Various - Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools

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"Bladburn, John," was the reply.

"That's rather an unwieldy name for everyday use," put in Strong. "If it
wouldn't hurt your feelings, I'd like to call you Quite So,--for short.
Don't say no, if you don't like it. Is it agreeable?"

Bladburn gave a little laugh, all to himself, seemingly, and was about
to say, "Quite so," when he caught at the words, blushed like a girl,
and nodded a sunny assent to Strong. From that day until the end, the
sobriquet clung to him.

The disaster at Bull Run was followed, as the reader knows, by a long
period of masterly inactivity, so far as the Army of the Potomac was
concerned. McDowell, a good soldier but unlucky, retired to Arlington
Heights, and McClellan, who had distinguished himself in Western
Virginia, took command of the forces in front of Washington, and bent
his energies to reorganizing the demoralized troops. It was a dreary
time to the people of the North, who looked fatuously from week to week
for "the fall of Richmond"; and it was a dreary time to the denizens of
that vast city of tents and forts which stretched in a semicircle before
the beleaguered Capitol,--so tedious and soul-wearing a time that the
hardships of forced marches and the horrors of battle became desirable
things to them.

Roll-call morning and evening, guard-duty, dress-parades, an occasional
reconnaissance, dominoes, wrestling-matches, and such rude games as
could be carried on in camp made up the sum of our lives. The arrival of
the mail with letters and papers from home was the event of the day. We
noticed that Bladburn neither wrote nor received any letters. When the
rest of the boys were scribbling away for dear life, with drumheads and
knapsacks and cracker-boxes for writing-desks, he would sit serenely
smoking his pipe, but looking out on us through rings of smoke with a
face expressive of the tenderest interest.

"Look here, Quite So," Strong would say, "the mail-bag closes in half an
hour. Ain't you going to write?"

"I believe not to-day," Bladburn would reply, as if he had written
yesterday, or would write to-morrow: but he never wrote.

He had become a great favorite with us, and with all the officers of the
regiment. He talked less than any man I ever knew, but there was nothing
sinister or sullen in his reticence. It was sunshine,--warmth and
brightness, but no voice. Unassuming and modest to the verge of
shyness, he impressed every one as a man of singular pluck and nerve.

"Do you know," said Curtis to me one day, "that that fellow Quite So is
clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto
brethren over yonder, he'll do something devilish?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, nothing quite explainable; the exasperating coolness of the man,
as much as anything. This morning the boys were teasing Muffin Fan" [a
small mulatto girl who used to bring muffins into camp three times a
week,--at the peril of her life!] "and Jemmy Blunt of Company K--you
know him--was rather rough on the girl, when Quite So, who had been
reading under a tree, shut one finger in his book, walked over to where
the boys were skylarking, and with the smile of a juvenile angel on his
face lifted Jemmy out of that and set him down gently in front of his
own tent. There Blunt sat speechless, staring at Quite So, who was back
again under the tree, pegging away at his little Latin grammar."

That Latin grammar! He always had it about him, reading it or turning
over its dog's-eared pages at odd intervals and in out-of-the-way
places. Half a dozen times a day he would draw it out from the bosom of
his blouse, which had taken the shape of the book just over the left
breast, look at it as if to assure himself it was all right, and then
put the thing back. At night the volume lay beneath his pillow. The
first thing in the morning, before he was well awake, his hand would go
groping instinctively under his knapsack in search of it.

A devastating curiosity seized upon us boys concerning that Latin
grammar, for we had discovered the nature of the book. Strong wanted to
steal it one night, but concluded not to. "In the first place,"
reflected Strong, "I haven't the heart to do it, and in the next place I
haven't the moral courage. Quite So would placidly break every bone in
my body." And I believe Strong was not far out of the way.

Sometimes I was vexed with myself for allowing this tall, simple-hearted
country fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was he a simple-hearted
country fellow? City bred he certainly was not; but his manner, in spite
of his awkwardness, had an indescribable air of refinement. Now and
then, too, he dropped a word or a phrase that showed his familiarity
with unexpected lines of reading. "The other day," said Curtis, with the
slightest elevation of eyebrow, "he had the cheek to correct my Latin
for me." In short, Quite So was a daily problem to the members of Mess
6. Whenever he was absent, and Blakely and Curtis and Strong and I got
together in the tent, we discussed him, evolving various theories to
explain why he never wrote to anybody and why nobody ever wrote to him.
Had the man committed some terrible crime, and fled to the army to hide
his guilt? Blakely suggested that he must have murdered "the old folks."
What did he mean by eternally conning that tattered Latin grammar? And
was his name Bladburn, anyhow? Even his imperturbable amiability became
suspicious. And then his frightful reticence! If he was the victim of
any deep grief or crushing calamity, why didn't he seem unhappy? What
business had he to be cheerful?

