Chapter 7

In the mean time the boys watching from their ambush, and seeing that the rebel had gone off with Frank, but left his dog and negro behind, armed themselves with clubs. When all was ready, Winch gave the word, and forward they dashed at the doublequick, clearing more than half the space intervening between them and the barns, before they were discovered by the enemy. Then the dog bounded out with a bark, and the old negro began to "holler," and the rebel's wife and daughter ran out and screamed, and an old negress also appeared, brandishing a broom, and adding her voice to the chorus.

At this moment the report of a gun came from the direction in which the secessionist had gone off with Frank.

John Winch heard it, just as the dog met the charging party. Who was killed? Frank or Seth? John did not know, but he was frightened. He had come for fun and poultry, not for fighting and bullets. Neither was he particularly ambitions to be bitten by that monstrous dog. He lost faith in his club, and dropped it. He lost confidence in the prowess of his companions, and deserted them. In short, Jack Winch, who had been one of the most eager to engage in the adventure, took ignominiously to his heels.

He reached the thicket before venturing to look behind him. Then he saw that his comrades had frightened away the negro, beaten back the dog, and taken the turkey-pen by storm. He would now have been but too glad to join them; but it was too late. Having accomplished their undertaking, they were returning, each bringing, pendent by the legs, a flopping fowl.

It is better to be a brave man than a coward, even in a bad cause. Fortune often favors brave men in the wrong in preference to aiding cowards in the right, for Fortune loves not a poltroon. John Winch felt at that moment that nobody henceforth would love or favor him, and he began to frame excuses for his shameful conduct.

"Hello, Jack Winch," cried Ellis, coming up with a turkey in one hand and a chicken in the other, "you're a smart leader--to run away from a yelping dog like that!"

"Coward! coward!" chimed in the others, with angry contempt.

"I sprained my ankle. Didn't you know it?" said the miserable Jack, with a writhing countenance, limping.

"Sprained your granny!" exclaimed Harris. "I never saw a sprained ankle go over the ground as fast as yours did, just as we came to the dog."

"Then I heard the gun," said Jack, "and I was afraid either Seth or Frank was shot."

"Woe to the man of turkeys if they are!" said Joe, twisting the neck of his fowl to quiet it. "We'll serve him as I am serving this hen."

The boys hastened to a rendezvous they had appointed with the absent ones, followed by Jack at a very creditable pace, considering his excruciating lameness.

As yet, neither Frank nor Seth had been shot. The charge of buck shot fired from the rebel fowling-piece had entered the bushes just as the blue uniform left them. But the secessionist cocked the other barrel of his piece immediately, with the intention of making up for the error of his first aim.

"Shoot me," shouted Seth, "and you'll be swinging from that limb in five minutes!"

The man hesitated, glancing quickly about for those who were expected to put Seth's threat into execution.

"I've twenty fellows with me," added Seth, "and they'll string you up in no time, by darn!"

The secessionist was not so much impressed by the rather slender oath with which Seth clinched his speech, as by the sharp and earnest tone in which the whole was uttered,--Seth walking savagely up to him as he spoke. All the while, the alarm raised by the negro, and the dog, and the women, was sounding in the man's ears.

"They're after my turkeys! This is your trick, boy!" and he sprang upon Frank, lifting his gun as if to level him to the earth.

But Seth sprang after him, and seized the weapon before it descended. That green down-easter was cool as if he had been at a game of ball. He was an athletic youth, and he readily saw that Buckley, though a sturdy farmer, was no match for him. He pushed him back, shouting shrilly, at the same time, in the words of his favorite poet,--

"'Now, if thou strik'st him but one blow, I'll hurl thee from the brink as far as ever peasant pitched a bar!'"

This strange form of salutation astonished the rebel even more than the rough treatment he received at the hands of the vigorous and poetical Tucket. He saw that it was no time to stay and parley. He knew that his turkeys were going, and, muttering a parting malediction at Frank, he set off at a run to protect his poultry-yard.

