The Drummer Boy

by J. T. Trowbridge

  IX.

  THANKSGIVING IN CAMP.

  St. John's College stands on a beautiful eminence overlooking the city.The college, like the naval school, had been broken up by the rebellion;its halls and dormitories were appropriated to government uses, and theregiment was removed thither the next day.

  "You will be surprised," Frank wrote home, "to hear that I have beenthrough the naval school since I came here, and that I am now incollege."

  Few boys get through college as quick as he did. On the following day theregiment abandoned its new quarters also, and encamped two miles withoutthe city. In the afternoon the tents were pitched; and where was only abarren field before, arose in the red sunset light the canvas city, withits regular streets, its rows of tent doors opening upon them, and itsanimated, laughing, lounging, working inhabitants.

  The next morning was fine. All around the camp were pleasant growths ofpine, oak, gum, and persimmon trees, and now and then a tree festoonedwith wild grape-vines. Near by were a few scattered ancient-lookingfarm-houses, with their out-door chimneys, dilapidated out-buildings,negro huts, and tobacco fields. There were several other regiments in thevicinity,--two of Massachusetts boys. And there the New York Zouaves, intheir beautiful Oriental costumes, were encamped. Frank climbed a tree,and looked far around on the picturesque and warlike scene. The pickets,which had gone out the night before, now returning, discharged theirloaded pieces at targets, the reports blending musically with the nearand distant roll of drums.

  "What is the cheering for?" asked Frank, as he came in that day from aramble in the woods.

  "For General Burnside," said Gray. "All the troops rendezvousing atAnnapolis are to be under his command, to be called the Coast Division.It is to be another Great Armada; and our colonel thinks we shall seefighting soon."

  This good news had made the regiment almost wild with joy; for it desirednothing so much as to be led against the enemy by some brave and famousgeneral.

  Frank loved the woods; and the next day he induced his companions to gowith him and hunt for nuts and fruits. Although it was late in autumn,there were still persimmons and wild grapes to be had, and walnuts, andbutternuts. But Frank had another object in view than that of simplypleasing his appetite. Thanksgiving day, which is bred in the bones ofthe New Englander, and which he carries with him every where, was athand, and the drummer boy had thought of something which he fancied wouldsuit well the festal occasion.

  "What are you there after?" said John Winch, from a persimmon tree;"filling your hands with all that green stuff. Come here; O, these littleplums are delicious, I tell you."

  "These grapes are the thing," said Harris, from another tree. "I'm goingto eat all I can; then I'm going to get my pockets full of nuts and carryback to camp."

  Frank busied himself in his own way, however, and returned to camp withhis arms loaded with evergreens.

  "What in time are you about?" said Winch, as Frank set himselfindustriously to work with twigs and strings. "Oh, I know; wreaths! Boys,le's make some wreaths. Give me some of your holly, won't you, Frank?"

  "Yes," said Frank, "take all you want to use. I shall be very glad tohave you help me."

  "Will you show me how?"

  "Yes," said Frank; "sit down here. Bend your twigs and tie them together,in the first place, for a frame. Then bind the holly on it, this way."

  "O, ain't it fun?" said Winch, with his usual enthusiasm over a newthing. "When we get these evergreens used up, we'll get some more, andmake wreaths for all the tents." He worked for about ten minutes; thenbegan to yawn. "Where's my pipe? I'm going to have a smoke. How can youhave patience with that nonsense, Frank? What's the use of a wreath,anyhow, after it's made? Girl's play, I call it."

  And off went Winch, having used up a ball of Frank's strings to nopurpose, and leaving his wreath half finished.

  But Frank, never easily discouraged, kept cheerfully at work, leaving histask only when duty called him.

  Thursday came,--THANKSGIVING. A holiday in camp. The regiment had madeample preparations to celebrate it. Instead of pork and salt junk, themen were allowed turkeys; and in place of boiled hominy and molasses,they had plum pudding. And they feasted, and told gay stories, and sangbrave songs, and thought of home, where parents, wives, sisters, andfriends were, they fondly believed, eating turkey and plum pudding atthe same time, and thinking of them. There was no drill that day; and nopractise with any drumsticks but those of the devoted turkeys.

  One of the most pleasing incidents of the day occurred in the morning.This was the presentation of wreaths. Frank had made one for each of thecompany tents, and a fine one for Captain Edney, and one equally fine forMr. Sinjin, the drum-major, and a noble one for the colonel of theregiment. He presented them all in person, except the last, which herequested Captain Edney to present for him. The captain consented, and atthe head of a strong delegation of officers and men, proceeded to Colonel----'s tent, called him out, and made a neat little speech, and presentedthe wreath on the end of his sword.

  The colonel seemed greatly pleased.

  "I accept this wreath," he said, "as the emblemof a noble thought, whichI am sure must have inspired our favorite young drummer boy in makingit."

  Frank blushed like a girl with surprise and pleasure at this unexpectedcompliment.

  "The wreath," continued the colonel, "is the crown of victory; and wewill hang up ours, my fellow-soldiers, on this memorable Thanksgivingday, as beautiful and certain symbols of the success of BURNSIDE'SEXPEDITION."