"It's my opinion," said Strong, "that he's a rival Wandering Jew; the
original Jacobs, you know, was a dark fellow."

Blakely inferred from something Bladburn had said, or something he had
not said,--which was more likely,--that he had been a schoolmaster at
some period of his life.

"Schoolmaster be hanged!" was Strong's comment. "Can you fancy a
schoolmaster going about conjugating baby verbs out of a dratted little
spelling-book? No, Quite So has evidently been a--a--Blest if I can
imagine _what_ he's been!"

Whatever John Bladburn had been, he was a lonely man. Whenever I want a
type of perfect human isolation, I shall think of him, as he was in
those days, moving remote, self-contained, and alone in the midst of two
hundred thousand men.

II

The Indian summer, with its infinite beauty and tenderness, came like a
reproach that year to Virginia. The foliage, touched here and there with
prismatic tints, drooped motionless in the golden haze. The delicate
Virginia creeper was almost minded to put forth its scarlet buds again.
No wonder the lovely phantom--this dusky Southern sister of the pale
Northern June--lingered not long with us, but, filling the once peaceful
glens and valleys with her pathos, stole away rebukefully before the
savage enginery of man.

The preparations that had been going on for months in arsenals and
foundries at the North were nearly completed. For weeks past the air had
been filled with rumors of an advance; but the rumor of to-day refuted
the rumor of yesterday, and the Grand Army did not move. Heintzelman's
corps was constantly folding its tents, like the Arabs, and as silently
stealing away; but somehow it was always in the same place the next
morning. One day, at length, orders came down for our brigade to move.

"We're going to Richmond, boys!" shouted Strong, thrusting his head in
at the tent; and we all cheered and waved our caps like mad. You see,
Big Bethel and Bull Run and Ball's Bluff (the Bloody B's, as we used to
call them,) hadn't taught us any better sense.

Rising abruptly from the plateau, to the left of our encampment, was a
tall hill covered with a stunted growth of red-oak, persimmon, and
chestnut. The night before we struck tents I climbed up to the crest to
take a parting look at a spectacle which custom had not been able to rob
of its enchantment. There, at my feet, and extending miles and miles
away, lay the camps of the Grand Army, with its camp-fires reflected
luridly against the sky. Thousands of lights were twinkling in every
direction, some nestling in the valley, some like fire-flies beating
their wings and palpitating among the trees, and others stretching in
parallel lines and curves, like the street-lamps of a city. Somewhere,
far off, a band was playing, at intervals it seemed; and now and then,
nearer to, a silvery strain from a bugle shot sharply up through the
night, and seemed to lose itself like a rocket among the stars,--the
patient, untroubled stars. Suddenly a hand was laid upon my arm.

"I'd like to say a word to you," said Bladburn.

With a little start of surprise, I made room for him on the fallen tree
where I was seated.

"I mayn't get another chance," he said. "You and the boys have been very
kind to me, kinder than I deserve; but sometimes I've fancied that my
not saying anything about myself had given you the idea that all was
not right in my past. I want to say that I came down to Virginia with a
clean record."

"We never really doubted it, Bladburn."

"If I didn't write home," he continued, "it was because I hadn't any
home, neither kith nor kin. When I said the old folks were dead, I said
it. Am I boring you? If I thought I was--"

"No, Bladburn. I have often wanted you to talk to me about yourself, not
from idle curiosity, I trust, but because I liked you that rainy night
when you came to camp, and have gone on liking you ever since. This
isn't too much to say, when Heaven only knows how soon I may be past
saying it or you listening to it."

"That's it," said Bladburn, hurriedly, "that's why I want to talk with
you. I've a fancy that I shan't come out of our first battle."

The words gave me a queer start, for I had been trying several days to
throw off a similar presentiment concerning him,--a foolish presentiment
that grew out of a dream.