"Now's our time," said Tucket, starting for the rendezvous, and striking into another quotation from his favorite minstrel, parodied for the occasion. "'Speed, Manly, speed! the cow's tough hide on fleeter foot was ne'er tied. Speed, Manly, speed! such cause of haste a drummer's sinews never braced. For turkey's doom and rebel deed are in thy course--speed, Manly, speed!'"

And speed they did, arriving at the place of meeting just as their companions came up with the poultry.

"Hello, Jack!" said Frank; "what's the matter with you?"

"He stumbled over a great piece of bark," Ellis answered for Winch.

"Did you, Jack?"

"Yes!" said Jack, putting on a look of anguish. He had not thought of the bark before, but supposing Ellis had seen such a piece as he spoke of, he accepted his theory of the stumbling as readily as the rebel had recognized in Seth's gobbling one of his own lost turkeys. "And broke my ankle," added Jack.

"What kind of bark was it? do you know?" said Ellis.

"No. I was hurt so I didn't stop to look."

"Well, I'll tell you. It was the dog's bark." And Ellis and his comrades shouted with laughter, all except poor Jack Winch, who knew too well that no other kind of bark had checked his progress.

Then the turkey-stealers had their adventure to relate, and Frank had his amusing story to tell, and Tucket could brag how near he had come to being shot for one of Buckley's gobblers, and all were merry but Jack, who had brought from the field nothing but a counterfeit lameness and dishonor, and who accordingly lagged behind his comrades, sulky and dumb.

"He limps dreadfully--when any body is looking at him," said Harris.

"Nobody killed, and only one wounded," said Frank.

"The sight of old Buckley coming with his dog would be better than a surgeon, to cure that wound," said Tucket. "You'd see Winch leg it faster 'n any of us--like the old woman that had the hypo's, and hadn't walked a step for twenty years, and thought she couldn't; but one day her friends got up a ghost to scare her, and she ran a mile before they could ketch her."

Do you know how these jokes, and the laughter that followed, sounded on the ear of Jack Winch? Even the bark of the rebel mastiff was music in comparison, and his bite would have hurt him less.

"By the way," said Seth, "the old skinflint will be after us, sure as guns. Hurry! or we'll hear--'The deep-mouthed bull-dog's heavy bay resounding up the rocky way, and faint, from farther distance borne, the darned old rebel's dinner horn.' Give me that chicken, Ellis. And, boys, we must manage some way to smuggle these fowls into camp. I can carry this chicken under my coat; but how in Sam Hill you'll manage with the turkeys, I don't see."

"I know," said Frank, always full of invention. "If nobody else has a better plan, I've thought of a good one."

Several devices were suggested, but none met with general approbation. Then Frank explained his.

"Cover up the turkeys with evergreens, and we will go in with our arms full, as if we were going to make wreaths for the regiment."

This plan was agreed upon, and shortly after the adventurers might have been seen returning to camp loaded down with boughs and vines. Jack alone came in empty-handed. Frank had no turkey, and so he threw down his load outside the tent, where any one could examine it.

It was not long before the owner of the turkeys made his appearance, carrying to headquarters his complaint of the robbery. Unfortunately, Frank was not only known as a drummer boy, but he wore the letter of his company on his cap. Besides, his youth rendered his identification comparatively easy. As might have been expected, therefore, he was soon called to an account. Captain Edney himself came to investigate the matter, accompanied by the secessionist.

"That's the boy," said Buckley, with determined vindictiveness, when Frank was arraigned before him.

Frank could not help looking a little pale, for he felt that he was in a bad scrape, and how he was to get out of it, without either lying or betraying his accomplices, he could not see. He did not care so much about himself, but he would not for any thing have borne witness against the others. He had almost made up his mind to tell a sturdy falsehood, if necessary,--to stoop to a dishonorable thing in order to avoid another, which he considered even more damaging to his character. For such is commonly the result of wrongdoing; one step taken, you must take another to retrieve that. One foot in the mire, you must put the other in to get that out.

However, the drummer boy still hoped that by putting a bold face on the matter, and prevaricating a little, he might still keep clear of that thing he had been taught always to abhor--a downright untruth.

