The Deserter, and Other Stories: A Book of Two Wars

by Harold Frederic

  CHAPTER II.

  A SUDDEN DEPARTURE.

  The man upon whose sleeping form Job had stepped in the haymow sat upand looked about him in a half-puzzled fashion, mechanically brushingthe loose particles from his hair and neck.

  "I s'pose it's mornin'," he whispered, after a minute's silence. "Howlong'll it be before daylight?"

  Job, released from the other's clutch, had scrambled to his feet, andstood staring down in astonishment at his old friend, Mose Whipple. Hehad regained his fork, and held it up as if to repel a possible secondattack.

  "What did you want to pitch on to me that way for?" he asked at last indispleased tones.

  "Sh-h! Talk lower!" urged Mose under his breath. "I didn't mean to hurtyou, sonny. I didn't know who you was. You come tromplin' on me herewhen I was fast asleep, and I took hold of you when I wasn't hardlywoke up, you see, that's all. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

  "SH-H! TALK LOWER!"]

  "No," Job admitted grudgingly. "But there wasn't no need to throw medown and choke me all the same."

  "I thought it was somebody comin' to catch me," explained the other,still in a whisper. "But who else is here in the barn? What time is itgettin' to be?"

  "They're just through milkin'," replied the boy. "They're gettin' thecans out into the sleigh. They'll all be gone in a minute or two. Time?Oh, it ain't six yet."

  "That's all right," said Mose, with a weary sigh of relief. He added,upon reflection: "Say, sonny, can you manage to get me something toeat? I've gone the best part of two days now without a mouthful."

  "Mebbe I can," responded Job, doubtingly. Then a sudden thought struckhim. "Say, Mose," he went on, "I bet I can tell what you did the firstthing when you came into the barn here. You went and stuck your handsinto the grains there--that's how it was."

  The man displayed no curiosity as to the boy's meaning. "Yes, byjiminy!" he mused aloud. "I'd 'a' liked to have got in head first. Itell you, sonny, I was about as near freezin' to death as they make'em. I couldn't have gone another hundred rods to save my life. They'dhave found me froze stiff on the road, that's all."

  "But what are you doing here, anyway?" asked Job. "You ain't gone anddeserted, have you?"

  "Well," said the other, doggedly, "you can call it what you like. Onething's certain--I ain't down South, _be_ I?"

  "Something else is pretty certain, too," the boy put in. "They'll hangyou, sure!"

  Mose did not seem to have much doubt on this point. "Anyway, I'll seethe old man first," he said. "It's pitch dark outdoors, ain't it?"

  The boy nodded. "I must git along with my work," he commented, afteranother little silence. "What are you figgerin' on doin', anyway,Mose?" he asked gravely.

  "Well, I'm goin' to sneak out while it's still dark," said the man,"and git across lots to our place, and just wake up the old man,and--and--well, see how he is, that's all. Mebbe I can manage it sothat I can skip out again, and nobody be the wiser. But whether or no,that's what I'm bound to do. Prob'ly you've heard--is he--is his healthpretty middlin' good?"

  "Seems to me some one was saying something about his being kind o'under the weather lately," replied Job, with evasion. "I was thinkin'of goin' over this afternoon myself, if I could git the time, to seehim. The fact is, Mose, I guess he _is_ failing some. It's been apretty tough winter for old folks, you know. Elisha Teachout's beenlaid up himself with rheumatics now for more'n a fortnight, and heain't old exactly."

  "He ain't had 'em half bad enough!" cried Mose, springing to his feetwith suddenly revived energy. "If he's let the old man suffer--if heain't kept his word by him--I'll--I'll take it out of his old hide if Ihave to go to jail for it!"

  "You've got enough other things to go to jail for, and get hung forinto the bargain, I should think," said Job. "You'd better not talk soloud, either."

