COMPANY A was cut up at Antietam, so that there was not enough of it
left for useful purposes, and Deacon Andrew Terrell became a member
of Company G, which nicknamed him “'is huliness.” Company A came from
Dutchess County. There was a little white church in the village of
Brewster, and a little white house with a meagre porch where that good
woman, Mrs. Terrell, had stood and shed several tears as the deacon
walked away down the street, looking extraordinary in his regimentals.
She dried her eyes, settled down to her sewing in that quiet south
window, and hoped he would remember to keep his feet dry and not lose
the cough drops. That part of Dutchess County was a bit of New England
spilled over. New England has been spilling over these many years.
The deacon took the cough drops regularly; he kept his gray chin beard
trimmed with a pair of domestic scissors, and drilling never persuaded
him to move his large frame with other than the same self-conscious
restraint; his sallow face had the same set lines. There is something in
the Saxon's blood that will not let him alter with circumstances, and it
is by virtue of it that he conquers in the end.
But no doorkeeper in the house of God--the deacon's service in the
meeting-house at Brewster--who should come perforce to dwell in the
tents of wickedness would pretend to like it. Besides, Company G had no
tents. It came from the lower wards of the great city. Dinkey Cott, that
thin-legged, stunted, imp-faced, hardened little Bowery sprout, put his
left fist in the deacon's eye the first day of their acquaintance, and
swore in the pleasantest manner possible.
The deacon cuffed him, because he had been a schoolmaster in his day,
and did not understand how he would be despised for knocking Dinkey down
in that amateur fashion, and the lieutenant gave them both guard duty
for fighting in the ranks.
The deacon declared “that young man Cott hadn't no moral ideas,” and did
his guard duty in bitterness and strict conscience to the last minute of
it. Dinkey put his thumb to his nose and offered to show the lieutenant
how the thing should have been done, and that big man laughed, and both
forgot about the guard duty.
Dinkey had no sense whatever of personal dignity, which was partly what
the deacon meant by “moral ideas,” nor reverence for anything above or
beneath. He did not harbor any special anger, either, and only enough
malice to point his finger at the elder man, whenever he saw him, and
snicker loudly to the entertainment of Company G.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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