The Littlest Rebel

The Littlest Rebel

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Littlest Rebel, by Edward Peple
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Title: The Littlest Rebel
Author: Edward Peple
Release Date: March 19, 2005 [EBook #15414]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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The
LITTLEST REBEL
By
EDWARD PEPLE
GROSSET & DUNLAP: Publishers NEW YORK
Copyright, 1914 By the ESTATE OF EDWARD H. PEPLE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE
REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN
WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.
Printed in the United States of America

FOREWORD
The play, from which this book is written, was in no sense of the word
intended as a war drama; for war is merely its background, and always
in the center stands a lonely little child.
War is its theme but not its purpose. War breeds hatred, horror,
pestilence and famine, yet from its tears and ashes eventually must rise
the clean white spirit of HUMANITY.
The enmity between North and South is dead; it sleeps with the fathers
and the sons, the brothers and the lovers, who died in a cause which
each believed was just.
Therefore this story deals, not with the right or wrong of a lost
confederacy, but with the mercy and generosity, the chivalry and
humanity which lived in the hearts of the Blue and Gray, a noble
contrast to the grim brutality of war.
* * * * *
The author is indebted to Mr. E.S. Moffat, who has novelized the play
directly from its text, with the exception of that portion which appeared
as a short story under the same title several years ago, treating of Virgie
in the overseer's cabin, and the endorsing of her pass by
Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison.
EDWARD PEPLE.

THE LITTLEST REBEL

CHAPTER I
Young Mrs. Herbert Cary picked up her work basket and slowly
crossed the grass to a shady bench underneath the trees. She must go on
with her task of planning a dress for Virgie. But the prospect of making
her daughter something wearable out of the odds and ends of nothing
was not a happy one. In fact, she was still poking through her basket
and frowning thoughtfully when a childish voice came to her ears.
"Yes, Virgie! Here I am. Out under the trees."

Immediately came a sound of tumultuous feet and Miss Virginia
Houston Cary burst upon the scene. She was a tot of seven with sun
touched hair and great dark eyes whose witchery made her a piquant
little fairy. In spite of her mother's despair over her clothes Virgie was
dressed, or at least had been dressed at breakfast time, in a clean white
frock, low shoes and white stockings, although all now showed signs of
strenuous usage. Clutched to her breast as she ran up to her mother's
side was "Susan Jemima," her one beloved possession and her doll.
Behind Virgie came Sally Ann, her playmate, a slim, barefooted
mulatto girl whose faded, gingham dress hung partly in tatters, halfway
between her knees and ankles. In one of Sally Ann's hands, carried like
a sword, was a pointed stick; in the other, a long piece of blue
wood-moss from which dangled a bit of string.
"Oh, Mother," cried the small daughter of the Carys, as she came up
flushed and excited, "what do you reckon Sally Ann and me have been
playing out in the woods!"
"What, dear!" and Mrs. Cary's gentle hand went up to lift the hair back
from her daughter's dampened forehead.
"_Blue Beard_!" cried Virgie, with rounded eyes.
"Blue Beard!" echoed her mother in astonishment at this childish freak
of amusement.
"Not really--on this hot day."
"Um, hum," nodded Virgie emphatically. "You know he--he--he was
the terriblest old man that--that ever was. An' he had so many wifses
that--"
"Say 'wives,' my darling. Wives."
Sally Ann laughed and Virgie frowned.
"Well, I thought it was that, but Sally Ann's older'n me and she said
'wifses.'"

"Huh," grunted Sally Ann. "Don' make no differ'nce what you call 'em,
des so he had 'em. Gor'n tell her."
"Well, you know, Mother, Blue Beard had such a bad habit of killin' his
wives that--that some of the ladies got so they--they almost didn't like
to marry him!"
"Gracious, what a state of affairs," cried Mrs. Cary, in well feigned
amazement at the timidity of the various Mrs. Blue Beards. "And
then--"
"Well, the last time he