  Surely enough, one of the hired men seemed to have remained in thebarn, and to have caught the sound of voices--for the noise of hisadvancing footsteps could be heard on the floor between the stanchions.Mose threw himself flat, and rolled under the hay as best he could. Jobbegan to sing in a low-voiced, incoherent way for a moment, and thenloudly. Prying up a forkful of hay, he staggered under the burden backto the cows, singing as he came toward the intruder.

  It was only Nelse Hornbeck, an elderly and extra hand who worked atstarvation wages during the winter, chopping firewood and doing oddchores about the house and barns. When he saw Job he stopped. He was ina sociable mood, and though he leaned up against one of the stanchionsand offered no sign of going farther, displayed a depressing desire forconversation.

  The boy came and went, bringing in the hay and distributing it alongunder the double row of broad pink noses on either side. He made thetask as long as he could in the hope of tiring Nelse out, but withoutavail.

  "I dunno but I'm almost sorry I didn't enlist myself last fall,"drawled Hornbeck, settling himself in an easy posture. "So far's I canmake out, Mose Whipple and the rest of the boys are having a greatsight better time of it down South, with nothin' to do and plenty o'help to do it, than we are here to hum. Why, Steve Trimble'sbrother-in-law writes him that they're havin' more fun down there thanyou can shake a stick at; livin' snug and warm in sort o' little housesbuilt into the ground, and havin' horse-races and cock-fights and so onevery day. They ain't been no fightin' since Thanksgivin', he says, andthey're all gittin' fat as seals."

  "Well, why _don't_ you enlist then?" demanded Job, curtly, going onwith his work.

  "I dunno," said the hired man in a meditative way. "I guess I'm afeardo' gittin' homesick. I'd always be hankerin' to git back and see myfolks, and they won't let you do that, nohow. A lot of 'em tries tosneak off, they say, but Steve's brother-in-law says they've gotcavalry-men on horseback all around outside the camps, and they justnail everybody that tries to git out, and then they take 'em back tocamp and shoot 'em. That's what they do--lead 'em out before breakfastand shoot 'em down."

  "I thought they hung deserters," said Job, pausing with his fork inair.

  "Some they hang and some they shoot," replied Nelse. "I don't see as itmakes much difference. I'd about as lieve be one as the other. I guessthey make it a rule to hang them that gits off into the North and hasto be brought way back again. That's only reasonable, because they'vegive 'em so much extry trouble."

  Job was interested. "But suppose a man does get up North--I guess theyain't much chance of their ever findin' him after that."

  "Ain't they?" exclaimed the hired man, incredulously. "Why, it's athousand to one they catch him! They've got their detectives in everycounty just doin' nothin' but watchin' for deserters. They git paid forevery one they catch, so much a head, and that makes 'em keep theireyes peeled."

  "But how can you tell a deserter from any other man," pursued Job, "solong as he's got ordinary clothes on and minds his own business andkeeps away from where he's known?"

  "Oh, they always point for home--that's the thing of it. What do theydesert for? Because they're homesick. So all the detectives have got todo is to watch their place, and nab 'em when they try to sneak in. It'sas easy as rollin' off a log. They always git caught, every mother'sson of 'em."

  Tiresome Nelse Hornbeck was still talking when Job came to the end ofall possible pretexts of employment in the cow-barn, and was only tooobviously waiting to accompany the boy over to the house to breakfast.At last Job had to accept the situation and go.

  The boy dared no more than steal for a moment back into the hay, feelabout with his foot for where Mose lay hidden in the dark, and drop thefurtive whisper, "Going to breakfast. If I can I'll bring you some."

  Then, in company with Nelse, he left the barn, shutting and hooking thedoor behind him. It occurred to him that Mose must have effected anentrance by the door at the other end, which was fastened merely by alatch. Otherwise the displacement of the outer hook would have beennoticed.

