Kincaids Battery | Page 3

soldier still told his
doubts to the newspaper.
"Adolphe has habits," he meditated, "but success is not one of them."

Up and down a perpendicular procession on the page he every now and
then mentally returned the salute of the one little musketeer of the same
height as the steamboat's chimneys, whether the Attention he
challenged was that of the Continentals, the Louisiana Grays, Orleans
Cadets, Crescent Blues or some other body of blithe invincibles. Yet
his thought was still of Anna. When Adolphe, last year, had courted her,
and the hopeful uncle had tried non-intervention, she had declined
him--"and oh, how wisely!" For then back to his native city came
Kincaid after years away at a Northern military school and one year
across the ocean, and the moment the uncle saw him he was glad
Adolphe had failed. But now if she was going to find Hilary as
light-headed and cloying as Adolphe was thick-headed and sour, or if
she must see Hilary go soft on the slim Mobile girl--whom Adolphe
was already so torpidly enamored of--"H-m-m-m!"
Two young men who had tied their horses behind the hotel crossed the
white court toward the garden. They also were in civil dress, yet wore
an air that goes only with military training. The taller was Hilary
Kincaid, the other his old-time, Northern-born-and-bred school chum,
Fred Greenleaf. Kincaid, coming home, had found him in New Orleans,
on duty at Jackson Barracks, and for some weeks they had enjoyed
cronying. Now they had been a day or two apart and had chanced to
meet again at this spot. Kincaid, it seems, had been looking at a point
hard by with a view to its fortification. Their manner was frankly
masterful though they spoke in guarded tones.
"No," said Kincaid, "you come with me to this drill. Nobody'll take
offence."
"Nor will you ever teach your cousin to handle a battery," replied
Greenleaf, with a sedate smile.
"Well, he knows things we'll never learn. Come with me, Fred, else I
can't see you till theatre's out--if I go there with her--and you say--"
"Yes, I want you to go with her," murmured Greenleaf, so solemnly
that Kincaid laughed outright.

"But, after the show, of course," said the laugher, "you and I'll ride,
eh?" and then warily, "You've taken your initials off all your stuff?...
Yes, and Jerry's got your ticket. He'll go down with your things, check
them all and start off on the ticket himself. Then, as soon as you--"
"But will they allow a slave to do so?"
"With my pass, yes; 'Let my black man, Jerry--'"
The garden took the pair into its depths a moment too soon for the old
soldier to see them as he came out upon the side veranda with a cloud
on his brow that showed he had heard his nephew's laugh.

II
CARRIAGE COMPANY
Bareheaded the uncle crossed the fountained court, sat down at a table
and read again. In the veranda a negro, his own slave, hired to this hotel,
held up an elegant military cap, struck an inquiring attitude, and called
softly, "Gen'al?"
"Bring it with the coffee."
But the negro instantly brought it without the coffee and placed it on
the table with a delicate flourish, shuffled a step back and bowed low:
"Coffee black, Gen'al, o' co'se?"
"Black as your grandmother."
The servant tittered: "Yas, suh, so whah it flop up-siden de cup it leave
a lemon-yalleh sta-ain."
He capered away, leaving the General to the little steamboats and to a
blessed ignorance of times to be when at "Vicksburg and the Bends"
this same waiter would bring his coffee made of corn-meal bran and

muddy water, with which to wash down scant snacks of mule meat.
The listless eye still roamed the arid page as the slave returned with the
fragrant pot and cup, but now the sitter laid it by, lighted a cigar and
mused:--
In this impending war the South would win, of course--oh, God is just!
But this muser could only expect to fall at the front. Then his large
estate, all lands and slaves, five hundred souls--who would inherit that
and hold it together? Held together it must be! Any partition of it would
break no end of sacredly humble household and family ties and work
spiritual havoc incalculable. There must be but one heir. Who? Hilary's
mother had been in heaven these many years, the mother of Adolphe
eighteen months; months quite enough to show the lone brother how
vast a loss is the absence of the right mistress from such very human
interests as those of a great plantation. Not only must there be but one
heir, but he must have the right wife.
The schemer sipped. So it was Anna for Hilary if he