OUT of the low window
could be seen three hickory trees placed irregularly in a meadow that was
resplendent in spring-time green. Farther away, the old dismal belfry of the
village church loomed over the pines. A horse meditating in the shade of one of
the hickories lazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an oblong of
vivid yellow on the floor of the grocery.
"Could you see the
whites of their eyes?" said the man who was seated on a soap-box.
"Nothing of the
kind," replied old Henry warmly. "Just a lot of flitting figures, and
I let go at where they 'peared to be the thickest. Bang!"
"Mr.
Fleming," said the grocer--his deferential voice expressed somehow the old
man's exact social weight--"Mr. Fleming, you never was frightened much in
them battles, was you?"
The veteran looked down
and grinned. Observing his manner, the entire group tittered. "Well, I
guess I was," he answered finally. "Pretty well scared, sometimes.
Why, in my first battle I thought the sky was falling down. I thought the world
was coming to an end. You bet I was scared."
Every one laughed.
Perhaps it seemed strange and rather wonderful to them that a man should admit
the thing, and in the tone of their laughter there was probably more admiration
than if old Fleming had declared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they
knew that he had ranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his
heroism was fixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but
then it 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 a laugh.
"The trouble
was," said the old man, "I thought they were all shooting at me. Yes,
sir, I thought every man in the other army was aiming at me in particular, and
only me. And it seemed so darned unreasonable, you know. I wanted to explain to
'em what an almighty good fellow I was, because I thought then they might quit
all trying to hit me. But I couldn't explain, and they kept on being
unreasonable--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 his feet, however, little Jim, his grandson,
was visibly horror-stricken. His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes
were wide with astonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent
grandfather telling such a thing.
"That was at
Chancellorsville. Of course, afterward I got kind of used to it. A man does.
Lots of men, though, seem to fell all right from the start. I did, as soon as I
'got on to it,' as they say now; but at first I was pretty flustered. Now,
there was young Jim Conklin, old Si Conklin's son--that used to keep the
tannery--you none of you recollect him--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 of skipping along on the stone
pavement in front of the three stores and the hotel of the town and betting
that he could avoid the cracks. But upon this day he walked soberly, with his
hand gripping two of his grandfather's fingers. Sometimes he kicked
abstractedly at dandelions that 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 his reflections. Then
finally he ventured: "Grandpa-- now--was that true what you 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, and there 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 then into another
moody silence.
One of the hired men, a
Swede, desired, to drive to the county-seat for purposes 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 get drunk.
After quelling some
boisterous frolic of the farm-hands and boys in the garret, the old man had
that night gone peacefully to sleep, when he was aroused by clamoring at the
kitchen door. He grabbed his trousers, and they waved out behind as he dashed
forward. He could hear the voice of the 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 face ceased instantly to be a face; it
became a mask, a gray thing, with horror written about the mouth and eyes. He
hoarsely shouted at the foot of the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it
seemed, there came down an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time
the old lady had been standing in her night- clothes at the bed-room 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 usual appearance, solemn, rather mystic
in the black night. The Swede's lantern 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 their excitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary
vibration of the 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, and above this noise could be heard
a humming like the song of innumerable bees. The old man hurled aside the great
doors, and a yellow flame leaped out at one corner and sped and wavered
frantically up the old gray wall. It was glad, terrible, this single flame,
like the wild banner of deadly and triumphant foes.
The motley crowd from
the garret had come with all the pails of the farm. They flung themselves upon
the well. It was a leisurely old machine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in
the habit of giving out water with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it,
cursed it; but it continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the
wheezy windlass had howled many protests at the mad-handed men.
With his opened knife
in his hand old Fleming himself had gone headlong into the barn, where the
stifling smoke swirled with the air-currents, and where could be heard in its
fulness the terrible chorus of the flames, laden with tones of hate and death,
a hymn of wonderful ferocity.
He flung a blanket over
an old mare's head, cut the halter close to the manger, 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 clothes bravely 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 clean miss with the sixth pailful, because the old man had turned and
was running down the decline and around to the basement of the barn, where
there were the stanchions of the cows. Some one noticed at the time that he ran
very lamely, as if one of the frenzied horses had smashed his hip.
The cows, with their
heads held in the heavy stanchions, had thrown themselves, strangled
themselves, tangled themselves: done everything which 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 power to rush into dangerous
situations.
The old man released
the cow nearest the door, and she, blind drunk with terror, crashed into the
Swede. The Swede had been running to and fro babbling. He carried an empty
milk-pail, to which he clung with an unconscious, fierce enthusiasm. He
shrieked like one lost as he went under the cow's hoofs, and the milk-pail,
rolling across the floor, made a flash of silver in the gloom.
Old Fleming took a
fork, beat off the cow, and dragged the paralyzed Swede to 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, they returned to the front of the barn and stood
sadly, breathing like men who had reached the final point of human effort.
Many people had come
running. Someone had even gone to the church, and now, from the distance, rang
the tocsin note of the old bell. There was a long flare of crimson on the sky,
which made remote people speculate as to the whereabouts of the fire.
The long flames sang
their drumming chorus in voices of the heaviest bass. The wind whirled clouds
of smoke and cinders into the faces of the spectators. The form of the old barn
was outlined in black amid these masses of orange-hued flames.
And then came this
Swede again, crying as one who is the weapon of the sinister fates. "De
colts! De colts! You have forgot de colts!"
Old Fleming staggered.
It was true; they had forgotten the two colts in the box-stalls at the back of
the barn. "Boys," he said, "I must try to get 'em out."
They clamored about him then, afraid for him, afraid of what they should see.
Then they talked wildly each to each. "Why, it's sure death!"
"He would never get out!" "Why, it's suicide for a man to go in
there!" Old Fleming stared absent-mindedly at the open doors. "The
poor 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 little bottle--had swelled like the genie of
fable. The smoke was tinted rose-hue from the flames, and perhaps the
unutterable midnights of the universe will have no power to daunt the color of
this soul.