The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Sh - Stephen Crane [56]
The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. “Thunder!” he remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand felt carefully of the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. “Well, Henry, ol’ man, how do yeh feel this mornin‘?” he demanded.
The youth yawned again. Then he puckered his mouth to a little pucker. His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon, and there was an unpleasant sensation at his stomach.
“Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad,” he said.
“Thunder!” exclaimed the other. “I hoped ye’d feel all right this mornin‘. Let’s see th’ bandage—I guess it’s slipped.” He began to tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.
“Gosh-dern it!” he said in sharp irritation; “you’re the hangdestz man I ever saw! You wear muffs on your hands. Why in good thundera tion can’t you be more easy? I’d rather you’d stand off an’ throw guns at it. Now, go slow, an’ don’t act as if you was nailing down carpet.”
He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter answered soothingly. “Well, well, come now, an’ git some grub,” he said. “Then, maybe, yeh’ll feel better.”
At the fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade’s wants with tenderness and care. He was very busy marshaling the little black vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the streaming, iron colored mixture from a small and sooty tin pail. He had some fresh meat, which he roasted hurriedly upon a stick. He sat down then and contemplated the youth’s appetite with glee.
The youth took note of a remarkable change in his comrade since those days of camp life upon the river bank. He seemed no more to be continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess. He was not furious at small words that pricked his conceits. He was no more a loud young soldier. There was about him now a fine reliance. He showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his abilities. And this inward confidence evidently enabled him to be indifferent to little words of other men aimed at him.
The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade as a blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience, thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage. A swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard. The youth wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be subjected by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his friend’s neighborhood.
His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee. “Well, Henry,” he said, “what d‘yeh think th’ chances are? D’yeh think we’ll wallop ‘em?”
The youth considered for a moment. “Day-b‘fore-yesterday,” he finally replied, with boldness, “you would ’a’ bet you’d lick the hull kit-an‘-boodle all by yourself.”
His friend looked a trifle amazed. “Would I?” he asked. He pondered. “Well, perhaps I would,” he decided at last. He stared humbly at the fire.
The youth was quite disconcerted at this surprising reception of his remarks. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t either,” he said, hastily trying to retrace.
But the other made a deprecating gesture. “Oh, yeh needn’t mind, Henry,” he said. “I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days.” He spoke as after a lapse of years.
There was a little pause.
“All th’ officers say we’ve got th’ rebs in a pretty tight box,” said the friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace way. “They all seem t’ think we’ve got ‘em jest where we want ’em.”
“I don’t know about that,” the youth replied.