Chapter 97
"Miserable old man, we believe you mean well enough; but the fact is, you are a species of old idiot. It was your business to have had _another son_, who would have been this one's brother; so that if one met with a heart-rending failure on the stairs, the other could simultaneously have entered that back window by a ladder, and taken the chair by the rear. But you are always interfering. Take our advice now, and either give up drinking altogether, or arrange it so that those who drink with you may be persons not distinguishable from ourselves."
And they all departed, shaking their heads, my boy--they all departed shaking their heads; leaving the unfortunate old chap to bind up his offspring's nose, and to reflect upon the great iniquity of interfering with one son's success, by not having another.
The Government of our distracted country, my boy, is so very much like this well-meaning but imbecile old chap, that the failure of any one of its generals is entirely due to its interference in not having another general; who, in case that general did not succeed, could take his place before he failed to do so.
The Military Necessity produced by this interference took place at Paris, very recently, and shortly after the new General of the Mackerel Brigade had so nearly won the battle by that revelation of manly Shape to which I referred in my last letter.
Finding that the terrible bombardment of Paris, my boy, had routed the straggling Confederacies from that ancient city, the whole Mackerel Brigade marched safely across Duck Lake, leaving only the Orange County Howitzers on this side. Scarcely had the spectacled host occupied the city, when there appeared upon the main street the overwhelming Shape of the new General of the Mackerel Brigade, mounted upon a steed which was almost as sagacious as a human being; and holding his hat in one hand, after the manner of Was.h.i.+ngton entering Trenton. It was as though Frank Leslie's ill.u.s.trated artist had just been commanded to draw a warlike picture, my boy, representing one of those equestrian heroes who all appear in precisely the same att.i.tude, and seem to have lifted their hats for the particular purpose of showing with what mathematical precision their hair is parted.
Instantly there arose cheers so loud that they must have been heard by the cowardly Confederacies on the hills behind Paris, and several Mackerels became so enthusiastic to be led against the enemy, that they actually started on the war-path by themselves, and only turned back when they discovered that they happened to be going in the wrong direction.
Having received all the cheers, and immediately dispatched them to the reliable morning journals around the country, the General of the Mackerel Brigade ordered the Conic Section, under Captain Bob Shorty, and Company 3, Regiment 5, under Captain Villiam Brown, to march out of Paris, and form in line under the guns of the Southern Confederacy; at the same time directing Captain Samyule Sa-mith, to take Company 2, Regiment 1, and strike through a defile in the hills.
Samyule formed his veterans in the shape of a horse-shoe, and says he:
"Comrades, now is the time to repent
As Samyule spoke thus, a small blue object, carrying a drum, toddled forth from the ranks, and saluted. It was a small Mackerel drummer, my boy, who had enlisted only ten days before, and his small eyes were wet with tears. The heroic child wiped his little nose on his sleeve, and says he:
"_My_ mother gave me something."
Samyule was greatly affected, and says he:
"Was it the Family Bible, sweet cherub?"
"No-o-o," sobbed the innocent, as though his little heart would break.
Samyule wiped his tear-dimmed spectacles, and says he:
"Perhaps it was her daguerreotype?"
The infant wept afresh, and says he:
"No-o-o."
"Then," says Samyule, in a broken voice, "it must have been her blessing."
"No! no-o-o," cried the small Mackerel drummer, with quivering lips.
"Then what in thunder was it that your mother gave you?" says Samyule, greatly bewildered.
"It was a spanking!" screamed the affectionate little creature, cramming both his little fists into his little eyes, and blubbering unrestrainedly.
Samyule gazed a moment at the child, and says he:
"Well may affection bid thee weep, thou tender little one! When a sweetheart blus.h.i.+ngly places a rose upon her lover's breast, the scene is affecting; but my own memory of childhood tells me that a far deeper feeling is excited when the tender mother selects a different flower, and places upon the back of her child the modest lady's slipper."
Immediately after this affecting little incident, my boy, Samyule led his men to their duty, and they marched into one end of the defile as soldiers, to pa.s.s out of the other as spirits.
Along the front, "Forward!" was the word, and the Conic Section swept to the a.s.sault, like a sea of bayonets dashed against a sh.o.r.e of adamantine rock from the hollow of an Almighty hand. Were it possible, my boy, for bullets to ascend perpendicularly until they just reached the top of mountain breastworks, and then slant down at an acute angle to where the foe lay hidden, it is possible that the frequent volleys from the Conic Section might have produced some carnage; but as the face of the hill before our troops was straight up and down, with the noisy Confederacies on the extreme summit, the Mackerel musketry simply occasioned a rise in Federal lead, without a fall in Confederate leaders.
Some Confederacies in their lofty intrenchments just tipped over a few cannon, so that the b.a.l.l.s might roll out upon the mackerels, and, says one of them:
"If you mudsills will stay there a little longer, we'll manage it so as to drop the sh.e.l.ls on you from our hands, without using the guns at all."
Captain Bob Shorty heard this jeer, and as he tied his handkerchief over a wound on his forehead, a sickly smile ill.u.s.trated his ghastly face, and says he:
"We might as well all die here together. The grave, after all, is a softer bed than many of these Mackerel beings have been accustomed to."
Sergeant O'Pake who always takes things literally, turned to Bob, and, says he:
"What makes it soft?"
"Because," says Captain Bob Shorty, looking vacantly at the sergeant, "it is a bed of down. Did you never hear the old song of 'Down among the Dead Men?'" But let me not linger over the scene, my boy.
That night, the remaining Mackerels silently recrossed Duck Lake, and the General penned the following
DESPATCH.
"I have withdrawn the Brigade across Duck Lake. The position of the Confederacies is impregnable. It was a Military Necessity to attack the enemy or retire. I have done both.
"WOBERT WOBINSON."
Just as the spectacled veterans gained this side of Duck Lake again, my boy, the Mackerel Chaplain was accosted by a Republican chap from Boston, and says he: "This really looks like action at last my friend.
Our troops are evidently all enthusiasm to be led once more against the foe."
The Chaplain shaded his eyes with his hand, to look at the speaker, and says he:
"They are indeed enthusiastic, my friend. So enthusiastic, in fact, that at least half of them would not come back to this side at all."
"Ah!" says the Republican chap; "the n.o.ble fellows."
"Yes," says the Chaplain, as softly as though he were speaking in a sick-room; "they remain there sleeping upon their arms. And, oh, my friend, they will never come back again."
He spoke truly, my boy: and may a kind Heaven see naught in the blood welling from their loyal hearts but the blush of a soldier's honor; the glow of a patriot fire in which all their human errors went up to G.o.d as the smoke of a glorious sacrifice. They sleep their last sleep upon the arms of their Country; and whether those arms, with which she folds them into her heart, be white with the ermine of winter, or green with the drapery of summer, the clasp shall be none the less strong with all a Mother's immortality of love.
Yours, gravely,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER Lx.x.xVI.
TOUCHING UPON A LATE OVATION TO A PARENT OF HIS COUNTRY; GIVING THE CONSERVATIVE KENTUCKY MAP OF ALL AMERICA; AND INTRODUCING A SECOND NEW GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL ORGANIZATION.