"This man brings serious charges against you, Frank," said Captain Edney.

"I should think it was for me to bring charges against him," replied Frank, trying to look indignant.

"Why, what has he done to you?" The captain could not help smiling as he spoke, and Frank felt encouraged.

"He's a rebel of the worst kind. He is always insulting the federal uniform, and he seems to think that whoever wears it is a villain. He threatened to set his dog on me the other day, and to-day he was going to knock me down with his gun."

"What was he going to knock you down for? You must have done something to provoke him."

"Yes, I did!" said Frank, boldly. "I went to his house, and asked him, in the politest way I could, if he would sell us fellows a turkey. I might have known that it would provoke him, for he has been heard to say he'd rather his turkeys should die in the pen than that a Union soldier should have one, even for money."

It was evident to the secessionist that instead of making out a case against the boy, the boy was fast making out a case against him. In his impatience he broke forth into violent denunciations of Frank, but Captain Edney stopped him.

"None of that, sir, or I'll send you out of the camp forthwith. He says,"--turning to Frank,--"that you decoyed him into the woods while your companions stole his turkeys."

"Decoyed him?" said Frank. "He may call it what he pleases. I'll tell you just what I did, sir. He said he hadn't any turkeys. So I said, 'Then the one I heard in the woods, as I came along, isn't yours--is it?'"

"Had you heard one?"

"I had heard a noise so much like one,"--laughing,--"that he himself, when he heard it, was ready to swear it was his gobbler."

"And was it really a turkey?"

"No, sir. It was Seth Tucket hid behind the bushes."

Frank was now conscious of making abundant fun for his comrades, who all crowded around, listening with delight to the investigation. Even Captain Edney smiled, as he gave a glance at the green-looking, seriously-winking Seth.

"So it was you that played the gobbler, Tucket," said the captain.

"I hope there wan't no great harm in't ef I did, sir," replied Seth, with ludicrous mock solemnity. "Bein' Christmas so, I thought I'd like a little bit of turkey, sir, ef 'twant no more than the gobble. And there I was, enjoying it all by myself, hevin' a nice time, when this man comes up and lays claim to me for his turkey."

This sober declaration, uttered in a high key, with certain jerks of the arms and twists of the down-east features, which Seth could use with the drollest effect, excited unrestrained mirth among the men, and made the officer's sword-belts shake not a little with the suppressed merriment inside.

"What do you mean by his claiming you?" asked the captain.

"He told Manly I belonged to him, and that some thieving Yankee had stolen me." said Seth, with open eyes and mouth, as if he had been making the most earnest statement. "Now I'll leave it to any body ef that's so. And I guess that's about all his complaints of hevin' turkeys stole amounts to; for ef he can make a mistake so easy in my case, he may in others. Though mabby he means I stole the _gobble_ of one of his turkeys. I own it's a gobble I picked up somewheres, but I didn't know 'twas his." And Tucket drew down his face with an expression of incorruptible innocence.

"Well, boys," said the captain, silencing the laughter, "we have had fun enough for the occasion, though it _is_ a merry Christmas. No more buffoonery. Tucket. Were you aware, Frank, that it was Tucket, and not a turkey, in the bushes, when you took this man to the woods?"

"I rather thought it was Tucket," said Frank, "though the man stuck to it so stoutly that 'twas his gobbler, I didn't know but----"

"Never mind about that." The captain saw that it was Frank's object to lead the inquiry back to the ludicrous part of the business, and promptly checked him. "What was your motive in deceiving him?"

"To have a little fun, sir."

"Did you not know that there was a design to rob his poultry pen?"

Frank recollected his momentary doubts as to the good faith of his companions, when the dog assailed him, and thought he could make that uncertainty the base of a strong "No, sir."

"But you know his pen was robbed?"

"No, sir, I do not know it----," Frank reflecting as he spoke, that a man cannot really _know_ any thing of which he has not been an eye-witness, and comforting his conscience with the fact that he had not _seen_ the turkeys stolen.

