by Charles King
CHAPTER V.
A week went rapidly by. Captain Barclay had gone on duty, and Mr.Brayton, his sub, had not yet "sized him up." Lieutenant Trott, the newregimental quartermaster, had arrived by the Saturday's stage, and wasready to receipt to Lieutenant Winn for all property he had to turnover; but Winn had broken down under his weight of woe and taken to hisbed. From Washington came tidings, telegraphed as far as San Antonio,that Lawrence was slowly mending and would soon be sitting up. Mrs.Winn, absorbed in the care of her suffering husband, had accepted noinvitations, but the many sympathetic women who called to ask if therewere not some way in which they could be of aid reported her as lookingfeverish and far from well. Some of them had ventured to speak of thenew arrival, and, though her ears were evidently open, her lips wereclosed. That she was willing, if not eager, to hear anything they had tosay or tell about Captain Barclay was all very well as far as it went,but what some of her visitors most desired was to hear what she had tosay about him; as she would say nothing, one or two had resorted to alittle delicate questioning in the hope of drawing her out. Mrs.Faulkner, a young matron of her own age and previous social standing, anarmy girl like herself, and for some time her one intimate friend atWorth, went so far as to ask, "You used to know him very well, did younot?" and was checkmated by the answer, "Not well enough to talk about,"which answer Mrs. Faulkner pondered over and considered deliberately andinexcusably rude. With the kindest feeling for her in the world, as allthe women avowed, and no animosity whatever towards Barclay over andbeyond that feeling on poor Colonel Lawrence's account, there was theliveliest interest at Worth as regarded Mrs. Winn and Captain Barclay inseeing what they would do; and, to the disappointment of all Fort Worth,they had done nothing.
Barclay promptly returned the calls of the officers who had called uponhim, and had done all proper homage to the wives of those who werepossessed of such blessings, but there were still certain quarters wherehis face or his card had not been seen: at Captain Cram's, for instance,because that warrior was on scout and couldn't call, ditto hislieutenant; at one or two of the new and unpolished pillars of thetemple, because they had not known enough or had been too shy to call;and at Winn's, because that officer was ill of a fever and could notcall. There was another set of quarters in which he had not yet setfoot,--Ned Lawrence's; and that was the house most people expected himto visit first.
Nor did he remain at Brooks's. The major's house was big, but so was hishousehold. "You have a vacant room here, Mr. Brayton," he said, thethird day after his arrival, as he dropped in at his subaltern's. "Itmay be a month before I get shaken down into place. I dislike to disturbwomen and children, and so have decided to ask you to let me move my cotand trunk in here awhile and to propose my name at the mess." AndBrayton, blushing at the realization of the fact that the furniture inthe room referred to consisted solely of some chairs, a square pinetable covered with a cavalry blanket, with a cigar-box half full ofsmoking-tobacco, another half full of white beans, and a pack of cardsfor its sole ornaments, nevertheless bravely ushered his new captaininto the bower, and Barclay looked neither surprised nor satirical atthe sight. "We sometimes play a mild game of draw here, sir," saiddownright Brayton, "which accounts for the appearance of things; but mystriker can clean it up in ten minutes, and you are most welcome."
"It won't put you out in any way?" asked Barclay, without the commentof an uplifted eyebrow on the evidence adduced.
"Not so much as poker, if it does at all," said Brayton, promptly. Hewas determined his captain should know the extent of his frailties atthe start.
Barclay smiled quietly and turned to the boy with liking in his eye."I'm hardly ten years your senior, Brayton," said he, "and so shall notpreach, but I believe we can put that room to a little better use."
The next day he took his seat at the bachelors' mess, where a dozenofficers were congregated, all of them but two his juniors in rank. Thesideboard was lavishly decked with the indispensables of that benightedday. The old-timers and the new took their anteprandial cocktail ortoddy, and hospitably invited Barclay to join. Barclay smiledgratefully, but said he had "never yet got in the way of it, somehow,"nor did he more than sip at the Bordeaux which the presiding officerordered served in honor of the occasion. The mess was rather silent.Most men seemed desirous of listening to Barclay when he spoke at all.They knew every twist and turn of each other's mode of speech by thattime, and could repeat verbatim every story in the combination. Barclaymight have something new; but if he did he had no chance. CaptainFollansbee took and kept the floor from first to last. He was airing hisviews on the subject of consolidation, reorganization, and purificationas practised at the War Department, a topic which the others consideredinexcusable, not so much from the fact that it must be most unpalatableto Captain Barclay, a beneficiary of the business, as it turned out, asbecause Follansbee had worn them all out with it weeks before.
