The Red Acorn [55]
the star-spangled banner, it "was still there."
"Don't rise on my account, I beg," said Kent with a deprecatory wave of the hand, as he hurried off to wher he could laugh with safety. A saucy drummer-boy, who neglected this precaution, received a cuff from Abe's heavy hand that thrilled the rest of the drum-corps with delight.
When Abe's wrath subsided from this ebullient stage back to its customary one of simmer, Kent ventured to return.
"Say," said he, pulling over the coats and blankets near the fire, "where's the canteen?"
"There it is by the cups. Can't you see it? If it was a snake it'd bite you."
"It's done that already, several times, or rather its contents have. You know what the Bible says, 'Biteth liek a serpent and stingeth like an adder?' Ah, here it is. But gloomy forebodings seize me: it is suspiciously light. Paradoxically, its lightness induces gravity in me. But that pun is entirely too fine-drawn for camp atmosphere."
He shook the canteen near his ear. "Alas! no gurgle responds to my fond caresses--
Canteen, Mavourneen, O, why art thou silent, Thou voice of my heart?
It is--woe is me--it is empty."
"Of course it is--you were the last one at it."
"I hurl that foul imputation back into thy teeth base knave. Thou thyself art a very daughter of a horse-leech with a canteen of whisky."
Abe looked at him inquiringly. "You must've found some, some place," he said, "or you wouldn't be so awful glib. It's taken 'bout half-a-pint to loosen your tongue so that it'd run this way. I know you."
"No, I've not found a spoonful. The eloquence of thirst is the only inspiration I have at present. I fain would stay its cravings by quaffing a beaker of mountain-distilled hair-curler. Mayhap this humble receptacle contains yet a few drops which escaped thy ravenous thirst."
Kent turned the canteen upside down and placed its mouth upon his tongue. "No," he said, with deep dejection, "all that delicious fluid of yesterday is now like the Father of his Country."
"Eh?" asked Abe, puzzled.
"Because it is no more--it is no more. It belongs to the unreturning past."
"I say," he continued after a moment's pause, "let's go out and hunt for some. there must be plenty in this neighborhood. Nature never makes a want without providing something to supply it. Therefore, judging from my thirst, this country ought to be full of distilleries."
They buckled on their belts, picked up their guns and started out, directing their steps to the front.
In spite of the sunshine the walk through the battle-field was depressing. A chafing wind fretted through the naked limbs of the oaks and chestnuts, and drew moans from the pines and the hemlocks. The brown, dead leaves rustled into little tawny hillocks, behind protecting logs and rocks. Frequently those took on the shape of long, narrow mounds as if they covered the graves of some ill-fated being, who like themselves, had fallen to the earth to rot in dull obscurity. The clear little streams that in Summer-time murmured musically down the slopes, under canopies of nodding roses and fragrant sweet-brier, were now turbid torrents, brawling like churls drunken with much wine, and tearing out with savage wantonness their banks, matted with the roots of the blue violets, and the white-flowered puccoon.
Scattered over the mountain-side were fatigue-parties engaged in hunting up the dead, and burying them in shallow graves, hastily dug in clay so red that it seemed as if saturated with the blood shed the day before. The buriers thrust their hands into the pockets of the dead with the flinching, nauseated air of men touching filth, and took from the garments seeping with water and blood, watches, letters, ambrotypes, money and trinkets, some of which they studied to gain a clue to the dead man's identity, some retained as souvenirs, but threw the most back into the grave with an air of loathing. The faces of the dead with their staring eyes and open mouths and long, lank hair, cloyed with the sand and mud thrown
"Don't rise on my account, I beg," said Kent with a deprecatory wave of the hand, as he hurried off to wher he could laugh with safety. A saucy drummer-boy, who neglected this precaution, received a cuff from Abe's heavy hand that thrilled the rest of the drum-corps with delight.
When Abe's wrath subsided from this ebullient stage back to its customary one of simmer, Kent ventured to return.
"Say," said he, pulling over the coats and blankets near the fire, "where's the canteen?"
"There it is by the cups. Can't you see it? If it was a snake it'd bite you."
"It's done that already, several times, or rather its contents have. You know what the Bible says, 'Biteth liek a serpent and stingeth like an adder?' Ah, here it is. But gloomy forebodings seize me: it is suspiciously light. Paradoxically, its lightness induces gravity in me. But that pun is entirely too fine-drawn for camp atmosphere."
He shook the canteen near his ear. "Alas! no gurgle responds to my fond caresses--
Canteen, Mavourneen, O, why art thou silent, Thou voice of my heart?
It is--woe is me--it is empty."
"Of course it is--you were the last one at it."
"I hurl that foul imputation back into thy teeth base knave. Thou thyself art a very daughter of a horse-leech with a canteen of whisky."
Abe looked at him inquiringly. "You must've found some, some place," he said, "or you wouldn't be so awful glib. It's taken 'bout half-a-pint to loosen your tongue so that it'd run this way. I know you."
"No, I've not found a spoonful. The eloquence of thirst is the only inspiration I have at present. I fain would stay its cravings by quaffing a beaker of mountain-distilled hair-curler. Mayhap this humble receptacle contains yet a few drops which escaped thy ravenous thirst."
Kent turned the canteen upside down and placed its mouth upon his tongue. "No," he said, with deep dejection, "all that delicious fluid of yesterday is now like the Father of his Country."
"Eh?" asked Abe, puzzled.
"Because it is no more--it is no more. It belongs to the unreturning past."
"I say," he continued after a moment's pause, "let's go out and hunt for some. there must be plenty in this neighborhood. Nature never makes a want without providing something to supply it. Therefore, judging from my thirst, this country ought to be full of distilleries."
They buckled on their belts, picked up their guns and started out, directing their steps to the front.
In spite of the sunshine the walk through the battle-field was depressing. A chafing wind fretted through the naked limbs of the oaks and chestnuts, and drew moans from the pines and the hemlocks. The brown, dead leaves rustled into little tawny hillocks, behind protecting logs and rocks. Frequently those took on the shape of long, narrow mounds as if they covered the graves of some ill-fated being, who like themselves, had fallen to the earth to rot in dull obscurity. The clear little streams that in Summer-time murmured musically down the slopes, under canopies of nodding roses and fragrant sweet-brier, were now turbid torrents, brawling like churls drunken with much wine, and tearing out with savage wantonness their banks, matted with the roots of the blue violets, and the white-flowered puccoon.
Scattered over the mountain-side were fatigue-parties engaged in hunting up the dead, and burying them in shallow graves, hastily dug in clay so red that it seemed as if saturated with the blood shed the day before. The buriers thrust their hands into the pockets of the dead with the flinching, nauseated air of men touching filth, and took from the garments seeping with water and blood, watches, letters, ambrotypes, money and trinkets, some of which they studied to gain a clue to the dead man's identity, some retained as souvenirs, but threw the most back into the grave with an air of loathing. The faces of the dead with their staring eyes and open mouths and long, lank hair, cloyed with the sand and mud thrown