"Now,"--Captain Edney did not betray by look or word whether he believed or doubted the boy's assertion,--"tell me who was with you in the woods."

"Seth Tucket, sir."

"Who else?"

"O, ever so many fellows had been with me."

"Name them."

And Frank proceeded to name several who had really been with him that morning, but not on the forage after poultry. On being called up and questioned, they were able to give the most positive testimony, to the effect that they had neither stolen any fowls themselves nor been with any party that had. In the mean time the sergeant and second lieutenant instituted a search through the company's tents, and succeeded in finding a solitary turkey, which nobody could give any account of, and which nobody claimed. This the secessionist identified; averring that there were also a dozen more, besides several chickens, for which redress was due. But not one of them could be discovered, perhaps because they were so skilfully concealed, but more probably because those who searched were not anxious to find.

Captain Edney accordingly paid the man for the loss of the single turkey, which he ordered sent immediately to the hospital. He also told the secessionist that he would pay him for all the poultry he was ready to swear had been appropriated by the men of his company, provided he would first take the oath of allegiance to the United States. This Buckley sullenly refused to do, and he was immediately conducted by a guard outside the lines. Seth Tucket followed at a short distance, saying, as he put his hand in his pocket, as if to produce some money, "Say, friend! better le' me pay ye for that gobble I stole. Any thing in reason, ye know."

But Buckley gave him only a glance of compressed rage, and marched off in silence, with disappointment and revenge in his heart.

XIII.

THE EXPEDITION MOVES.

Frank won the greatest credit from his comrades by the manner in which he had gone through the investigation. And the fowls, which those who searched could not discover, found their way somehow to the cooks, and back again to the boys, and were shared among their companions, who had a feast and a good time generally.

But when all was over, and the excitement which carried Frank through had subsided, and it was night, and he lay in the darkness and solitude of the tent, with his comrades asleep around him,--then came sober reflection; and he thought of the poor man who had lost his turkeys, and who, for one, had got no fun out of the business; and he remembered that he had, to all intents and purposes, lied to Captain Edney; and he knew in his heart that he had done a dishonest thing.

Yes, he had actually been engaged in stealing turkeys. He was guilty of an act of which, a few weeks before, he would have deemed himself absolutely incapable. All the mitigating circumstances of the case, which had lately stood out so clear and strong as almost to hide the offence from his moral vision, now faded, and shrunk away, and the wrong itself stood forth, alone, in its undisguised ugliness.

"What is it to me that the man is a secessionist? That doesn't give us the right to rob him. He is not in arms against the government; and we don't know that he assists the rebels in any way, either by giving them information or money. Perhaps he had good reason to hate the Union soldiers. If he had not before, he has now. I wish I had let his turkeys alone."

These words Frank did not exactly frame to himself, lying there in the dark and silent tent; but so said the soul within him. And the next day the culpability of his conduct was brought home still more forcibly to his conscience by the receipt of a box from home. It contained, besides a turkey, pies, cakes, apples, and letters. And in one of the letters his mother wrote,--

"I hope these things will reach you by Christmas, and that you will enjoy them, and share them with those who have been good to you, and be very happy. We all think of the hardships you have to go through, and would willingly give up many of our comforts if you could only have them. We shall not have any turkey at Christmas--we shall all be so much happier to think you have one. For I would not have you so much as _tempted_ to do what you say some of the soldiers have done--that is, steal the turkeys belonging to the secessionists. If there are rebels at heart, not yet in open opposition to the government, I would have you treat them kindly, and not provoke them to hate our cause worse than they do already. And always remember that, whatever the government may see fit to do to punish such men, you have no right to interfere with either their private opinions or their private property."

Why was it that the contents of Frank's Christmas box did not taste so good to him as he had anticipated? Simply because he could partake of neither pie nor turkey without the sorry sauce of a reproving conscience.

He thought to atone for his fault by magnanimity in sharing with others what he could not relish alone. He gave liberally to all his mates, and carried a large piece of the turkey, together with a generous supply of stuffing, and an entire mince pie, to his old friend Sinjin.

