A Rebellion in Dixie by Harry Castlemon (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

Dan was Newman’s oldest brother. All we can say about him is that he was Cale Newman over again. Dan was the one that stole 200the bacon and sweet potatoes that the family lived on. He had courage to go where Cale wouldn’t dare show his head.

“But we would a-had to go afoot,” said Newman, in an injured tone. “I couldn’t walk so fur.”

“It seems the others did it without any trouble. You could have gone there and showed your good-will, if you had been a-mind to. I reckon you will find it better to do without a mule.”

“You gave Tom Howe one and said nothing about it,” said Newman, growing angry again.

“I did?” said the quartermaster.

“Old Sprague done it, and it amounts to the same thing.”

“Look here, Newman, you want to be careful how you talk about that man. He ain’t a common civilian any more.”

“What is he, then, I would like to know?”

“He’s got power enough to put you where people won’t hear you say that,” said the officer, fastening his eyes sternly on Newman’s face. “He will put you in jail.”

201“Well, I’ll bet he won’t put me in jail, neither. My father has got friends enough to tear it up.”

“Well, Cale, if you are going to hold to such doctrines as that you might as well go among the Confederates, where you belong. You don’t belong here, that is certain.”

“If you will give me a muel I won’t hold no such docterings,” said Newman. “I’ll be the loyalest fellow you ever see.”

The quartermaster looked at Newman in amazement.

“What kind of a fellow are you, any way?” he asked. “You are going to be loyal or not, just as you get paid for it.”

“That’s the way my father looks at it. You didn’t give him an office, and now he’s going to let you hoe your own row. Now, if I could have a muel to ride around—”

“Well, you’ll not get any, I can tell you that. And, furthermore, if I hear any more such talk from you I’ll have you arrested.”

“My father says—”

“I’ve heard enough. Don’t speak to me again. A man who will depend upon a mule 202for his loyalty don’t amount to much. Now go away, and don’t let me see you again.”

The quartermaster was very angry as he turned away, and Newman stood and watched him while he went on inspecting the wagons. Then he took a chew of “nigger-twist,” shook his head threateningly, and turned his steps toward home.

“You have heard enough, have you?” he muttered, as he followed the blind path that led through the woods toward the little shanty under which his family found shelter. “Well, I’ll bet you will hear more of it before to-morrow night. If father don’t give you into the hands of the rebels I will.”

When Newman arrived within sight of his home he found his father sitting on the door-step smoking his pipe, while his brother Dan was stretched in a sunny spot where he could enjoy the full benefit of the warmth without going near the fire. His mother was engaged in a lazy sort of way over a blaze which had been started in the fireplace; that is to say, she was sitting down and watching a pot that had been set over the coals, while a dingy cob 203pipe, like her husband’s, was tightly clasped between her teeth. The house was a tumble-down affair, and looked as though it was about to come to pieces, with a dirt floor, and the door beside which Mr. Newman was sitting was minus a hinge near the top. The family were all of them what might have been expected by this description of their place of abode. And the work, which might have been accomplished by one man in three or four days to make his house worth living in, was not above Mr. Newman’s ability, for he showed on his face that he had seen better times. He had been wealthy once, but now he had lost it, and was much too lazy to go to work and earn more. That accounted for Cale’s way of talking. He didn’t say “pap” and “mam” unless he spoke before he thought, for he considered himself better than those with whom he associated. The raftsmen used to say that if Mr. Newman’s work was equal to his talk he would have a much better house to live in.

“Well, Cale, what’s the matter with you?” inquired his father, as the new-comer approached 204the place where they were sitting. “You act as though you had lost your last friend.”

“I want to tell you what has happened down there in town, and see if you wouldn’t look so, too,” said Cale, seating himself on the ground. “I asked old Sprague and the quartermaster—”

“Quartermaster nothing,” exclaimed Mr. Newman. “Who gave him such an office as that? He had the handling of the mules and horses and would not give you one.”

“That’s just the way of it,” said Cale. “Now, I want to know if such a thing is right? He gave Tom Howe one and never said nothing about it; but he wouldn’t give me one for fear that I wouldn’t be on hand when he was going out to capture the next wagon-train.”

“No more would you,” said his mother, at that moment appearing at the door to hear what Cale had to say. “You ain’t on that side. The South is going to whip, and you don’t want to be beholden to those fellows for anything.”

205“I told ’em if they would give me a muel I would be just the loyalest fellow he ever saw,” said Cale.

“The more shame to you,” said his mother, angrily.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” chimed in Mr. Newman. “If he could get a mule or one of the horses he could fly around easy, carrying dispatches and the like. He could be here to-day and see what was going on, and to-night he could get on his mule and take the news down to the Confederates. Wouldn’t he give you a mule?”

“No, he wouldn’t, I tried Sprague and the quartermaster, too, and they both threatened to arrest me if I talked so any more.”

