Quite So | Page 2

the candle to consciousness,

the light fell upon a tall, shy-looking man of about thirty-five, with long,
hay-colored beard and mustache, upon which the rain-drops stood in
clusters, like the night-dew on patches of cobweb in a meadow. It was
an honest face, with unworldly sort of blue eyes, that looked out from
under the broad visor of the infantry cap. With a deferential glance
towards us, the new-comer unstrapped his knapsack, spread his blanket
over it, and sat down unobtrusively.
"Rather damp night out," remarked Blakely, whose strong hand was
supposed to be conversation.
"Quite so," replied the stranger, not curtly, but pleasantly, and with an
air as if he had said all there was to be said about it.
"Come from the North recently?" inquired Blakely, after a pause.
"Yes."
"From any place in particular?"
"Maine."
"People considerably stirred up down there?" continued Blakely,
determined not to give up.
"Quite so."
Blakely threw a puzzled look over the tent, and seeing Ned Strong on
the broad grin, frowned severely. Strong instantly assumed an
abstracted air, and began humming softly,
"I wish I was in Dixie."
"The State of Maine," observed Blakely, with a certain defiance of
manner not at all necessary in discussing a geographical question, "is a
pleasant State."
"In summer," suggested the stranger.

"In summer, I mean," returned Blakely with animation, thinking he had
broken the ice. "Cold as blazes in winter, though--Isn't it?"
The new recruit merely nodded.
Blakely eyed the man homicidally for a moment, and then, smiling one
of those smiles of simulated gayety which the novelists inform us are
more tragic than tears, turned upon him with withering irony.
"Trust you left the old folks pretty comfortable?"
"Dead."
"The old folks dead!"
"Quite so."
Blakely made a sudden dive for his blanket, tucked it around him with
painful precision, and was heard no more.
Just then the bugle sounded "lights out,"--bugle answering bugle in
far-off camps. When our not elaborate night-toilets were complete,
Strong threw somebody else's old boot at the candle with infallible aim,
and darkness took possession of the tent. Ned, who lay on my left,
presently reached over to me, and whispered, "I say, our friend 'quite
so' is a garrulous old boy! He'll talk himself to death some of these odd
times, if he is n't careful. How he did run on!"
The next morning, when I opened my eyes, the new member of Mess 6
was sitting on his knapsack, combing his blonde beard with a horn
comb. He nodded pleasantly to me, and to each of the boys as they
woke up, one by one. Blakely did not appear disposed to renew the
animated conversation of the previous night; but while he was gone to
make a requisition for what was in pure sarcasm called coffee, Curtis
ventured to ask the man his name.
"Bladburn, John," was the reply.
"That's rather an unwieldy name for every-day use," put in Strong. "If it

would n'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 Bun 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 reconnoissance, 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 drum-heads 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