"In case anything of that kind turns up," he continued, "I'd like you to
have my Latin grammar here,--you've seen me reading it. You might stick
it away in a bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes against me to
think of it falling into rough hands or being kicked about camp and
trampled under foot."

He was drumming softly with his fingers on the volume in the bosom of
his blouse.

"I didn't intend to speak of this to a living soul," he went on,
motioning me not to answer him; "but something took hold of me to-night
and made me follow you up here. Perhaps, if I told you all, you would be
the more willing to look after the little book in case it goes ill with
me. When the war broke out I was teaching school down in Maine, in the
same village where my father was schoolmaster before me. The old man
when he died left me quite alone. I lived pretty much by myself, having
no interests outside of the district school, which seemed in a manner my
personal property. Eight years ago last spring a new pupil was brought
to the school, a slight slip of a girl, with a sad kind of face and
quiet ways. Perhaps it was because she wasn't very strong, and perhaps
because she wasn't used over well by those who had charge of her, or
perhaps it was because my life was lonely, that my heart warmed to the
child. It all seems like a dream now, since that April morning when
little Mary stood in front of my desk with her pretty eyes looking down
bashfully and her soft hair falling over her face. One day I look up,
and six years have gone by,--as they go by in dreams,--and among the
scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, with serious, womanly eyes which I
cannot trust myself to look upon. The old life has come to an end. The
child has become a woman and can teach the master now. So help me
Heaven, I didn't know that I loved her until that day!

"Long after the children had gone home I sat in the schoolroom with my
face resting on my hands. There was her desk, the afternoon shadows
falling across it. It never looked empty and cheerless before. I went
and stood by the low chair, as I had stood hundreds of times. On the
desk was a pile of books, ready to be taken away, and among the rest a
small Latin grammar which we had studied together. What little despairs
and triumphs and happy hours were associated with it! I took it up
curiously, as if it were some gentle dead thing, and turned over the
pages, and could hardly see them. Turning the pages, idly so, I came to
a leaf on which something was written with ink, in the familiar girlish
hand. It was only the words 'Dear John,' through which she had drawn two
hasty pencil lines--I wish she hadn't drawn those lines!" added
Bladburn, under his breath.

He was silent for a minute or two, looking off towards the camps, where
the lights were fading out one by one.

"I had no right to go and love Mary. I was twice her age, an awkward,
unsocial man, that would have blighted her youth. I was as wrong as
wrong can be. But I never meant to tell her. I locked the grammar in my
desk and the secret in my heart for a year. I couldn't bear to meet her
in the village, and kept away from every place where she was likely to
be. Then she came to me, and sat down at my feet penitently, just as she
used to do when she was a child, and asked what she had done to anger
me; and then, Heaven forgive me! I told her all, and asked her if she
could say with her lips the words she had written, and she nestled in my
arms all a-trembling like a bird, and said them over and over again.

"When Mary's family heard of our engagement, there was trouble. They
looked higher for Mary than a middle-aged schoolmaster. No blame to
them. They forbade me the house, her uncles; but we met in the village
and at the neighbors' houses, and I was happy, knowing she loved me.
Matters were in this state when the war came on. I had a strong call to
look after the old flag, and I hung my head that day when the company
raised in our village marched by the schoolhouse to the railroad
station; but I couldn't tear myself away. About this time the minister's
son, who had been away to college, came to the village. He met Mary here
and there, and they became great friends. He was a likely fellow, near
her own age, and it was natural they should like one another. Sometimes
I winced at seeing him made free of the home from which I was shut out;
then I would open the grammar at the leaf where 'Dear John' was written
up in the corner, and my trouble was gone. Mary was sorrowful and pale
these days, and I think her people were worrying her.

"It was one evening two or three days before we got the news of Bull
Run. I had gone down to the burying-ground to trim the spruce hedge set
round the old man's lot, and was just stepping into the enclosure, when
I heard voices from the opposite side. One was Mary's, and the other I
knew to be young Marston's, the minister's son. I didn't mean to listen,
but what Mary was saying struck me dumb. _We must never meet again_, she
was saying in a wild way. _We must say good-by here, forever,--good-by,
good-by!_ And I could hear her sobbing. Then, presently, she said,
hurriedly, _No, no; my hand, not my lips_! Then it seemed he kissed her
hands, and the two parted, one going towards the parsonage, and the
other out by the gate near where I stood.

