The Cavalier | Page 8

me up a jacket and pair of shoes I'll sign for them and go. I
don't want a hat, but I reckon I'd as well include shoes, although
really,--" I glanced down brazenly at the stirrup-leathers that so snugly
hid my naked toes.
As the quartermaster lifted out a pair of brogans as broad as they were
long, there came a cry of protestation from the freight-car group, that
brought the entire herd of rustics from the woodpile and the locomotive.
Miss Harper rose behind her nieces, tall, slender, dark, with keen black
eyes as kind as they were penetrating. "My boy!" she cried, "you
cannot wear those things!"
Camille, the youngest, whispered to her, whereupon she beckoned.
"Oh!--oh, do come here!--Mr. Smith, I am the sister of Major Harper.
You're from New Orleans? Does your mother live in Apollo Street?"
"Yes, madam, between Melpomene and Terpsichore."
"Richard Thorndyke Smith! My dear boy," she cried, while the nieces
gasped at each other with gestures and looks all the way between
Terpsichore and Melpomene, and then the four cried in chorus, "We
know your mother!"
"We've got a letter for you from her!" exclaimed Camille.
"And a suit of unie-fawm!" called Cécile, with her Creole accent.
"We smuggled it through!" chanted the trio, ready to weep for virtuous
joy. And then they clasped arms like the graces, about their aunt, and
let her speak.
"We all helped your mother make your uniform," she said. "In the short
time we've known her we've learned to love her dearly." With military

brevity she told how they had unexpectedly got a pass and were just out
of New Orleans--"poor New Orleans!" put in Estelle, the eldest, the
pensive one; that they had come up from Pontchatoula yesterday and
last night, and had thrown themselves on beds in the "hotel" yonder
without venturing to disrobe, and so had let her brother pass within a
few steps of them while they slept! "Telegraph? My dear boy, we came
but ten miles an hour, but we outran our despatch!" Now they had
telegraphed again, to Brookhaven, and thanks to the post-quartermaster,
were going down there at once on this train. While this was being told
something else was going on. The youngest niece, Camille, had put
herself entirely out of sight. Now she reappeared with very rosy cheeks,
saying, "Here's the letter."
My thanks were few and awkward, for there still hung to the missive a
basting thread, and it was as warm as a nestling bird. I bent
low--everybody was emotional in those days--kissed the fragrant thing,
thrust it into my bosom, and blushed worse than Camille.
"Poor boy!" said the aunt. "It's the first line you've had for months.
Your sweet mother wrote, but her letters were all intercepted, and the
last time she was warned that next time she'd be dealt with according to
military usage! I'm glad we could give you this one at once. We can't
give you the uniform, for we--why, girls, what--why, what nonsense!"
Maybe I did not say vindictive things inside me just then! The three
nieces had turned open-mouthed upon one another and sunk down upon
their luggage with averted faces.
"I say we can't give it to you now," Miss Harper persisted, with a
motherly smile; "we're wearing it ourselves. We've had no time to take
it off. I couldn't get the boots off me last night. And even if you had the
boots, the other things--"
"Aunt Martha!" moaned some one. "Well, in short," said the aunt,
twinkling like her brother, "we can't deliver the goods, and--" She
started as though some one had slapped her between the
shoulder-blades. It was the engine caused it, whistling in the old,
lawless way, putting a whoop, a howl, a scream and a wail into one.

The young ladies quailed, the train jerked like several collisions, the
bell began tardily to clang, and my steed whirled, cleared a packing
case, whirled again, and stood facing the train, his eyes blazing, his
nostrils flapping, not half so much frightened as insulted. The
post-quartermaster waved to the ladies and they to us. For a last touch I
lifted my cap high and backed my horse on drooping haunches--you've
seen Buffalo Bill do it--and then, with a leap like a cricket's, and to a
clapping of maidens' hands that made me whooping drunk, we
stretched away, my horse and I, on a long smooth gallop, for
Brookhaven.

VI
A HANDSOME STRANGER
Certainly no cricket ever dropped blither music from his legs than did
my beautiful horse that glorious morning as we clattered in perfect
rhythm on the hard clean road of the wide pine forest. Ah! the forest is
not there now; the lumbermen--
For an hour or so the world seemed to