by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER II
REVELATIONS OF A YOUNG GUARDSMAN
Dexter Lyon was very much perplexed by the situation of his uncle'sfamily in Barcreek; for he owned his place, which had cost five thousanddollars, unencumbered; and about two years before he had received fromthe estate of his deceased brother twenty thousand dollars in cash andstocks.
"Of course the story that your mother had not a dollar in the house is afiction, such as people who collect money, or don't want to pay it out,often tell," said the young cavalryman, as he went to the post where hehad secured his horse.
"Fiction? What do you mean by that?" asked Sandy Lyon, the expression onwhose face was very sad and discontented.
"You didn't mean that what you said was true?"
"What did I say that was not true?" inquired Sandy, looking at hiscousin as though he was in doubt whether or not to conceal the correctanswer to the question.
"Everybody in Barcreek knows that your father has gone to Bowling Green,and you said that your mother had not a dollar in the house," repliedDeck, studying the expression on the face of his cousin. "You didn'tmean that, did you?"
Sandy looked at his cousin, and each seemed to be considering themeaning of the other's looks. They were own cousins, and their homeswere not more than a mile apart; but they had not met for three months.Politics, as the people of this locality generally called the two greatquestions of the day, Unionism and Secession, had created a great gulfbetween the two families. Judging from the threadbare and semi-miserablecondition of the two sons of Captain Titus, times had gone hardly withthe family.
"I did not say that mother had not a dollar in the house," said Sandy,after a long silence.
"Orly said so, and you did not contradict him; so it is all the samething," added Deck.
"I did say so; and I said it because it was just as true asBreckinridge's long letter," said Orly earnestly.
"That is not saying much for the truth of it," answered Deck, with asmile on his handsome face; for he had the reputation of being agood-looking fellow, especially since he had donned his uniform.
"Well, it is true as that the sun shines in the sky," added Orly; andthere was an expression of disgust on his face.
"But your father has plenty of money," suggested the young soldier.
"No, he hasn't," protested Orly.
"You are talking too fast, Orly," interposed Sandy reproachfully.
"We may as well let the cat out of the bag first as last, for she willscratch her way out very soon," replied Orly. "Mother will be gladenough to see that two dollars when Sandy offers it to her."
Just at that moment the blast of a bugle, or several of them, was heardin the direction of the Cross Roads, the way Deck was going when he wasarrested by the cry for help from Pickford's house.
"What's that?" asked Sandy, as though he was glad to have the subject ofthe conversation changed, however it may have been with his moreimpulsive brother.
"It must be my company, or the squadron to which it belongs," repliedDeck rather indifferently.
"How many companies have you, Deck?" asked Orly.
"Only two yet, hardly enough for a battalion."
"Where are they going now?"
"Probably they are out for drill; and I must fall in as soon as thecompanies come up," said Deck, as he mounted his horse and straightenedhimself up in the saddle, as though he wished to present a properappearance before his cousins.
But the battalion or squadron was still at a considerable distance fromhim, and the young cavalryman could not help looking at the pinchedfaces of his cousins; for though they had ostensibly embraced the causeof Secession, he was full of sympathy for them. They looked as thoughthey had been poorly fed, if not half-starved; and when the time hadcome for them to have new suits of clothes, they had not obtainedthem. But if Captain Titus's family was without money, it could be onlya temporary matter, for he could hardly have exhausted his twentythousand dollars in stocks and cash, though it was well known that hehad contributed five thousand dollars for the purchase of arms andammunition to be used by his company of Home Guards, which had now movedsouth to join the Confederate army.
"As I said before, your father had plenty of money," continued Deck,though he was not disposed to be over-inquisitive.
"He had at one time," Sandy admitted; and it was plain from his mannerthat he was not willing to tell all he knew about his father's financialaffairs.
"I don't understand how your mother should be so short of money, Sandy;but it is none of my business, and I won't ask any more questions,"added the cavalryman, as he whirled his restive horse about. "I thoughtyou and Orly went with the company to Bowling Green, Sandy."
"We did; but we came back again," replied the elder brother. But thereappeared to be something to conceal in regard to their return.
"There wasn't any fun in soldiering without any pay, and without evenhalf enough to eat, with nothing to wear," added the plain-spokenyounger brother.
"You needn't tell all you know, Orly," interposed Sandy, with a frown athis brother.
"You needn't snap at me, Sandy; for I told you before I had had enoughof this thing, and I shall never join the company again," returned Orlyearnestly. "Do you suppose I can enlist in one of your companies, Deck?"
"Shut up, Orly!" exclaimed Sandy very sternly. "You don't know what youare talking about."
"I'll bet I know what I'm talking about, and my stomach knows too,"retorted Orly.
"Don't make a fool of yourself! You don't mean to turn traitor to yourfather and the cause, Orly?" pleaded Sandy; but he appeared to be tryingto keep up appearances.
"Hang the cause!" exclaimed Orly, as though he meant all he said. "Myfather got me into the scrape, and he will get enough of it before he ismany months older."
"Use your reason and common-sense," counselled the elder brother.
