the sergeant's ruddy, handsome face was the only cheerful object within the prison yard as he walked up and down, crossing the sentry's beat. the yard was small—it was at the back of the gloomy brick building—and only one narrow window looked out upon it. the day was dark and dull. the soldier marching up and down, clutching his musket, looked sulky and cold, and he wondered why a man like sergeant heywood, who didn't have to do sentry duty, should be pacing back and forth for two hours at a stretch.
the sight of a prisoner's face at the barred window did not add to the cheerfulness of the surroundings. the face was curiously twisted and distorted by a shot that had torn through the jaw. it would have been repulsive but for the eyes—eyes pathetic, curious, patient, almost the color of the faded "butternut" clothes of the prisoner. as soon as the sergeant saw the poor face at the window he halted in his walk, and called out, cheerily, "hello, kaintuck!"
"hello!" responded kaintuck, with equal
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cheeriness, but in a thin, soft voice, such as might be expected to come out of his narrow chest.
"how are you to-day?" continued the sergeant.
"purty well, considerin'," answered kaintuck. "las' night i didn't sleep very well. this here old jaw got to achin'; an', by golly, sergeant, she kin everlastin' ache when she starts in! ef it hadn't ben for that terbacker you give me yesterday, i'll 'low i'd had a sorter onpleasant time. but it was a comfort, cert'n'y. before i lit my pipe it seemed like i never was goin' ter see polly an' the kid no more, that you blarsted yankees was a-goin' ter whip us, spite o' general lee, an' that this here jaw was a-goin' ter come all ter pieces. but i hadn't hardly lighted that pipe, sir, before i seen polly an' the kid right before me, lookin' peart an' gay, an' marse bob had done licked you all like the devil, an' my jaw was all right, an' goin' ter stay so. that's what terbacker does for a man."
the sergeant accepted these indications of the prisoner's sympathies with great good-humor.
"i've got some more of that same brand," said he; "it affects me kinder the same way too. when i smoke, it seems to me general grant is marchin' into richmond, and the bands is playin' 'yankee doodle,' and i'm a colonel ridin' at the head of my regiment."
kaintuck smiled at this. his smile was a mere contortion, but his deep strange eyes smiled luminously.
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"i reckon it's a kinder universal comforter. did it bring your wife and your kids right up before you?"
the sergeant was a great strapping fellow, six feet high; but at this pleasantry he blushed like a girl.
"i ain't got a wife, nor kids either; but—"
"you've got a girl, hain't you? come, sergeant, let's hear 'bout it. it's mighty lonesome somehow in this government hotel."
the sergeant laughed, and came closer to the window. just then a streak of sunlight fell upon him, as he stood with one foot advanced and his stalwart arms crossed; but the prison window and kaintuck remained in the gloom. the sergeant pulled his cap down over his eyes quite bashfully, and cleared his throat.
"now, i'm talking confidential, kaintuck—"
"an' you don't want me to tell the agreeable an' amusin' companions i have in here," continued kaintuck, in the same soft, slow voice. "fac' is, when a man's been in prison fur eighteen months, an' never had a soul but them doctors ter take no more notice of him ner a dog, excep' yourself, sergeant—"
kaintuck stopped. the retrospect struck him unpleasantly.
"well, i'm goin' to tell you what i ain't told even to my folks at home. i've got a girl—an' she's only twenty-one years old, an' a widder—an' the biggest rebel, b'gosh—"
the sergeant brought all this out in jerks, in
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termingled with suppressed laughter; and when he announced the last fact, kaintuck joined in his hilarity.
"blamed if women ain't the queerest lot," remarked kaintuck, chuckling.
