke out Gahogan, in a groan.
"What did ye pray for his sowl for? Why didn't ye pray for his loife?"
Fitz Hugh turned his horse and rode silently away. The next day he was
seen journeying rearward by the side of an ambulance, within which lay
what seemed a strangely delicate boy, insensible, and, one would say,
mortally ill.
SPLIT ZEPHYR.
AN ATTENUATED YARN SPUN BY THE FATES.
BY HENRY A. BEERS
_Century Magazine, June, 1883._
It was the evening of Commencement Day. The old church on the green,
which had rung for many consecutive hours with the eloquence of slim
young gentlemen in evening dress, exhorting the Scholar in Politics or
denouncing the Gross Materialism of the Age, was at last empty and
still. As it drew the dewy shadows softly about its eaves and filled
its rasped interior with soothing darkness, it bore a whimsical
likeness to some aged horse which, having been pestered all day with
flies, was now feeding in peace along the dim pasture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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