"That's what we just haven't been using the last two years, and now I'mgoing to use my reason and common-sense on my own hook. If you likesoldiering without pay or rations, Sandy, you can join the company againas soon as you like; but when you catch me there, you will find aKentuckian without any eye-teeth," replied Orly, who was only two yearsyounger than his brother, and was considered the brighter boy of thetwo; and his tones and his manner were vigorous enough to indicate thathe meant all he said.
"You are acting like a fool to talk like that before your cousin, who isan abolition soldier."
"Before my cousin! His father and himself have been sensible from thefirst; and I only wonder that Deck don't quote Scripture to us, andgently remind us that 'the way of transgressors is hard;' for he can'thelp seeing the truth of the proverb in both of us."
"I didn't know that things had become particularly hard with you," saidDeck.
"Orly is as wild as a goat, Deck. Don't mind what he says," interposedSandy.
"Or what Sandy says," interjected the younger of the two.
"Our company has not been mustered in yet, and of course we could notdraw pay or rations," added Sandy, who felt called upon to defend hisfather and the "cause" from the implied censure of his brother. "Fatherspent all the ready money he had to pay for rations and tents, and someother things the Confederate government will furnish, and will pay himback for all he has expended. That is the reason why my mother is soshort of money just now."
"That's all very good as far as it goes; but I don't believe theConfederate government has got any more money than the Bank of England;and it will be a long day before father gets his money back. We werenearly starved when we left the company."
"But we did not desert, as some folks say we did," added Sandy, who wasin favor of putting the best foot forward. "Father sent us home when wespoke of leaving, and he gave us a sort of furlough, in so many words.If he could hear you talk, Orly, he would be ashamed of you."
"As I have been of him more than once," said the younger in a low tone,as though he did not feel fully justified in speaking in that manner ofhis father, who had a gross failing, which
had recently been gainingupon him.
Sandy heard the remark; and he was disgusted, though he could not denythe justness of it. He had been ashamed of his father, but his inbornpride did not permit him to say so outside of the family. If he had beenas plain-spoken as his brother, he might have informed Deck, who was theonly listener to the conversation, that the furlough had grown out of aquarrel between Captain Titus and his older son.
The captain had always been what is known as a moderate drinker, but thehabit had grown upon him after he went to Kentucky. Some of the HomeGuard had been shot at while engaged in foraging among the farmers forfood in the outskirts of the county-seat where the company was encamped,and it became a dangerous pursuit, as even the commander of the companywould not authorize it; for in the status of the body it was nothing butplundering.
Sandy noticed that his father had his whiskey ration in increasedproportions, and he knew that it cost money. He and Orly were not halffed, and the father lived on his favorite beverage. It provoked him towrath, and in a fit of desperation he spoke out to him as plainly asOrly could have done it. The quarrel followed; and when Sandy declaredthat he and his brother would leave the company, he had driven them fromhis presence, and ordered them not to return. This was the furlough, "inso many words," as Sandy put it.
Perhaps the approach of the squadron of cavalry was a relief to SandyLyon, for it put an end to the conversation of a disagreeable nature tohim. He realized the truth of nearly all that Orly had said in regard tothe desperate situation of the Home Guard, and the family of itscommander; but his pride was still superior to the groans of hisstomach.
"Mother and the girls are going back to Derry as soon as she can getmoney enough to pay the bills," said Orly in a low voice.
"I am ashamed of you, Orly!" protested Sandy, who had heard the remark;for the bugle of the battalion had ceased its blast at that moment. "Youhave no business to tell family secrets like that."
"Confound your family secrets!" exclaimed his brother. "I don't want toquarrel with you, my brother, as father has done with Uncle Noah; but Iam not in favor of starving to death for the benefit of the SouthernConfederacy. You have too much family pride when it don't pay, Sandy.You said that our sister Mabel should not go out to work in the familyof Dr. Falkirk, when mother said she might."
"Dr. Falkirk might have got a nigger woman to do his housework, insteadof paying double wages to Mabel," replied Sandy.
"That is nothing to do with the question. Mabel's wages have been all wehad to live on since we got home," returned Orly, letting out more ofthe secrets of the family without any compunction.
"I wish you would hold your tongue, Orly," added Sandy fretfully.
"I said what I did for a purpose; but I shall have to stop now, for thesquadron is nearly here," replied Orly. "When can I see you again,Deck?"
"Almost any time when I am not at drill, or absent on an errand, as Ihave been to-day. You will find me at the camp or the house," repliedDeck, as he rode forward to a point where he could fall into hisposition in his company.
"Why, there is Uncle Noah at the head of the column!" said Sandy, as thesquadron came near enough for him to recognize the familiar face of hisrelative, even in the midst of his present unwonted surroundings. "Helooks like an officer."
"He is what people have been calling him since he came to Kentucky, andis now actually Major Lyon," replied Deck, whom the boys had followed.
"But are you not an officer, Deck?" asked Orly.
"Not at all; Artie and I are high privates. They wanted to make us bothsergeants; but after we had talked with father, we declined allpositions," replied Deck, as he fell into his place.
It is time to give something of the history of the two families who hademigrated to Kentucky, the family secrets of one of which had been sofreely revealed to Deck by the young Home Guardsman with Unionaspirations.