The Littlest Rebel | Page 3

greatest of the armies battled on Virginia soil--battled and passed
to their final muster roll.
Of little need to tell of the privations which the pivotal state of the
Confederacy went through. If it were true that Virginia had been simply
one vast arsenal where every inhabitant had unfailingly done his part in
making war, it was also true that she had furnished many of its greatest
battlefields--and at what a frightful cost.
Everywhere were the cruel signs of destruction and want--in scanty
larder, patched, refurbished clothing, servantless homes--in dismantled
outhouses, broken fences and neglected, brier-choked fields. Even the
staples of life were fast diminishing for every man who could shoulder
a gun had gone to fight with Lee, and few animals were left and fewer
slaves.
* * * * *
Yet, for all the dismal outlook, Winter had passed without actual
disaster to the Confederate arms and now that Spring had come the
plantation home of the Herbert Carys, twenty miles below Richmond,
had never had a fairer setting. White-pillared and stately the old
Colonial mansion stood on one of the low, emerald hills which roll
back lazily from the peaceful James. It was true that the flower beds
had been trampled down to ruin by alien horse and heel, but the scent
of the honeysuckle clinging to those shining pillars only seemed the
sweeter for the loss, and whatever else the forager might take, he could
not rob them of their gracious vista of hills and shimmering river.
Across the broad driveway and up the steps of the veranda passed Mrs.
Cary, fairer than had been the flowers, a true daughter of the oldtime
South, gentle and quiet eyed, her light summer dress of the cheapest
material, yet deftly fashioned by her own fingers from slightly opened
neck, where an old brooch lay against her soft throat, down to the
dainty spotless flounces lying above her petticoat of crinoline.

Though her lips and eyes refused to betray it even when there was no
one to see, it was with a very heavy heart that she mounted the stairs to
the attic, thinking, contriving, clutching desperately at her fading
hopes.
For good reason the plantation was very silent on this warm spring
morning. Where only a year before dozens of soft eyed Jerseys had
ranged through the pastures and wood lots there was now no sound of
tinkling bells--one after another the fine, blooded stock had been
requisitioned by a sad faced quartermaster of the Army of Northern
Virginia. And one by one the fat porkers who had muzzled greedily
among the ears from the Cary bins and who ought to have gone into the
smoke house had departed, squealing, to furnish bone and sinew with
which to repel the invader. Saddest of all, the chicken coops down by
the deserted negro quarters were quite as empty as the once teeming
cabins themselves. Poverty, grim and relentless, had caught the Carys
in its iron hand and behind Poverty stood its far more frightening
shadow--Starvation.
But in these gloomy thoughts she was not entirely alone. All that
troubled her and more, though perhaps in a different way, passed
hourly through the old gray kinky head of Uncle Billy who happened at
this very moment to be emerging stealthily from the woods below the
house. Slowly and deliberately he made his way toward the front till he
reached a bench where he sat down under a tree to ruminate over the
situation and inspect the feathered prize which he had lately acquired
by certain, devious means known only to Uncle Billy. Wiping his
forehead with his ragged sleeve and holding the bird up by its tied feet
he regarded it with the eye of an expert, and the fatigue of one who has
been sorely put to it in order to accomplish his purpose.
"It 'pears to me," said Uncle Billy, "dat des' when you needs 'em the
mostest the chickens goes to roosting higher 'n' higher. Rooster--I
wonder who you b'longs to. Um-_um_!" he murmured as he
thoughtfully sounded the rooster's well developed chest through the
feathers. "From de feelin' of you, my son, I 'spec' you was raise' by one
er de ol'es' fam'lies what is!"

But Uncle Billy knew the fortunes of the Cary family far too well to
mourn over the probable toughness of his booty, and as he rose up from
the seat and meandered toward the kitchen, his old, wrinkled face broke
into a broad smile of satisfaction over the surprise he had in store.
"Well--after I done parbile you, I reckon Miss Hallie be mighty glad to
see you. Yas, _seh_!"
But as Uncle Billy walked slowly along beside the hedge which
shielded the house on one side he heard a sound which made him