  It was lucky, he thought in passing, that Elisha Teachout did not havepadlocks on the doors of his cow-barn, as he had on those whichprot
ected his horses and wagons and grain. If he had, there would havebeen the lifeless and icy body of Mose, lying on the frozen roadside,to be discovered by the daylight.

  Poor Mose! he had saved his life from the bitterly cold night, but wasit not only to lose it again at the hands of the hangman or the firingparty?

  Job remembered having seen, just a few weeks before, a picture in oneof the illustrated weeklies of a deserter sitting on his own coffin,while files of soldiers were being drawn up to witness his impendingpunishment. Although the artist had given the doomed man a very badface indeed, Job had been conscious at the time of feeling a certainhuman sympathy with him.

  As his memory dwelt now on the picture, this face of the prisonerseemed to change into the freckled and happy-go-lucky lineaments ofMose Whipple.

  The boy took with him into the house a heart as heavy as lead.

  Breakfast was already well under way in the big, old-fashioned,low-ceiled kitchen of the Teachout homestead. Three or four hired menwere seated at one end of the long table, making stacks of hotbuckwheat cakes saturated with pork fat on their plates, and thendevouring them in huge mouthfuls.

  They had only the light of two candles on the table. So long as therewas anything before them to eat, they spoke never a word. The red-facedwomen over at the stove did not talk either, but worked in anxioussilence at their arduous task of frying cakes fast enough to keep theplates before the hungry men supplied.

  For once in his life Job was not hungry. He suffered Nelse Hornbeck toappropriate the entire contents of the first plate of cakes which thegirl brought to the table, without a sign of protest. This was not whatusually happened, and as soon as Nelse could spare the time he lookedat his companion in surprise.

  "What ails you this mornin'?" he asked, with his spoon in the grease."Ain't you feelin' well?"

  Job shook his head. "I guess I'll eat some bread 'n' butter instead,"he made reply. He added after a pause, "Somehow, I kind o' spleenagainst cakes this mornin'."

  "They ain't much good to-day, for a fact," assented Nelse, when he hadeaten half-way through his pile. "I guess they want more sody. It beatsme why them women can't make their cakes alike no two days in the week.First the batter's sour, and then they put in more sody; and then it'stoo flat, and they dump in a lot o' salt; and then they need moregraham flour, and then the batter's too thick, and has to be thinneddown with milk, and by that time the whole thing's wrong, and they'vegot to begin all over again."

  Nelse chuckled, and looked up at Job, who paid no attention.

  "If we men fooled around with the cows' fodder, every day different,"Nelse went on, "the way the girls here do with ours, why, the wholebarnful of 'em would 'a' dried up before snow blew. But that's the waywith women!" Mr. Hornbeck concluded with a sigh, and began on thesecond heap of cakes.

  The boy had not listened. A project had been gradually shaping itselfin his mind, until now it seemed as if he had left the cow-barn with itdefinitely planned out. As soon as the other men, who for the momentwere idling with their knives and forks, had been supplied with a freshbatch of cakes, he would put it into execution.

  "Why, you was feelin' first rate a few minutes ago," remonstratedNelse, between mouthfuls, "singin' away for dear life."

  "Remember how Mose Whipple used to sing?" put in one of the others."The' was one song o' his, 'The Faded Coat o' Blue'--seems's if I couldset and listen to him singin' that all day long. He sung it over atSteve Trimble's huskin', I remember, and Lib Truax let him see herhome, just on account of it. She wouldn't so much as looked at him anyother time. She told my sister afterward that if he'd 'a' popped thequestion then, with that singin' o' his in her ears, as like as notshe'd 'a' said yes."

  "Lucky for her he didn't, then," remarked another. "I give Mose creditfor one thing, though. He had sense enough not to git married--andthat's more'n most shiftless coots like him have. He always said thatas long's the old man was alive, he'd keep a roof over his head, andlet everything else slide. Whatever else you may say, there's nodenyin' Mose was a good son to the old man."