"I don't know how long I stood there, but the night-dews had wet me to
the bone when I stole out of the graveyard and across the road to the
schoolhouse. I unlocked the door, and took the Latin grammar from the
desk and hid it in my bosom. There was not a sound or a light anywhere
as I walked out of the village. And now," said Bladburn, rising suddenly
from the tree-trunk, "if the little book ever falls in your way, won't
you see that it comes to no harm, for my sake, and for the sake of the
little woman who was true to me and didn't love me? Wherever she is
to-night, God bless her!"

* * * * *

As we descended to camp with our arms resting on each other's shoulder,
the watch-fires were burning low in the valleys and along the hillsides,
and as far as the eye could reach, the silent tents lay bleaching in the
moonlight.

III

We imagined that the throwing forward of our brigade was the initial
movement of a general advance of the army: but that, as the reader will
remember, did not take place until the following March. The Confederates
had fallen back to Centreville without firing a shot, and the National
troops were in possession of Lewinsville, Vienna, and Fairfax
Court-House. Our new position was nearly identical with that which we
had occupied on the night previous to the battle of Bull Run,--on the
old turnpike road to Manassas, where the enemy was supposed to be in
great force. With a field-glass we could see the Rebel pickets moving in
a belt of woodland on our right, and morning and evening we heard the
spiteful roll of their snare-drums.

Those pickets soon became a nuisance to us. Hardly a night passed but
they fired upon our outposts, so far with no harmful result; but after a
while it grew to be a serious matter. The Rebels would crawl out on
all-fours from the wood into a field covered with underbrush, and lie
there in the dark for hours, waiting for a shot. Then our men took to
the rifle-pits,--pits ten or twelve feet long by four or five feet deep,
with the loose earth banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides.
All the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were
known to their transient tenants. One was called "The Pepper-Box,"
another "Uncle Sam's Well," another "The Reb-Trap," and another, I am
constrained to say, was named after a not to be mentioned tropical
locality. Though this rude sort of nomenclature predominated, there was
no lack of softer titles, such as "Fortress Matilda" and "Castle Mary,"
and one had, though unintentionally, a literary flavor to it, "Blair's
Grave," which was not popularly considered as reflecting unpleasantly on
Nat Blair, who had assisted in making the excavation.

Some of the regiment had discovered a field of late corn in the
neighborhood, and used to boil a few ears every day, while it lasted,
for the boys detailed on the night-picket. The corn-cobs were always
scrupulously preserved and mounted on the parapets of the pits. Whenever
a Rebel shot carried away one of these _barbette_ guns, there was
swearing in that particular trench. Strong, who was very sensitive to
this kind of disaster, was complaining bitterly one morning, because he
had lost three "pieces" the night before.

"There's Quite So, now," said Strong, "when a Minie-ball comes _ping_!
and knocks one of his guns to flinders, he merely smiles, and doesn't at
all see the degradation of the thing."

Poor Bladburn! As I watched him day by day going about his duties, in
his shy, cheery way, with a smile for every one and not an extra word
for anybody, it was hard to believe he was the same man who, that night
before we broke camp by the Potomac, had poured out to me the story of
his love and sorrow in words that burned in my memory.

While Strong was speaking, Blakely lifted aside the flap of the tent and
looked in on us.

"Boys, Quite So was hurt last night," he said, with a white tremor to
his lip.

"What!"

"Shot on picket."

"Why, he was in the pit next to mine," cried Strong.

"Badly hurt?"

"Badly hurt."

I knew he was; I need not have asked the question. He never meant to go
back to New England!

* * * * *

Bladburn was lying on the stretcher in the hospital-tent. The surgeon
had knelt down by him, and was carefully cutting away the bosom of his
blouse. The Latin grammar, stained and torn, slipped, and fell to the
floor. Bladburn gave me a quick glance. I picked up the book, and as I
placed it in his hand, the icy fingers closed softly over mine. He was
sinking fast. In a few minutes the surgeon finished his examination.
When he rose to his feet there were tears on the weather-beaten cheeks.
He was a rough outside, but a tender heart.

"My poor lad," he blurted out, "it's no use. If you've anything to say,
say it now, for you've nearly done with this world."

Then Bladburn lifted his eyes slowly to the surgeon, and the old smile
flitted over his face as he murmured,--

"Quite so."

NOTES

=the first battle of Bull Run=:--Fought July 21, 1861; known in the
South as Manassas.