"you bet," assented the sergeant, still laughing. "you oughter heard that gal sass me. there she was, all by herself in a little house, with a kid about two years old, an' when i come politely to tell her i'd take care the men didn't milk her cow or take her chickens, and told her she needn't be afraid of anything, she stood in her door, with that baby in her arms, and fairly poured hot shot into me. 'i'm a soldier's widow,' she says, her eyes blazing. 'do you think i know what it is to be afraid of you? oh, if this child only was a man to shoulder his dead father's musket!' now, you know, kaintuck, that kind o' talk from a poor young thing all dressed in black breaks a man all up. so i just kep' my cap in my hand, and i says, 'madam, i respect a soldier's widow, no matter which side the soldier fought on, and whether you'll agree or not, i'll make it my business to see that you'll have some kind of protection.' we was in winter quarters then, about a mile from her house. you know, men is hard to manage sometimes, and if i hadn't spoke to some of the officers, the poor thing's little all in the way of chickens and such would have gone. but i told my cap'n about it, and that her husband was killed in the rebel army, and he settled it so that not a man dared to be seen near that hen roost
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and cow pasture. but i don't know what she'd 'a done for wood if i hadn't looked out for her. i'd drop an armful, and knock at the door, and she'd open it. then i'd say, 'will you please to tell me where to put this?' 'anywhere you like,' she'd say, and go on with her knittin' an' sewin'. it kinder nettled me at first, but she looked so young and pitiful, i couldn't get mad with her. then somehow that young one got almighty fond of me. every time i'd pass by that little house—and i got to goin' by purty often—he'd come toddlin' out—he was a handsome youngster—and he'd howl like tarnation if i didn't take him up in my arms. at first his mother—her name's mary—would look black at me; but one day the little feller took my cap out of my hand, and tried to put it on his own head. 'no, sir,' says i. 'the lady yonder'll think you're poisoned if you put a blue cap on your head.' at that she laughed. i never seen her laugh before."
kaintuck had pressed his face close to the bars of the window to hear the sergeant's story by this time, and the sergeant had advanced a step or two so that they could talk in a low voice.
"go on," said kaintuck. "how did you git the better of her at last?"
"i don't know," answered the sergeant, pulling his cap down a little farther yet, and showing his white teeth in a smile. "first time i told her she was pretty—by george!"
the sergeant stopped short, completely overcome by the recollection.
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"kaintuck, she don't more'n come up to my shoulder, an' she weighs about a hundred pounds, but i thought she was going to whip me then and there. i've been scared nearly to death two or three times during this unpleasantness, but i swear, kaintuck, if that little widder wasn't the first rebel that started me on the dead run, without makin' some sort of a show of fightin'. however, i felt so mean about showing the white feather that i just determined i wasn't going to be stampeded that way again. so i braced up, an' put on my best uniform, an' went to see her again. she says, 'i'm a rebel, and i'm bound to be one always.' 'that's all right,' says i, 'bein' you're nothin' but a woman, and a mighty little one at that, and ma'am,' says i, 'this thing's goin' to be decided without the slightest reference to which side you are on.' she laughed, and then, without any sort o' warning, she turned her pretty face to the wall and begun to cry. after a while i talked to her sensible like. i says, 'here you are alone and unprotected. how are you going to bring up that boy? what'll you do when i go away?' she turned white, and held the child in her arms. i said, 'i'll not only do for you, but i'll do for the boy besides. i've got a little money saved up, and he'll have his share of it. he shan't never know what it is not to have a father if you'll marry me, mary.' so after a while, between crying and kissing the baby, and looking mournfully at the fire, she agreed to marry me if i'd wait till the spring, and in may i'm going to get leave—my cap'n
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knows all about it—and there'll be one rebel less, i believe, before long, though she does swear she'll never be anything but a rebel."
"sergeant," said kaintuck, "how did she take the partin'? since you've been so free, you won't mind my askin' the question."
the sergeant hesitated, but there was something so strangely sympathetic in poor kaintuck's humid eyes, and in the ghost of a smile that haunted his patient face, that the sergeant could not but tell. "she behaved like a little soldier till the last. i didn't half like her being so brave. but when she knew she was seein' me for the last time—well—er—i couldn't exactly tell another feller. anyhow, she had been makin' out all along she was thinkin' about the boy, but i swear i believe she forgot all about the blessed kid. she never told me in so many words, but i kinder suspect she didn't care so much about the dead feller as she thought. it leaked out in little things, that he was kind to her, and she wasn't out of her teens, and i don't believe she was really grown up until she heard he was dead in prison, and she had to look out for herself. howsomever," said the sergeant, pulling himself together, and laughing again—he was a good-natured fellow—"i've told you a durned sight of spooney stuff."
"an' i won't mention it to the rats, neither," answered kaintuck.
"it's time for me to be goin'," remarked the sergeant, with a sudden accession of shamefacedness following his confidences.