And, to everybody's surprise, so far from seeming annoyed or embarrassedor bored, Barclay led him on from point to point, and, even after coffeewas served, sat an apparently absorbed listener, for by that timeFollansbee had absorbed most of the claret and was dilating on thematter with especial reference to the case of Colonel Lawrence. Laterthat evening Barclay spent an hour at the Blythes', and two days afterhe and Brayton dined there.
It was a seven-o'clock dinner. The doctor and his wife, Major and Mrs.Brooks, Miss Frazier and Miss Amanda Frazier, were the other guests.Those were the days when officers of all grades wore epaulets when infull uniform, but, except in one or two swell messes, full dress was notconsidered requisite for either dinner or hops. The men wore theuniform frock-coat with shoulder-straps; some few privileged characterseven dared to appear in a sack-coat with white tie. Such a thing as theevening dress of civil life was unknown at a military post, and unownedin the fighting force of the army, outside, perhaps, of the artillery.The doctor was a privileged character, a man who said what he thoughtand did what he thought right; and when Mrs. Blythe, glancing out of herparlor window, saw their favored friend and medical adviser coming alongthe walk, his hands deep in his trousers-pockets and himself in a fit ofabstraction and a new sack-coat, while the partner of his joys andsorrows chatted briskly with the Frazier girls, Mrs. Blythe calledup-stairs to her massive liege lord, "Wear your blouse, dear; the doctorhas on his"; whereupon Blythe slipped out of the uniform coat of formalcut and into the easy sack, and came trotting down the creaking stair intime to welcome his guests. Brooks, Barclay, and Brayton, who camelater, were in the prescribed regulation dress, whereat Dr. Collaboneexclaimed, "Hullo! Now that's what I ought to have done, if I'd had asmuch regard for conventionality as I have for health. Gentlemen, do youknow you simply invite an apoplectic seizure by sitting down to dinnerin a tightly buttoned uniform coat? It is barbarous. There ought to bea regulation against it."
It was observed that while the doctor included all three of thecavalrymen in his remarks he looked at and apparently addressed onlyone, Captain Barclay, whose uniform coat was brand-new, very handsomelycut, its buttons and shoulder-straps of the finest make and finish,whereas the doctor's were tarnished, if not actually shabby. Brooksfrowned, and Brayton looked embarrassed lest Barclay should take itamiss; but that officer remained smilingly interested, and in nowisetroubled. The Frazier girls giggled, and Miss Amanda was prompt toassert that for her part she loved to see the officers wear the properuniform, and she wasn't alarmed about apoplexy; whereupon Collabonesmiled benignly and said, "What did I tell you about the danger of tightlacing?" Amanda couldn't bear the doctor. Her elder and primmer sisteronly half liked him. Many of the women thought him brusque and rude, butofficers and men and mothers of families swore by him, and childrenadored him. A childless man himself, he seemed to keep open house forthe offspring of his comrades. They swarmed about his quarters at allhours of the day. They invaded his parlor, overflowed his dining-room,and ruled his kitchen.
A kindly and placid soul was Mrs. Collabone, a woman who had few caresor perplexities, and
these she promptly turned over to her broad-minded,broad-shouldered liege for final disposition, as serenely confident oftheir speedy dissipation as she was of the prompt conquest of any andall the manifold ills to which childish flesh is heir by thatpractitioner's infallible remedies. Children ran loose in those days inTexas; and so they ought to, said Collabone. "Savage races are the onlyscientific rearers," he maintained. "Boys or girls, they should beburdened with but a single garment, or less, from the time they're bornuntil they're eight or ten, and meantime they should be made to eat,sleep, and live outdoors." He preached for children regularity inmatters of diet, prescribed four light meals a day, practisedheterodoxy, and distributed bread and milk, bread and syrup, bread andjam, cookies, corn dodgers, and molasses candy, morning, noon, andnight. Aunt Purlina, the fat and jocund goddess of the Collabones'kitchen, had standing orders on such subjects, and many a time had thepost surgeon to wait for his own refreshments because "the kids" hadpossession of the premises. There was never a worry along officers' rowwhen children strayed from home. "Oh, they're over at the doctor's," wasthe soothing response to all queries. The doctor's big yard was thegarrison play-ground; for, when a soulless, heartless, childless,wifeless post commander, Frazier's predecessor, had dared to prohibitthe use of the parade-ground for croquet, hop-scotch, marbles, or "Tom,Tom Pull-away," it was Collabone who rigged up swings and giant stridesat his own expense and without the aid of the post quartermaster, andsent away to New Orleans for croquet sets for the exclusive use of theyoungsters. It nettled inexpressibly the field officer commanding. Hetook it as a rebuke from his junior, and took it out in a course ofnagging and persecution at the doctor's expense, that roused theenergies of the entire post. Frazier was sent from Concho to supersedethe objectionable lieutenant-colonel, who thereupon declared hisintention of moving the doctor out and taking his quarters; but acourier galloped all the way from Worth to the camp at San Patricio,whither the department commander had gone a-hunting, and another gotback in the nick of time with orders for the devastating officer to moveto the cantonment on the Pecos, the worst hole in all Texas, as reportedby the department inspector. The children had won the day.
