The Veteran

OUT OF THE LOW window could be seen three hickory trees placed irregularly in a meadow that was resplendent in spring-time green. Farther away, the old dismal belfry of the village church loomed over the pines. A horse meditating in the shade of one of the hickories lazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an oblong of vivid yellow on the floor of the grocery.

“Could you see the whites of their eyes?” said the man who was seated on a soap-box.

“Nothing of the kind,” replied old Henry warmly. “Just a lot of flitting figures, and I let go at where they 'peared to be the thickest. Bang!”

“Mr. Fleming,” said the grocer–his deferential voice expressed somehow the old man's exact social weight–“Mr. Fleming, you never was frightened much in them battles, was you?”

The veteran looked down and grinned. Observing his manner, the entire group tittered. “Well, I guess I was,” he answered finally. “Pretty well scared, sometimes. Why, in my first battle I thought the sky was falling down. I thought the world was coming to an end. You bet I was scared.”

Every one laughed. Perhaps it seemed strange and rather wonderful to them that a man should admit the thing, and in the tone of their laughter there was probably more admiration than if old Fleming had declared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they knew that he had ranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his heroism was fixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but then it was understood to be somewhere just shy of a major general's stars. So when old Henry admitted that he had been frightened, there was a laugh.

“The trouble was,” said the old man, “I thought they were all shooting at me. Yes, sir, I thought every man in the other army was aiming at me in particular, and only me. And it seemed so darned unreasonable, you know. I wanted to explain to 'em what an almighty good fellow I was, because I thought then they might quit all trying to hit me. But I couldn't explain, and they kept on being unreasonable–blim!–blam!–bang! So I run!”

Two little triangles of wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. Evidently he appreciated some comedy in this recital. Down near his feet, however, little Jim, his grandson, was visibly horror-stricken. His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes were wide with astonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent grandfather telling such a thing.

“That was at Chancellorsville. Of course, afterward I got kind of used to it. A man does. Lots of men, though, seem to feel all right from the start. I did, as soon as I ‘got on to it,’ as they say now; but at first I was pretty flustered. Now, there was young Jim Conklin, old Si Conklin's son–that used to keep the tannery–you none of you recollect him–well, he went into it from the start just as if he was born to it. But with me it was different. I had to get used to it.”

When little Jim walked with his grandfather he was in the habit of skipping along on the stone pavement in front of the three stores and the hotel of the town and betting that he could avoid the cracks. But upon this day he walked soberly, with his hand gripping two of his grandfather's fingers. Sometimes he kicked abstractedly at dandelions that curved over the walk. Any one could see that he was much troubled.

“There's Sickles's colt over in the medder, Jimmie,” said the old man. “Don't you wish you owned one like him?”

“Um,” said the boy, with a strange lack of interest. He continued his reflections. Then finally he ventured, “Grandpa–now–was that true what you was telling those men?”

“What?” asked the grandfather. “What was I telling them?”

“Oh, about your running.”

“Why, yes, that was true enough, Jimmie. It was my first fight, and there was an awful lot of noise, you know.”

Jimmie seemed dazed that this idol, of its own will, should so totter. His stout boyish idealism was injured.

Presently the grandfather said, “Sickles's colt is going for a drink. Don't you wish you owned Sickles's colt, Jimmie?”

The boy merely answered, “He ain't as nice as our'n.” He lapsed then into another moody silence.

One of the hired men, a Swede, desired, to drive to the county seat for purposes of his own. The old man loaned a horse and an unwashed buggy. It appeared later that one of the purposes of the Swede was to get drunk.

After quelling some boisterous frolic of the farmhands and boys in the garret, the old man had that night gone peacefully to sleep, when he was aroused by clamoring at the kitchen door. He grabbed his trousers, and they waved out behind as he dashed forward. He could hear the voice of the Swede, screaming and blubbering. He pushed the wooden button, and, as the door flew open, the Swede, a maniac, stumbled inward, chattering, weeping, still screaming, “De barn fire! Fire! Fire! De barn fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!”

There was a swift and indescribable change in the old man. His face ceased instantly to be a face; it became a mask, a gray thing, with horror written about the mouth and eyes. He hoarsely shouted at the foot of the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it seemed, there came down an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time the old lady had been standing in her nightclothes at the bedroom door, yelling: “What's th' matter? What's th' matter? What's th' matter?”

When they dashed toward the barn it presented to their eyes its usual appearance, solemn, rather mystic in the black night. The Swede's lantern was overturned at a point some yards in front of the barn doors. It contained a wild little conflagration of its own, and even in their excitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary vibration of the thrifty part of their minds at sight of this overturned lantern. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a calamity.