Crittenden

Back in the Bluegrass, the earth was flashing with dew, and the air was

brilliant with a steady light that on its way from the sun was broken by

hardly a cloud. The woodland was alive with bird-wing and bird-song and,

under them, with the flash of metal and the joy of breaking camp. The

town was a mighty pedestal for flag-staffs. Everywhere flags were shaken

out. Main Street, at a distance, looked like a long lane of flowers in a

great garden--all blowing in a wind. Under them, crowds were

gathered--country people, negroes, and townfolk--while the town band

stood waiting at the gate of the park. The Legion was making ready to

leave for Chickamauga, and the town had made ready to speed its going.

Out of the shady woodland, and into the bright sunlight, the young

soldiers came--to the music of stirring horn and drum--legs swinging

rhythmically, chins well set in, eyes to the front--wheeling into the

main street in perfect form--their guns a moving forest of glinting

steel--colonel and staff superbly mounted--every heart beating proudly

against every blue blouse, and sworn to give up its blood for the flag

waving over them--the flag the fathers of many had so bitterly fought

five and thirty years before. Down the street went the flash and glitter

and steady tramp of the solid columns, through waving flags and

handkerchiefs and mad cheers--cheers that arose before them, swelled

away on either side and sank out of hearing behind them as they

marched--through faces bravely smiling, when the eyes were full of

tears; faces tense with love, anxiety, fear; faces sad with bitter

memories of the old war. On the end of the first rank was the boy Basil,

file-leader of his squad, swinging proudly, his handsome face serious

and fixed, his eyes turning to right nor left--seeing not his mother,

proud, white, tearless; nor Crittenden, with a lump of love in his

throat; nor even little Phyllis--her pride in her boy-soldier swept

suddenly out of her aching heart, her eyes brimming, and her

handkerchief at her mouth to keep bravely back the sob that surged at

her lips. The station at last, and then cheers and kisses and sobs, and

tears and cheers again, and a waving of hands and flags and

handkerchiefs--a column of smoke puffing on and on toward the

horizon--the vanishing perspective of a rear platform filled with jolly,

reckless, waving, yelling soldiers, and the tragedy of the parting was

over.

How every detail of earth and sky was seared deep into the memory of the

women left behind that afternoon--as each drove slowly homeward: for God

help the women in days of war! The very peace of heaven lay upon the

earth. It sank from the low, moveless clouds in the windless sky to the

sunlit trees in the windless woods, as still as the long shadows under

them. It lay over the still seas of bluegrass--dappled in woodland,

sunlit in open pasture--resting on low hills like a soft cloud of

bluish-gray, clinging closely to every line of every peaceful slope.

Stillness everywhere. Still cattle browsing in the distance; sheep

asleep in the far shade of a cliff, shadowing the still stream; even the

song of birds distant, faint, restful. Peace everywhere, but little

peace in the heart of the mother to whose lips was raised once more the

self-same cup that she had drained so long ago. Peace everywhere but for

Phyllis climbing the stairs to her own room and flinging herself upon

her bed in a racking passion of tears. God help the women in the days of

war! Peace from the dome of heaven to the heart of the earth, but a

gnawing unrest for Judith, who walked very slowly down the gravelled

walk and to the stiles, and sat looking over the quiet fields. Only in

her eyes was the light not wholly of sadness, but a proud light of

sacrifice and high resolve. Crittenden was coming that night. He was

going for good now; he was coming to tell her good-by; and he must not

go--to his death, maybe--without knowing what she had to tell him. It

was not much--it was very little, in return for his life-long

devotion--that she should at least tell him how she had wholly outgrown

her girlish infatuation--she knew now that it was nothing else--for the

one man who had stood in her life before him, and that now there was no

other--lover or friend--for whom she had the genuine affection that she

would always have for him. She would tell him frankly--she was a grown

woman now--because she thought she owed that much to him--because, under

the circumstances, she thought it was her duty; and he would not

misunderstand her, even if he really did not have quite the old feeling

for her. Then, recalling what he had said on the drive, she laughed

softly. It was preposterous. She understood all that. He had acted that

little part so many times in by-gone years! And she had always pretended

to take him seriously, for she would have given him mortal offence had

she not; and she was pretending to take him seriously now. And, anyhow,

what could he misunderstand? There was nothing to misunderstand.