At the very moment when the party took their seats at Blythe's, thechildren of that establishment and their friends the Lawrences wereholding high carnival at the doctor's, Aunt Purlina and the colored maidvying with each other in efforts to stuff them to repletion. Over thisuproarious feast presided the tall slip of a damsel with whom poor Nedhad parted so mournfully when he went away in February. Ada's was theonly face in all the merry party that seemed to have known a trace ofsorrow. Her big, dark, mournful eyes and shaggy hair, her sallow faceand shabby frock, twice let down and still "skimpy," told a patheticstory. Thirteen years of age, the child had already seen much of anxietyand trouble,--much, indeed, beyond the ken of many an elder; and theweek going by brought hour after hour of nervous wear and tear, thecause of which only one woman knew, and strove in vain to banish. Adashrank with actual dread and repulsion from the thought of having tomeet the man who had come to take her loved father's place.
Thrice had Barclay spoken to Mrs. Blythe of a desire to see the childrenof Colonel Lawrence; now he felt confident that he knew the cause of herevasion, and pressed no more. But all through dinner, even whilespeaking in the low, somewhat measured tones habitual to him, he lost notalk in which the children were mentioned; and at Blythe's they werenever forgotten. It was not long before he discovered that the Blythesand Lawrences--the young people--were at the doctor's, Ada presiding.Indeed, with much gusto, almost as soon as soup was served, Collabonebegan telling of her matronly, motherly ways. Half an hour later amessenger came to the door and asked if Dr. Collabone would please stepover and see Mrs. De Lancy a moment. "Tell her I'll be there in just onehour," said the doctor, looking at his watch. Then he added, for thebenefit of the party present, "There's nothing in the world the matterwith Mrs. De Lancy, and by that time she'll have forgotten she sent forme." Ten minutes later came another call. It was the Collabones'domestic this time. "Little Jimmy's cut his hand, and Miss Ada can'tstop the bleeding." "Say I'll come instantly," said he, springing fromthe table and making his excuses to the lady of the house.
Barclay's face shone with instant sympathy and interest. Dessert wasnearly over. He turned to the motherly woman whose own gentle facebetrayed her anxiety.
"Will you think me very rude?" he said. "You know I do not smoke, and Ido want so much to meet those children. I feel that Ada purposely shunsme, and this is an opportunity not to be lost. May I be excused? I willsoon return." Mrs. Blythe's eyes were eloquent as she bade him go.
Three minutes later he softly entered the doctor's sitting-room. Therein a big easy-chair sat a tall, sallow-faced, tumbled-haired girl,holding in her arms a burly little fellow whose frightened sobbings shehad at last controlled, and who, with only an occasional whimper, wasnow submitting to the doctor's examination and deriving much comfortfrom his professional and reassuring manner.
"Why, this is no cut at all, Jimmy, my boy. The reason you bled so muchis that you are so uncommonly healthy and full of blood. This won't keepyou out of mischief six hours. Hold the basin steady, Purlina. Kick allyou want to, Jimmy. Don't you dare to laugh, Kittie Blythe. Well, ifhere isn't Captain Barclay, too, come in to see you! Here is the littlewounded soldier, captain. You had your arm in a sling six long months,didn't you? The Sioux did that for him, Jimmy, and you've only got to bedone up in a bandage till to-morrow night. Let Captain Barclay hold you?Indeed I won't. He doesn't know how to hold little boys--like Ada. He'sgot no little boys, nor big Ada either. Bet your boots he wishes he had,Jimmy." Thus the doctor chatted as he bathed and bandaged the pudgylittle fist, while Jimmy lay, half relieved at the rapid termination tohis woes, half resentful they should be declared so trifling, and, witheyes much swollen with weeping, critically studied the new captain'sappearance and gave token of modified approval. But Ada's white lids andlong dark lashes were never once uplifted.
Presently Collabone pronounced everything doing finely, and said he'd goand see Mrs. De Lancy. "You tell them there's nothing much the matter,will you?" he said to Barclay.
"I will--when I get there," was the smiling reply; "but I'm going totell this little fellow a story first about a Sioux baby boy I knew inWyoming, and his playmate, a baby bear." And, with wondering, wide-openeyes upon him, Barclay seated himself close to Ada's chair, while thedoctor stole silently away.
Half an hour later, when he returned, a circle of absorbed listeners wasgazing into Barclay's face. Ada only sat apart, and little Jimmy's curlyhead was pillowed on the story-teller's breast.