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"and i'm thinkin'," called out kaintuck after him as he strode away, "that little rebel widder is goin' to git a mighty good feller for a husband!"
for four or five days the sergeant was too busy to go near the prison, but one evening at nightfall, as he was trudging along to his quarters, some one hailed him. it was the chaplain, a small, meek man, as brave as a lion. he and the sergeant had seen service together.
"is that sergeant heywood?" he asked.
"yes, sir," answered the sergeant, touching his cap.
"there's a poor fellow down at the jail"—everybody called kaintuck a poor fellow—"who has been asking for you. he's going to die, i think."
the sergeant started. who ever bestowed kindness and care on a prisoner that did not come to love him finally? "why, sir?" asked the sergeant, after a pause. "what's the matter with him, sir?"
"nothing—but death. he is rather an extraordinary fellow. his determination to live brought him through enough to kill ten men. a day or two ago he got a letter, and since then he seems equally determined to die. these cases are not so uncommon, after all. did you never hear how easily a great strapping russian soldier dies of homesickness or disappointment—any little thing that takes away the desire of living?"
"may be it's the russian doctors, sir," replied the sergeant quite gravely. fear of shot and shell
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he knew not, but he had been seen to turn pale at the sight of the surgeon's scalpel, and to have crawled out to parade with a shaking ague on him rather than encounter a visit from that same surgeon.
the chaplain smiled. "it's not the doctors this time, though heaven knows i fear some of these army surgeons myself."
"i didn't think you was afraid of anything, sir, after that day at cedar mountain, when the officers kep' ordering you to the rear, and you wouldn't budge a peg."
a faint color crept into the chaplain's sallow face. this humble and unstudied tribute pleased him.
the sergeant was a strict disciplinarian, and knew better than to stand too long talking with his officer, so he touched his cap and moved on.
when he reached the prison, it was already dark. he walked through the long corridor until he reached kaintuck's cell, in which a lamp—a rare luxury—was burning. to the sergeant's surprise, kaintuck was up and dressed and sitting on the narrow bed. on his knees was a large new bible which the chaplain had given him, but which he was not reading. his strange eyes were fixed on the door, and when the sergeant's big figure filled up the doorway, something like joy flashed into his maimed face. he got up and shuffled over to meet the sergeant.
"why, sergeant," he cried, "i thought you had forgot me!"
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"no, i ain't forgot you," answered the sergeant kindly; "but the chaplain told me you was goin' to give us the slip. you don't look like it, though."
the shadow of a smile showed itself in kaintuck's eyes. he had a sort of primitive humor that delighted in surprises. "well, i am," he remarked, after a moment; "i feel it. i felt it the minute i got—her letter." something in his slow soft tone struck the sergeant and stopped the protest on his lips. kaintuck's life had hung on a thread for the best part of two years, and since he continued to live with great obstinacy in spite of the doctors, he might now die in defiance of them. "i'll tell you," he said, coming up closer to the sergeant and speaking in a distressed and hurried voice; "i ain't told none of 'em—not even the preacher, and he is a good man if he is a preacher. you see, mary—that's her name—i just called her polly for a nickname—she's heard down in jo daviess county, kaintucky, that i warn't dead, and she wrote me a letter sayin' she was comin' to me as soon as she was able—for the news kinder upset her, and she always was one of the high-strung kind—and she's goin' to bring my boy—he's named william, and that's my name—but, sergeant—"
kaintuck seized the sergeant's arm and gripped it hard. meanwhile at the mention of jo daviess county the sergeant had turned a little pale, and he grew paler and paler as kaintuck kept on.
"sergeant, i read that letter. it was the duti
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fulest letter a woman ever wrote. but—but—don't you know a woman can marry a feller, an' be dutiful an' patient, an' all the time her heart's on fire an' eatin' itself away in grief 'cause she's married the wrong feller?" he paused a moment, and then broke out desperately: "and that's the way with mary. she wasn't but seventeen when i married her. she was too young—she didn't know. an' here i am a mock an' a misery. i ain't fit to earn a livin' for her. she'll faint dead away when she sees this here." he struck his disfigured face savagely, and did not wince with the pain. "it's better for her, an' god knows it's better for me to die. after i got that letter i felt sorter low. the doctors kem in an' talked about my havin' flutterin's at the heart, an' givin' me brandy. did you ever hear o' brandy curing a broken heart? sergeant, i tell you i've got a blow worser'n that bullet that shot my jaw away. i didn't mean never to let her know i was alive unless i got cured an' made a man of again, and—and—" kaintuck dropped weakly down on the side of the bed. the sergeant then noticed that he was of a deathly color, and scarcely able to sit up, much less to stand. but the sergeant too wore a strange look, and his strong hands clinched behind his back were trembling.
kaintuck, fumbling in the breast of his butternut shirt, produced a little packet done up in white letter-paper, on which something was written, and took from it a tress of chestnut hair, soft and long.
