THE VETERAN.
Out of the low window could be seen three hickory trees placedirregularly in a meadow that was resplendent in springtime green.Farther away, the old, dismal belfry of the village church loomed overthe pines. A horse meditating in the shade of one of the hickorieslazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an oblong of vividyellow on the floor of the grocery.
"Could you see the whites of their eyes?" said the man who was seated ona soap box.
"Nothing of the kind," replied old Henry warmly. "Just a lot of flittingfigures, and I let go at where they 'peared to be the thickest. Bang!"
"Mr. Fleming," said the grocer--his deferential voice expressed somehowthe old man's exact social weight--"Mr. Fleming, you never wasfrightened much in them battles, was you?"
The veteran looked down and grinned. Observing his manner, the entiregroup tittered. "Well, I guess I was," he answered finally. "Pretty wellscared, sometimes. Why, in my first battle I thought the sky was fallingdown. I thought the world was coming to an end. You bet I was scared."
Every one laughed. Perhaps it seemed strange and rather wonderful tothem that a man should admit the thing, and in the tone of theirlaughter there was probably more admiration than if old Fleming haddeclared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they knew that he hadranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his heroism wasfixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but thenit 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 alaugh.
"The trouble was," said the old man, "I thought they were all shootingat me. Yes, sir, I thought every man in the other army was aiming at mein particular, and only me. And it seemed so darned unreasonable,you know. I wanted to explain to 'em what an almighty good fellowI was, because I thought then they might quit all tryingto hit me. But I couldn't explain, and they kept on beingunreasonable--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 hisfeet, however, little Jim, his grandson, was visibly horror-stricken.His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes were wide withastonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent grandfathertelling such a thing.
"That was at Chancellorsville. Of course, afterward I got kind of usedto it. A man does. Lots of men, though, seem to feel all right from thestart. I did, as soon as I 'got on to it,' as they say now; but at firstI was pretty well flustered. Now, there was young Jim Conklin, old SiConklin's son--that used to keep the tannery--you none of you recollecthim--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 ofskipping along on the stone pavement in front of the three stores andthe hotel of the town and betting that he could avoid the cracks. Butupon this day he walked soberly, with his hand gripping two of hisgrandfather's fingers. Sometimes he kicked abstractedly at dandelionsthat 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 hisreflections. Then finally he ventured, "Grandpa--now--was that true whatyou 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, andthere 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 theninto another moody silence.
* * * * *
One of the hired men, a Swede, desired to drive to the county seat forpurposes 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 getdrunk.
After quelling some boisterous frolic of the farm hands and boys in thegarret, the old man had that night gone peacefully to sleep, when he wasaroused by clamouring at the kitchen door. He grabbed his trousers, andthey waved out behind as he dashed forward. He could hear the voice ofthe 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 faceceased instantly to be a face; it became a mask, a gray thing, withhorror written about the mouth and eyes. He hoarsely shouted at the footof the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it seemed, there camedown an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time the old ladyhad been standing in her night clothes 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 usualappearance, solemn, rather mystic in the black night. The Swede'slantern 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 theirexcitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary vibration ofthe thrifty part of their minds at sight of this overturned lantern.Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a calamity.
But the cattle in the barn were trampling, trampling, trampling, andabove this noise could be heard a humming like the song of innumerablebees. The old man hurled aside the great doors, and a yellow flameleaped out at one corner and sped and wavered frantically up the oldgray wall. It was glad, terrible, this single flame, like the wildbanner of deadly and triumphant foes.
The motley crowd from the garret had come with all the pails of thefarm. They flung themselves upon the well. It was a leisurely oldmachine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in the habit of giving outwater with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it, cursed it; butit continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the wheezywindlass had howled many protests at the mad-handed men.
With his opened knife in his hand old Fleming himself had gone headlonginto the barn, where the stifling smoke swirled with the air currents,and where could be heard in its fulness the terrible chorus of theflames, laden with tones of hate and death, a hymn of wonderfulferocity.
He flung a blanket over an old mare's head, cut the halter close to themanger, led the mare to the door, and fairly kicked her out to safety.He returned with the same blanket, and rescued one of the work horses.He took five horses out, and then came out himself, with his clothesbravely on fire. He had no whiskers, and very little hair on his head.They soused five pailfuls of water on him. His eldest son made a cleanmiss with the sixth pailful, because the old man had turned and wasrunning down the decline and around to the basement of the barn, wherewere the stanchions of the cows. Some one noticed at the time that heran very lamely, as if one of the frenzied horses had smashed his hip.
The cows, with their heads held in the heavy stanchions, had thrownthemselves, strangled themselves, tangled themselves: done everythingwhich the ingenuity of their exuberant fear could suggest to them.
Here, as at the well, the same thing happened to every man save one.Their hands went mad. They became incapable of everything save the powerto rush into dangerous situations.
The old man released the cow nearest the door, and she, blind drunk withterror, crashed into the Swede. The Swede had been running to and frobabbling. He carried an empty milk pail, to which he clung with anunconscious, fierce enthusiasm. He shrieked like one lost as he wentunder the cow's hoofs, and the milk pail, rolling across the floor, madea flash of silver in the gloom.
Old Fleming took a fork, beat off the cow, and dragged the paralyzedSwede t
o the open air. When they had rescued all the cows save one,which had so fastened herself that she could not be moved an inch, theyreturned to the front of the barn and stood sadly, breathing like menwho had reached the final point of human effort.
Many people had come running. Some one had even gone to the church, andnow, from the distance, rang the tocsin note of the old bell. There wasa long flare of crimson on the sky, which made remote people speculateas to the whereabouts of the fire.
The long flames sang their drumming chorus in voices of the heaviestbass. The wind whirled clouds of smoke and cinders into the faces of thespectators. The form of the old barn was outlined in black amid thesemasses of orange-hued flames.
And then came this Swede again, crying as one who is the weapon of thesinister fates. "De colts! De colts! You have forgot de colts!"
Old Fleming staggered. It was true; they had forgotten the two colts inthe box stalls at the back of the barn. "Boys," he said, "I must try toget 'em out." They clamoured about him then, afraid for him, afraid ofwhat they should see. Then they talked wildly each to each. "Why, it'ssure death!" "He would never get out!" "Why, it's suicide for a man togo in there!" Old Fleming stared absent-mindedly at the open doors. "Thepoor little things!" he said. He rushed into the barn.
When the roof fell in, a great funnel of smoke swarmed toward the sky,as if the old man's mighty spirit, released from its body--a littlebottle--had swelled like the genie of fable. The smoke was tintedrose-hue from the flames, and perhaps the unutterable midnights of theuniverse will have no power to daunt the colour of this soul.
THE END.
Other Books by Stephen Crane.
The Red Badge of Courage.
An Episode of the American Civil War.
"Never before have we had the seamy side of glorious war so well depicted."--_Chicago Evening Post._
"Of such interest that no one having begun it will lay it aside until the end is reached."--_Philadelphia Ledger._
"We have had many stories of the war; this stands absolutely alone."--_Boston Transcript._
"Has no parallel, unless it be Tolstoy's 'Sebastopol.'"--_San Francisco Chronicle._
"A strong book, and it is a true book; true to life."--_The Critic._
"Has been surpassed by few writers dealing with war."--_New York Mail and Express._
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.
"By writing 'Maggie' Mr. Crane has made for himself a permanent place in literature."--_New York Mail and Express._
"Full of clever descriptions.... Written in short, terse sentences, which compel the imagination rather than stimulate it."--_Boston Herald._
"A powerful portrayal."--_New York Times._
The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War Page 20
