CHAPTER VI.
These hens were not the last things stolen from Oakland. Nearly allthe men in the country had gone with the army. Indeed, with theexception of a few overseers who remained to work the farms, every manin the neighborhood, between the ages of seventeen and fifty, was inthe army. The country was thus left almost wholly unprotected, and itwould have been entirely so but for the "Home Guard," as it wascalled, which was a company composed of young boys and the few old menwho remained at home, and who had volunteered for service as a localguard, or police body, for the neighborhood of their homes.
Occasionally, too, later on, a small detachment of men, under a leaderknown as a "conscript-officer," would come through the country huntingfor any men who were subject to the conscript law but who had evadedit, and for deserters who had run away from the army and refused toreturn.
These two classes of troops, however, stood on a very differentfooting. The Home Guard was regarded with much respect, for it wascomposed of those whose extreme age or youth alone withheld them fromactive service; and every youngster in its ranks looked upon it as atraining school, and was ready to die in defence of his home if needwere, and, besides, expected to obtain permission to go into the army"next year."
The conscript-guard, on the other hand, were grown men, and werethought to be shirking the very dangers and hardships into which theywere trying to force others.
A few miles from Oakland, on the side toward the mountain road andbeyond the big woods, lay a district of virgin forest and old-fieldpines which, even before the war, had acquired a reputation of anunsavory nature, though its inhabitants were a harmless people. Nohighways ran through this region, and the only roads which entered itwere mere wood-ways, filled with bushes and carpeted with pine-tags;and, being travelled only by the inhabitants, appeared to outsiders"to jes' peter out," as the phrase went. This territory was known bythe unpromising name of Holetown.
Its denizens were a peculiar but kindly race known to the boys as"poor white folks," and called by the negroes, with great contempt,"po' white trash." Some of them owned small places in the pines; butthe majority were simply tenants. They were an inoffensive people, andtheir worst vices were intemperance and evasion of the tax-laws.
They made their living--or rather, they existed--by fishing andhunting; and, to eke it out, attempted the cultivation of littlepatches of corn and tobacco near their cabins, or in the bottoms wheresmall branches ran into the stream already mentioned.
In appearance they were usually so thin and sallow that one had tolook at them twice to see them clearly. At best, they looked vague andillusive.
They were brave enough. At the outbreak of the war nearly all of themen in this community enlisted, thinking, as many others did, that warwas more like play than work, and consisted more of resting than oflaboring. Although most of them, when in battle, showed the greatestfearlessness, yet the duties of camp soon became irksome to them, andthey grew sick of the restraint and drilling of camp-life; so some ofthem, when refused a furlough, took it, and came home. Others stayedat home after leave had ended, feeling secure in their stretches ofpine and swamp, not only from the feeble efforts of theconscript-guard, but from any parties who might be sent in search ofthem.
In this way it happened, as time went by, that Holetown became knownto harbor a number of deserters.
According to the negroes, it was full of them; and many stories weretold about glimpses of men dodging behind trees in the big woods, orrushing away through the underbrush like wild cattle. And, though thegrown people doubted whether the negroes had not been startled by someof the hogs, which were quite wild, feeding in the woods, the boyswere satisfied that the negroes really had seen deserters.
This became a certainty when there came report after report of thesewood-skulkers, and when the conscript-guard, with the brightest ofuniforms, rode by with as much show and noise as if on a fox-hunt.Then it became known that deserters were, indeed, infesting the pinydistrict of Holetown, and in considerable numbers.
Some of them, it was said, were pursuing agriculture and all theirordinary vocations as openly as in time of peace, and moreindustriously. They had a regular code of signals, and nearly everyperson in the Holetown settlement was in league with them.
When the conscript-guard came along, there would be a rush oftow-headed children through the woods, or some of the women about thecabins would blow a horn lustily; after which not a man could be foundin all the district. The horn told just how many men were in theguard, and which path they were following; every member of the troopbeing honored with a short, quick "toot."
"What are you blowing-that horn for?" sternly asked the guard onemorning of an old woman,--old Mrs. Hall who stood out in front of herlittle house blowing like Boreas in the pictures.
"Jes' blowin' fur Millindy to come to dinner," she said, sullenly."Can't y' all let a po' 'ooman call her gals to git some'n' to eat?You got all her boys in d'army, killin' 'em; whyn't yo' go and gitkilt some yo'self, 'stidder ridin' 'bout heah tromplin' all over po'folk's chickens?"
When the troop returned in the evening, she was still blowing;"blowin' fur Millindy to come home," she said, with more sharpnessthan before. But there must have been many Millindys, for horns weresounding all through the settlement.
The deserters, at such times, were said to take to the swamps, andmarvellous rumors were abroad of one or more caves, all fitted up,wherein they concealed themselves, like the robbers in the stories theboys were so fond of reading.
After a while thefts of pigs and sheep became so common that they werecharged to the deserters.
Finally it grew to be such a pest that the ladies in the neighborhoodasked the Home Guard to take action in the matter, and after somedelay it became known that this valorous body was going to invadeHoletown and capture the deserters or drive them away. Hugh was toaccompany them, of course; and he looked very handsome, as well asvery important, when he started out on horseback to join the troop.It was his first active service; and with his trousers in his bootsand his pistol in his belt he looked as brave as Julius Caesar, andquite laughed at his mother's fears for him, as she kissed himgood-bye and walked out with him to his horse, which Balla held at thegate.
The boys asked leave to go with him; but Hugh was so scornful overtheir request, and looked so soldierly as he galloped away with theother men that the boys felt as cheap as possible.
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