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"this writin' is hers," he said, with a curious accent of pride, "and her hair is as long as this all over her head—and wavy."
the sergeant could not read the words because they danced before his eyes, but he knew the handwriting, and on his own breast reposed a lock of hair that matched the one poor kaintuck showed with such pride. kaintuck, in the frenzy of his suppressed excitement, did not notice the sergeant's pallor and agitation. he was wrestling furiously and blindly with his fate.
"now don't you see," he asked, "why i don't want her to come? i ain't got long to live. what's the use o' dragging her through it? an' i can tell you, sergeant, it would be a heap easier to die now than before i seen her an' the boy."
the sergeant turned quietly and walked out of the room. he went down the corridor toward the window that overlooked the court-yard, where everything was black but for occasional patches of moonlight. the grief and horror with which he was overcome had an added sting of conscience. he was an unlettered man, and was not used to arguing morals with himself. he felt oppressed with guilt at allowing kaintuck to go to his grave without knowing how things really were. but some instinctive common sense restrained him. it would only add a last cruelty of fate to tell him that he had been forgotten and supplanted; and the sergeant, after looking at kaintuck closely, had adopted the chaplain's opinion that kaintuck was not long for this world. he did not know how
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long he had stood at the window, when he became calmer, and returned along the corridor. the lamp was turned up in kaintuck's cell, and there were two or three men standing over the bed.
"sinkin' spells. doctors workin' with him," sententiously remarked the guard to the sergeant, pausing a moment in his regular tramp.
every day after that the sergeant came to see kaintuck, and every day kaintuck's face grew more pinched, and his eyes larger and more pathetic. the doctors first wheedled, then grew angry and scolded kaintuck. sometimes he would take the food and medicine prescribed for him, and again he would not; but all the time he traveled steadily toward the grave. occasionally he endured furious agonies of pain from his wounded jaw, which had suddenly grown violent again; and following that he would lie for hours completely free from pain, and apparently entirely at peace. but the poor sergeant was never at peace. a trouble, a shade, that took the form of an accusing spirit, walked with him all day, and lay down by his side at night. and if mary should come! the sergeant's heart leaped up into his throat at the bare idea. nevertheless he haunted the prison and kaintuck's cell, even when he was not on duty. one afternoon, when kaintuck had been feebler than usual, sitting by his bed, something like atonement seemed possible to the sergeant.
"kaintuck," he said, "may be you're troubled in your mind about that boy?"
"i ought to be, but i ain't," answered kain
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tuck, who shared the delusion of his class that all humanity should be troubled of many things, and should cherish grief and coddle sorrow. "i say, sergeant, that 'ere little sheep-faced preacher has made me feel different about things. he sets there where you is settin', an' talks to me kinder manly. i ain't never been converted"—here he blushed—"but—but the chaplain he says 'tain't how we feel so much as how we do. he says god will take keer of the child, and his mother too, an' sergeant, i believe it."
the sergeant had a reverent, simple soul, and lifted his cap from his head as kaintuck spoke god's name. "the chaplain's right," he said, putting his cap back; "and that there same little soft-spoken chaplain ain't any more afraid of bullets than general grant or general lee. and i've been thinkin' i'll find that boy of yours, and i'll do a good part by him."
kaintuck's eyes glistened. "you'll have an orphan asylum soon," he said, remembering that other boy the sergeant had told him he meant to provide for; at which the tall soldier felt his heart sink as with guilt and deception. presently kaintuck said:
"i think i'll go to sleep now, sergeant. what you said about lookin' out for the boy has made me feel a heap quieter. just have an eye to him and his mother once in a while; an', sergeant, i want him to grow up a honest man; do you hear that?—a honest man."
