Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 | Page 3

Before
we started for the field the Governor got his eye on him and shoved
him into a lieutenancy. The first battle h'isted him to a captain. And the

second--bang! whiz! he shot up to colonel right over the heads of
everybody, line and field. Nobody in the Old Tenth grumbled. They
saw that he knew his biz. I know all about him. What'll you bet?"
"I'm not a betting man, Lieutenant, except in a friendly game of poker,"
sighed Old Grumps. "You don't know anything about your Brigadier,"
he added in a sepulchral murmur, the echo of an empty canteen. "I have
only been in this brigade a month, and I know more than you do, far,
very far more, sorry to say it. He's a reformed clergyman. He's an
apostatized minister." The Colonel's voice as he said this was solemn
and sad enough to do credit to an undertaker. "It's a bad sort, Wallis,"
he continued, after another deep sigh, a very highly perfumed one, the
sigh of a barkeeper. "When a clergyman falls, he falls for life and
eternity, like a woman or an angel. I never knew a backslidden
shepherd to come to good. Sooner or later he always goes to the devil,
and takes down whomsoever hangs to him."
"He'll take down the Old Tenth, then," asserted Wallis. "It hangs to him.
Bet you two to one he takes it along."
"You're right, Adjutant; spoken like a soldier," swore Gildersleeve.
"And the Bloody Fourteenth, too. It will march into the burning pit as
far as any regiment; and the whole brigade, yes, sir! But a backslidden
shepherd, my God! Have we come to that? I often say to myself, in the
solemn hours of the night, as I remember my Sabbath-school days,
'Great Scott! have we come to that?' A reformed clergyman! An
apostatized minister! Think of it, Wallis, think of it! Why, sir, his very
wife ran away from him. They had but just buried their first boy,"
pursued Old Grumps, his hoarse voice sinking to a whimper. "They
drove home from the burial-place, where lay the new-made grave.
Arrived at their door, he got out and extended his hand to help her out.
Instead of accepting, instead of throwing herself into his arms and
weeping there, she turned to the coachman and said, 'Driver, drive me
to my father's house.' That was the end of their wedded life, Wallis."
The Colonel actually wept at this point, and the maudlin tears were not
altogether insincere. His own wife and children he heartily loved, and
remembered them now with honest tenderness. At home he was not a

drinker and a rough; only amid the hardships and perils of the field.
"That was the end of it, Wallis," he repeated. "And what was it while it
lasted? What does a woman leave her husband for? Why does she
separate from him over the grave of her innocent first-born? There are
twenty reasons, but they must all of them be good ones. I am sorry to
give it as my decided opinion, Wallis, in perfect confidence, that they
must all be whopping good ones. Well, that was the beginning; only the
beginning. After that he held on for a while, breaking the bread of life
to a skedaddling flock, and then he bolted. The next known of him,
three years later, he enlisted in your regiment, a smart but seedy recruit,
smelling strongly of whiskey."
"I wish I smelt half as strong of it myself," grumbled Wallis. "It might
keep out the swamp fever."
"That's the true story of Col. John James Waldron," continued Old
Grumps, with a groan which was very somnolent, as if it were a twin to
a snore. "That's the true story."
"I don't believe the first word of it--that is to say, Colonel, I think you
have been misinformed--and I'll bet you two to one on it. If he was
nothing more than a minister, how did he know drill and tactics?"
"Oh, I forgot to say he went through West Point--that is, nearly through.
They graduated him in his third year by the back door, Wallis."
"Oh, that was it, was it? He was a West Pointer, was he? Well, then, the
backsliding was natural, and oughtn't to count against him. A member
of Benny Havens's church has a right to backslide anywhere, especially
as the Colonel doesn't seem to be any worse than some of the rest of us,
who haven't fallen from grace the least particle, but took our stand at
the start just where we are now. A fellow that begins with a handful of
trumps has a right to play a risky game."
"I know what euchered him, Wallis. It was the old Little Joker; and
there's another of