=Long Bridge=:--A bridge over which the Union soldiers crossed in
fleeing to Washington after the battle of Bull Run.

=Shenandoah=:--A river and a valley in Virginia--the scene of many
events in the Civil War.

=Fairfax Court House=:--Near Manassas Junction.

=On to Richmond=:--In 1861 the newspapers of the North were violently
demanding an attack on Richmond.

=Faneuil Hall=:--An historic hall in Boston, in which important meetings
were held before the Revolution.

=McDowell=:--Irving McDowell, who commanded the Union troops at Bull
Run.

=McClellan=:--George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac.

=Wandering Jew=:--A legendary person said to have been condemned to
wander over the earth, undying, till the Day of Judgment. The legend is
probably founded on a passage in the Bible--John 21:20-23.

=folding its tents=:--A quotation from _The Day is Done_, by Longfellow.
The lines are:--

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

=Big Bethel=:--The Union troops were defeated here on June 10, 1861.

=Ball's Bluff=:--A place on the Potomac where the Union soldiers were
beaten, October 21, 1861.

=Centreville=:--A small town, the Union base in the first Battle of Bull
Run.

=Lewinsville=:--A small town, north of Centreville.

=Vienna=:--A village in the Bull Run district.

=Blair's Grave=:--Robert Blair, a Scotch writer, published (1743) a poem
in blank verse called "The Grave."

=barbette guns=:--Guns elevated to fire over the top of a turret or
parapet.

=minie-ball=:--A conical ball plugged with iron, named after its
inventor, Captain Minie, of France.

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the piece through without stopping, so that you can get the story.
Then go back to the beginning and study with the help of the following
questions:--

Compare the first sentence with the first sentence of _Tennessee's
Partner_. What do you think of the method? What is the use of the first
paragraph in _Quite So_? Why the long paragraph giving the setting? Is
this a good method in writing a story? What had become of "Little
Billy"? Who was "Johnny Reb"? What do you think of bringing in humorous
touches when one is dealing with things so serious as war and battles?
What does "Drop that!" refer to? Why does Strong change his tone? Note
what details the author has selected in order to give a clear picture of
"Quite So" in a few words. How does the conversation reveal the
stranger's character? What is shown by the fact that "Quite So" does not
write any letters? What is the purpose of the episode of "Muffin Fan"?
What devices does the author use, in order to bring out the mystery and
the loneliness of "Quite So"? Note how the author emphasizes the passage
of time. Why does Bladburn finally tell his story? How does it reveal
his character? Was Mary right in what she did? Why are some sentences in
the text printed in italics? Was Bladburn right in leaving his home
village without explanation? Why did he do so? What do you get from the
sentence, "He never meant to go back to New England"? What is the
impression made by the last sentence? Do you like the story?

THEME SUBJECTS

A Mysterious Person
The New Girl at School
The Schoolmaster's Romance
A Sudden Departure
A Camp Scene
The G.A.R. on Memorial Day
The Militia in our Town
An Old Soldier
A Story of the Civil War
Some Relics of the Civil War
Watching the Cadets Drill
My Uncle's Experiences in the War
A Sham Battle
A Visit to an Old Battlefield
On Picket Duty
A Daughter of the Confederacy
"Stonewall" Jackson
Modern Ways of Preventing War
The Soldiers' Home
An Escape from a Military Prison
The Women's Relief Corps
Women in the Civil War

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

=An Old Soldier=:--Tell how you happen to know this old soldier. Where
does he live? Do you see him often? What is he doing when you see him?
Describe him as vividly as you can:--his general appearance; his
clothes; his way of walking. Speak particularly of his face and its
expression. If possible, let us hear him talk. Perhaps you can tell some
of his war stories--in his own words.

=A Mysterious Person=:--Imagine a mysterious person appearing in a
little town where everybody knows everybody else. Tell how he (or she)
arrives. How does he look? What does he do? Explain clearly why he is
particularly hard to account for. What do people say about him? Try to
make each person's remarks fit his individual character. How do people
try to find out about the stranger? Does he notice their curiosity? Do
they ask him questions? If so, give some bits of their conversations
with him. You might go on and make a story of some length out of this.
Show whether the stranger really has any reason for concealing his
identity. Does he get into any trouble? Does an accident reveal who he
is and why he is in the town? Does some one find out by spying upon him?
Or does he tell all about himself, when the right time comes?

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