“Well, I do think in my soul that they are getting on a high horse,” said Mr. Newman, taking the pipe from his mouth. “I’d like to see them arrest you or anybody connected with this family. Their old jail would stay up about as long as I could get to it with an axe.”

“That’s what I told ’em; and he said that I mustn’t talk that way any more.”

206“Say,” said Dan, who had mustered up energy enough to straighten up during this talk and was now engaged in filling a cob pipe with some nigger-twist, “you don’t suppose that the men who were captured with that wagon-train have gone on to Mobile, do you? It seems to me that they ought to be back here to-night or to-morrow. Them fellows ain’tain’t a-going to stand still and let themselves be robbed of half a million dollars’ worth.”

“Don’t I wish I had the stuff that’s in one of them wagons!” exclaimed Cale. “There’s grub enough to keep our jaws wagging for one good solid year; and clothes! You just ought to see the uniforms there is in there.”

“I came away before they got to inspecting the wagons,” said Mr. Newman. “Somehow I couldn’t manage to stay around and see the clothes and things our fellows were going to wear go to those lazy vagabonds.”

That was one reason why Mr. Newman came away before the wagons were overhauled, but the principal motive that governed him was because he did not want to see others saluted. His attention was first called to it 207by the actions of Bud McCoy. Bud didn’t care for anything, but he seemed to be carried away by his Union sentiment, and once, when he spoke to Mr. Sprague, he did it without saluting; but he thought of it at once, and came back and touched his hat to him.

“I declare, Mr. Secretary of War, I almost forgot my manners to you. I forgot that you ain’t a plain raftsman any more.”

Mr. Newman would have given a good deal if he could have been saluted that way, and because he was not, he didn’t care to stay around where the crowd was.

“Mr. Sprague let on that he didn’t want to be saluted every time a man spoke to him, but I know a story worth two of that,” said Mr. Newman, getting upon his feet and pacing up and down in front of his house. “I am better able to hold that position than anybody else, because I have seen more military than they have. But no, they had to go and give it to a man who don’t know a thing about it.”

“That’s just what I told them,” said Cale.

“And what did they say?”

“They said I couldn’t have the muel.”

208“Well, now, if those fellows come back here,” said Dan, “what’s the reason we can’t help them get all the chief men of the county? I am in it, for one.”

“Here, too,” said Cale.

“You must be careful what you do,” said Mr. Newman. “They have got sentries posted down there, and you can’t get by them without the countersign.”

“Then we’ll go below the bridge and swim the creek,” said Dan. “If I go into this business I shall go in all over.”

“If you will do that you may be able to get me the commission of Colonel of the Confederate army,” said Mr. Newman. “I never told you this before, but I shall ask that or nothing.”

“A colonel!” ejaculated Cale, with intense enthusiasm. “Then you will have command. He rides a horse, doesn’t he?”

“He certainly does, and he’s got a commission backed by a government. He’s higher than the President of the Jones-County Confederacy. That’s the commission I am working for.”

209One would not have thought that Mr. Newman was working very hard for that commission to have seen him at that moment. In fact he did not seem to be working for anything. He was sitting there perfectly quiet and waiting for the commission to come to him.him.

“I tell you, boys, you must work hard for that colonel’s shoulder-straps,” said Mrs. Newman, taking her stand in the door with her arms placed on her hips. “You won’t be wearing no ragged clothes like you be now, and I’ll have a silk dress to wear at all seasons. You won’t catch me around cooking as I am now. I’ll be a lady, and have a better pipe than this to smoke.”

“And who knows but that father might get us something?” said Dan. “I’ll bet if you held old Sprague’s position you would give me something besides a private in your ranks.”

“That’s just what I am thinking of,” returned Mrs. Newman. “Your father was telling me about it last night. Of course he would have a staff, and you two would come in for two of the offices mighty handy. I tell 210you you want to work hard. Your father doesn’t seem to be able to do anything.”

“And what is the reason?” exclaimed Mr. Newman, taking his pipe from his mouth with one hand and extending the other toward his wife. “Do you suppose I am going to run down there among all that crowd and stand all the risk of getting my neck stretched for treachery? The boys can do what they please and nobody will say a word to them; but let me go down there and carry news of what has been going on and you will see how long you have got a husband to take care of you. It ain’t safe for me to go there.”

“I didn’t think about your being hung,” said Mrs. Newman, indifferently.

“Of course that is what they are up to, and they are thinking now how it could be done.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Cale, “they told me that I had best go among the rebels, where I belonged.”

“Don’t that prove what I said? I ain’t going down there any more. But I want to see them lock you up, if they dare do it. That’s what I am aching for.”

211But Cale didn’t agree with his father’s opinions in regard to locking him up, and he secretly resolved that he wouldn’t say anything more in the presence of the quartermaster that would lead him to carry that resolution into effect. His father filled his pipe and sat down in his usual place in the doorway, and Cale, following the motion of Dan’s head, accompanied him around behind the house. Mr. Newman