Now, Frank had not, for the past month, been on as good terms with the veteran as formerly. The meeting with Mrs. Manly in Boston seemed to have awakened unpleasant remembrances in the old drummer's mind, and to render him unpleasantly stiff and cold towards her son. He had received the thanksgiving wreath with a very formal and stately acknowledgment, and Frank, who knew not what warm torrents might be gushing beneath the stern old man's icy exterior, had kept himself somewhat resentfully aloof from him ever since. But he still felt a yearning for their former friendship, and he now hoped, with the aid of the good gifts of which he was the bearer, to make up with him.

"I wish you a merry Christmas," said Frank, arrived at the old man's tent.

"You are rather late for that, it seems to me," replied Sinjin, lifting his brows, as he sat in his tent and looked quietly over his shoulder at the visitor.

"I know it," said Frank. "But the truth is, I hadn't any thing to wish you a merry Christmas with yesterday. But this morning I got a box by express, full of goodies, direct from home."

"Ah!" said the old man, with a singular unsteadiness of eye, while he tried to look cold and unconcerned.

"Yes; isn't it grand? A turkey of my mother's own stuffing, and pies of her own baking, and every thing that's splendid. And she said she hoped you would accept a share, with her very kind regards. And so I've brought you some."

The old man had got up on his feet. But he did not offer to relieve Frank's hands. He made no reply to his little speech; and he seemed not so much to look _at_ him, as _through_ him, into some visionary past far away. Perhaps it was not the drummer boy he saw at all, but fairer features, still like his--a sweet young girl; the same he used to trot upon his knees, in those unforgotten years, so long ago, when he was in his manhood's prime, and life was still fresh to him, and he had not lost his early faith in friendship and love.

There Frank stood, holding the cover of the Christmas box, with the good things from home upon it, and waited, and wondered; and there the old man stood and dreamed.

"Please, sir, will you let me leave them here?" said Frank, ready to cry with disappointment at this strange reception.

The old man heaved a sigh, brushed his hand across his eyes, and came back to the present. He stooped and took the gift with a tremulous smile, but without a word. He did not tell the drummer boy that he had, in that instant of forgetfulness, seen his mother as she was at his age, and that his old heart now, though seemingly withered and embittered, gushed again with love so sorrowful and yearning, that he could have taken her son in his arms, even as he had so often taken her, and have wept over him. And Frank, in his ignorance, went away, feeling more hurt than ever at his old friend's apparent indifference.

* * * *

And now matters were assuming a more and more warlike appearance. For some time Frank's regiment had been out on brigade drill twice a week, and he had written home a glowing description of the scene. But an incomparably grander sight was the inspection and review of the entire division, which took place the last week of December. The parade ground, comprising two thousand acres, at once smooth and undulating, was admirably fitted to show off, with picturesque and splendid effect, the evolutions of regiment, brigade, and division. Thousands of spectators flocked from Annapolis and the vicinity, in vehicles, on horseback, and on foot, to witness the display.

Frank was with his company, carrying his knapsack, haversack, tin cup, and canteen, like the rest, and with his drum at his side. He could not but feel a pride in the grand spectacle of which he formed a part. At eleven o'clock, Brigadier-General Foster, commanding the department in Burnside's absence, passed down the line, accompanied by a numerous staff, and followed by the governor of the state and members of the legislature. They inspected each regiment in turn; and many were the looks of interest and pleased surprise which the young drummer boy received from officers and civilians.

The reviewing party then took its position on the right, the words of command rang along the line, and regiment after regiment, breaking into battalion column, filed, with steady tramp, in superb, glittering array, to the sound of music, past the general and his assistants. No wonder the drummer boy's heart beat high with military enthusiasm, as he marched with his comrades in this magnificent style, marvelling what enemy could withstand such disciplined masses of troops.

And now the fleet of transports, which were to convey them to their destination, were gathering at Annapolis. The camp was full of rumors respecting the blow which was to be struck, and the troops were eager to strike it.