War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 13
XIII
WERE THERE UNIONS OR CONFEDERATES IN HARG'S WOODS?
I HAPPENS to be at the dormer window a couple of minutes later, and sees the soldiers at the turn in the Red Rock Road. Only about half of the squad was there. I wondered what had become of the rest—until three days later, when I meets them camped in Harg's woods, just about a half-mile away.
About the same time I notices that there's always some one, dressed in any kind of old clothes, where he can see the back door, and another where he can see the front door.
Dave notices these loafers, too.
"They're just stealing green corn and potatoes," says he. "Let them alone. It won't hurt us much and will give them colic."
"But, where do they come from?" I asks.
"There's a camp of Johnnies in Harg's woods."
"Davy," says I, "you need the eye-doctor."
"Why?" says Dave.
"They're Unions."
"Rebels."
"Unions."
And so we went on denying, till Dave dragged me around to see.
Well, it looked like he was right.
"It's funny," says I, "but you fellows look exactly like the Unions that was down at my house, there, the other day. I remember your faces."
"All soldiers look alike," laughs one.
"Not on your life," says I. "I could swear that you—. What you doing here, anyhow? It's dangerous. Unions are about most all the time."
"Yes, it's dangerous," nods the soldier, "but we're looking out." And he makes monkey shines with his hands and fingers to Dave and me. "And you're assisting us to look out, eh?"
"What's it all about?" asks Dave.
"We are helping some bulky material South by the Underground," says he. "And all the assistance we can get just now is needed."
He makes more monkey-business with his hands and feet. Up, down—right, left—circles, all around.
"You don't need to be so exceedingly careful, Mr. Vonner—"
He looked straight at me with some more signs.
"—and Mr. Mallory—"
Straight at Dave with the same hocus-pocus.
"—you re among friends."
"Lunatics," says Dave. "The asylum is at Mount Hope, about twenty miles away. Did you get out or are you on your way in?"
"Do you mean to say that you don't understand?"
"The deaf and dumb language is foreign to us," says Dave.
"Is this the same?" asks one, turning the lapel of his coat and showing a badge made by cutting the Indian head out of one of the big, old, copper cents.
"The same," says Dave.
"Let me see that," says I.
He handed it over to me.
"Well," I says, "when I was more a fool than I am now, I was a little bit of a Copperhead. This is the thing they used to wear to show each other who they was."
"And you couldn't do so little for the cause as to help run a few mules across the border to-night, and lead a few recruits south of the Potomac, you and our other friends here?"
"I won't think of it," says Dave, "unless it's a thousand—mules. A few are not enough!"
He drags me off.
And that night at the table, Dave tells all about the fun he'd had that day, being taken for Mallory, and tells Evelyn he's going to take her around the next day, to have some fun, too, and see whether they'll take her for Mallory.
Evelyn got as white as a sheet, and nearly fell off her chair.
"Oh, well," says Dave, "if you feel that way we won't."
"I don't want to go—I don't want to go—" says Evelyn. Starting to her room.
She was sick in bed the next day.