  This short speech was greeted with enthusiastic applause. Frank wasdelighted with the result of his little undertaking, feeling himself athousand times repaid for all his pains; while John Winch, seeing him insuch high favor with every body, could not help regretting, with many ajealous pang, that he had not assisted in making the wreaths, and sobecome one of the heroes of the occasion.

  That evening another incident occurred, not less pleasing to the drummerboy. With a block of wood for a seat, and the head of his drum for adesk, he was writing a letter to his mother, by a solitary candle, aroundwhich his comrades were playing cards on a table constructed of a roughboard and four sticks. Amid the confusion of laughter and disputes, withheads or arms continually intervening between him and the uncertainlight, he was pursuing his task through difficulties which would havemade many a boy give up in vexation and despair, when a voice suddenlyexclaimed, with startling emphasis,--

  "Frank Manly, drummer!" And at the same instant something was thrown intothe tent, like a bombshell, passing the table, knocking over the candle,and extinguishing the light.

  "Well, that's manners, I should say," cried the voice of Seth Tucket, afellow, as Frank described him, "who makes lots of fun for us, partlybecause he is full of it himself, and partly because he is green, anddon't know any better." Tucket muttered and spat, then broke forth again,"I be darned ef that pesky football didn't take me right in the face, andspatter my mouth full of taller."

  "Well, save the _taller_, Seth, for we're getting short of candles," saidFrank. "Here, who is walking on my feet?"

  "It's me," said Atwater. "I'm going out to see who threw that thing in."

  "You're too late," said Frank. "Strike a light, somebody, and let's seewhat it is. It tumbled down here by my drum, I believe."

  There was a general scratching of matches, and after a while the brokencandle was set up and relighted.

  "I swan to man," then said Tucket, "jest look at that jack-of-spades. Hegot it in the physiognomy wus'n I did. 'Alas, the mother that him bare,if she had been in presence there, in his _greased cheeks_ and _greasierhair_, she had not known her child.'"

  These words from Marmion, aptly altered to suit the occasion, Seth, whowas not so green but that he knew pages of poetry by heart, repeated in ahigh-keyed, nasal sing-song, which set all the boys laughing.

  "A pretty way, too, to _turn up_ Jack, I should say," he added, inallusion to the candlestick,--a _tur
nip_, with a hole in it,--which hadrolled over his cards.

  In the mean time, Frank and Jack Winch were scrambling for the missile.

  "Let me have it," snarled Jack.

  "It's mine; my name was called when it was flung in," said Frank,maintaining his hold.

  "Well, keep it, then!" said John. "It's nothing but a great wad ofpaper."

  "It's a torpedo! an infernal machine!" cried Tucket. "Look out, Manly!it'll blow us all into the next Fourth of July."

  Frank laughed, as he began to undo the package. The first wrapper was ofbrown paper with these words written upon it, in large characters:--

  "FRANK MANLY, _Drummer_. _Inquire Within._"

  Beneath that wrapper was another, and beneath that another, and so on,apparently an endless series. The boys all gathered around Frank, lookingon as he removed the papers one by one, until the package, originally asbig as his head, had dwindled to the dimensions of his fist.

  "It's got as many peels as an onion," said Tucket.

  "Nothing but papers. I told ye so!" said Jack Winch.

  But Frank perceived that the core of the package was becomingcomparatively solid and weighty. There was certainly something besidespaper there. What could it be? a stone? But what an odd-shaped stone itwas! Stones are not often of such regular shape, so uniformly round andflattened. He had almost reached the last wrapper; his heart was beatinganxiously; but, before he removed it, he thought he heard a peculiarsound, and held down his ear. A flush of delight overspread hiscountenance, and he clasped the ball in both hands, as if it had beensomething precious.

  "O, boys!" he exclaimed, looking up eagerly for their sympathy, "where_did_ it come from? Atwater, did you see any body?"

  Nobody. It was all a mystery.

  "Boys, it's for me, isn't it?" said Frank, still hugging his treasure, asif afraid even of looking at it, lest it should fly away.

  "Come, let's see!" and Winch impatiently made a snatch to get at it.

  Atwater coolly took him by the arm, and pulled him back. Then Frank,carefully as a young mother uncovered the face of her sleeping baby,removed the tinsel paper, which now alone intervened between the objectand his hand, and revealed to the astonished eyes of his comrades a tiny,beautiful, smiling-faced silver watch.

  "O, isn't it a beauty?" said Frank, almost beside himself with delight;for a watch was a thing of which he had greatly felt the need in beatinghis calls, and wished for in vain. "Who could have sent it? Don't youknow, boys, any of you?" he asked, the mystery that came with the giftfilling him with strange, perplexed gladness.

  "All I know is," said Tucket, "I'd be willing to have six candles, alllit, knocked down my throat, and eat taller for a fortnight, ef such akind of a football, infernal machine,--_watch you call it_,--would onlycome to me."

  "Frank'll feel bigger 'n ever now, with a watch in his pocket," said theenvious Jack Winch, with a bitter grin.

  All had some remark to make except Atwater, who stood with his arms drawnup under his cape, and smiled down upon Frank well pleased.

  Frank in the mean time was busily engaged in trying to discover, amongall the papers, some scrap of writing by which the unknown donor might betraced. But writing there was none. And the mystery remained unsolved.