the sergeant went out of the room and down
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the jail corridor. no prisoner within its walls felt more sad and dispirited than he. down the wooden stairs he went, and out the door. at the steps outside was a little one-roomed frame building. in it at a table always sat a young officer, who examined the permits of the people who went in, and to whom the corporal of the guard reported. as the sergeant passed the open door of this little room he suddenly caught sight of a woman's figure clothed in black, standing by the table. the officer, contrary to his custom, had risen from his chair, and stood respectfully. the sergeant could not have moved to save his life. he heard the young woman's voice, as low and patient as kaintuck's:
"i thought, sir, that he was dead. i wouldn't have forgot him or neglected him for anything. i came right away from home, 'way down in jo daviess county, as soon as i could."
"you will find him very much changed, madam," answered the young officer, as deferentially as if the poor young country woman was the general's wife. "he has been well attended to, as he was a quiet and well-behaved prisoner, and the doctors have worked faithfully with him."
"i know, that, sir," she replied. "your men was very good to me when i was alone, and i thought my husband was dead, and i had nobody but my child. the cap'n looked out for me, though i was nothing but a poor woman, and—some others—"
she stopped suddenly, and the color stole into
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her pallid cheeks, when, looking up, she saw the sergeant standing white and dazed-looking before her. she turned a brilliant red, and then, in an instant, the color dropped out of her face as the mercury drops down in the tube. the officer caught her and placed her in the chair from which he had risen.
"mary," cried the sergeant, coming forward and taking her hand, "i didn't know it no more than you did. don't look at me that way. before god, i never would have deceived you. you know i ain't written you a line since i found this out less'n a week ago."
the young officer clapped his cap on his head and ran out, closing the door after him. he saw how it was in a moment.
"mary," said the sergeant again, after a pause, "don't you believe me?"
"yes, i believe you," she answered, recovering herself a little and standing up. she looked so slight and pale in her black dress that the big sergeant's heart smote him with pity. "but i don't think we can see each other any more. i ain't forgetful. the only thing for me and him to do is to get back to jo daviess county, and for me to tend and nurse him faithful. that's the only kind o' peace i look for now. it'll be hard on you, but men gets over these things better than women."
"do they?" cried the sergeant roughly and fiercely. "do they, i say? i'll get over mine by trying to get to the front all the time, and hopin' some rebel bullet'll end everything. for a man
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who loves another man's wife has got no place on earth. he's in hell already." her wide and frightened eyes caused the sergeant a pang of shame at his language and his violence. he hesitated a minute, and then said hurriedly: "i ask your pardon. i ask your pardon for all. good-by," and strode out of the little room.
but at the very door he came near running over the chaplain. the sergeant's strange looks made the chaplain seize him by the arm, and then the tall man saw that the little man too was agitated. his mouth was twitching, and he looked quite shaken and nervous.
"do you know kaintuck is dead?" he said. "it was rather sudden at the last. i have just come from his room. he was a good, simple-hearted fellow, full of love for his wife and child. he had very strange eyes. they retained their brightness to the last."
"for god's sake," cried the sergeant, "his wife's in there!"
the door opened and she came out. she had not heard anything, and she was about to pass them both, holding her head down patiently and deprecatingly. something in the chaplain's face stopped her, though—and she recognized his clerical attire.
"if you please," she said, "i'm—i'm going to my husband."
the chaplain took her hand and led her inside the prison door, while the sergeant walked rapidly out of the jail yard.
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the widow with her child went back to jo daviess county. they would have fared hardly, but for some money that came every month addressed to the child. the widow took it very thankfully, for they were poor and plain people, and when the sergeant had told her that he had promised poor kaintuck to look out for the boy, she thought quite naturally and simply that "looking out" meant wherewith to feed and clothe the child.
the sergeant did not turn up the next spring, but the spring after he came to jo daviess county. he was a sergeant still, and wore his worsted chevrons with a pride as honest as a major-general wears his stars. the little widow was not so pale and disheartened as she had been. the sergeant told her that he had got good quarters for her, and the boy could go to the company school, and that a non-commissioned officer's wife had a good billet—to all of which the little woman agreed, and thought it a fine thing to be married to a great tall sergeant. and soon not only she and the sergeant quite forgot poor kaintuck, but even the little boy grew up to think that the big kind sergeant was his only father.