  "If I was old," said a third, "and was dependent on my son, I'd think agood deal more of him if he shinned around, and worked stiddy, and putsomethin' by for a rainy day, even if he did marry into the bargain,instid o' bein' bone-lazy like Mose, and never knowin' one day wherethe next day's breakfast was comin' from."

  "Not if you was old Asa Whipple," rejoined the first speaker. "Mose wasjest after the old man's heart. I never see father and son so wrappedup in one another as them two was. Seems's if they didn't need no othercompany--they was company enough for themselves. That's what made it sorough on the old man when Mose 'listed."

  "He couldn't help himself," said Nelse Hornbeck; "there was theinterest comin' due on the mortgage, and how else----"

  "Sh-h! can't ye!" muttered one of the others, kicking Nelse under thetable, and giving a backward nod of the head toward the women by thestove. "Want them to tell 'Lishe Teachout you're blabbin' about hisaffairs, you sawney?"

  Nelse bent hastily over his cakes, and the others busied themselves atmaking way with the steaming fresh supply which had accumulated whilethey talked.

  Job's opportunity had come. He rose with as fine an assumption ofcarelessness as he could manage, and walked up to the other end of thetable, where the big loaf of home-made bread and the butter-dish were.

  He cut off two thick slices; the butter which he tried to spread uponthem had become hard with the night's intense cold, and had not beennear enough to the fire to be softened. So Job could only distribute itin lumps over the soft surface of one slice, and then put the other ontop of it.

  Then, watching his chance in the dim light, he conveyed the bread tohis jacket pocket. Nobody at the table had observed him, he was sure.

  He turned to discover that the sitting-room door close at his back hadbeen opened wide, and that Elisha Teachout was standing in the doorway,looking at him with all his eyes.

  It was Elisha Teachout's habit to look very closely at everything andeverybody--and his was at the best of times a somewhat uncomfortablegaze to sustain. Job felt that this was not one of the best of times.

  His employer was in all seasons an austere and exacting man, coldlysuspicious of those about him, and as pitiless in his treatment of hishired help's shortcomings as he was vigilant in looking out for them.But in the winter, when rheumatism put its dread touch upon the marrowof his bones, he was irascible as well, and led his household what theyused to describe outside as "a life of it."

  His lean, small figure did not seem as much bent as usual thismorning--probably he was better, Job thought--but his littlesteel-colored eyes had an abnormally piercing effect. His pallid face,hairless and wrinkled, with its sunken lips and sharply hooked nose,was of a yellower and sourer aspect than usual, too. The boy felthimself turning very red.

  It turned out to be a needless alarm. Mr. Teachout diverted his gazefrom Job to look at his old silver watch, which he took from his fob,and then ostentatiously held it in his hand.

  "Milk late again this morning?" he demanded, raising his querulousvoice with a snap.

  "No, it got off in good season," replied the head hired man,nonchalantly.

  He had answered the same question now every day for several years, andwas at home with it. As a matter of fact the milk from the Teachoutfarm was never late, but this had not prevented the masters querybecoming a formula.

  "Then breakfast ought to 'a' been out of the way half an hour ago!" heexclaimed, in the same high, snarling tone. "If I didn't get up andcome out, sick as I am, I suppose you'd be settin' here gorgingyourselves till noon! And you women, you jest aid and abet 'em in theirlaziness and gormandizing!"

  Job stayed to hear no more. Relieved from his fear of detection, he hadtaken advantage of the attack upon the others to get his cap and sidleunobtrusively from the room.

  Once outside he scampered headlong across the frozen ruts and hummocksof the yard to the cow-barn. There was a perilous show of pink andlemon lights
in the eastern sky. Very soon it would be daylight.

  He groped his way past between the stanchions to the hay, and beganfeeling about with his feet.

  "Here you are, Mose!" he called out. "It's almost daylight! Here'ssomething to eat."

  No answer came. The boy trampled foot by foot over the whole mow invain. Mose Whipple was gone.