Among the camps

I.

“NANCY PANSY” was what Middleburgh called her, though the parish register of baptism contained nothing nearer the name than that of one Anne, daughter of Baylor Seddon, Esq., and Ellenor his wife. Whatever the register may have thought about it, “Nancy Pansy” was what Middleburgh called her, and she looked so much like a cherub, with her great eyes laughing up at you and her tangles blowing all about her dimpling pink face, that Dr. Spotswood Hunter, or “the Old Doctor,” as he was known to Middleburgh, used to vow she had gotten out of Paradise by mistake that Christmas Eve.

Nancy Pansy was the idol of the old doctor, as the old doctor was the idol of Middleburgh. He had given her a doll baby on the day she was born, and he always brought her one on her birthday, though, of course, the first three or four which he gave her were of rubber, because as long as she was a little girl she used to chew her doll after a most cannibal-like fashion, she and Harry’s puppies taking turn and turn about at chewing in the most impartial and friendly way. Harry was the old doctor’s son. As she grew a little older, however, the doctor brought her better dolls; but the puppies got older faster than Nancy Pansy, and kept on chewing up her dolls, so they did not last very long, which, perhaps, was why she never had a “real live doll,” as she called it.

Some people said the reason the old doctor was so fond of Nancy Pansy was because he had been a lover of her beautiful aunt, whose picture as Charity giving Bread to the Poor Woman and her Children was in the stained-glass window in the church, with the Advent angel in the panel below, to show that she had died at Christmas-tide and was an angel herself now; some said it was because he had had a little daughter himself who had died when a wee bit of a girl, and Nancy Pansy reminded him of her; some said it was because his youngest born, his boy Harry, with the light hair, who now commanded a company in the Army of Northern Virginia, was so fond of Nancy Pansy’s lovely sister Ellen; some said it was because the old doctor was fond of all children; but the old doctor said it was “because Nancy Pansy was Nancy Pansy,” and looked like an angel, and had more sense than anybody in Middleburgh, except his old sorrel horse Slouch, who, he always maintained, had sense enough to have prevented the war if he had been consulted.

Whatever was the cause, Nancy Pansy was the old doctor’s boon companion; and wherever the old doctor was, whether in his old rattling brown buggy, with Slouch jogging sleepily along the dusty roads which Middleburgh called her “streets,” or sitting in the shadiest corner of his porch, Nancy Pansy was in her waking hours generally beside him, her great pansy-colored eyes and her sunny hair making a bright contrast to the white locks and tanned cheeks of the old man. His home was just across the fence from the big house in which Nancy Pansy lived, and there was a hole where two palings were pulled off, through which Nancy Pansy used to slip when she went back and forth, and through which her little black companion, whose name, according to Nancy Pansy’s dictionary, was “Marphy,” just could squeeze. Sometimes, indeed, Nancy Pansy used to fall asleep over at the old doctor’s on the warm summer afternoons, and wake up next morning, curiously enough, to find herself in a strange room, in a great big bed, with a railing around the top of the high bedposts, and curtains hanging from it, and with Marphy asleep on a pallet near by.

“That child is your shadow, doctor,” said Nancy Pansy’s mother one day to him.

“No, madam; she is my sunshine,” answered the old man, gravely.

Nancy Pansy’s mother smiled, for when the old doctor said a thing he meant it. All Middleburgh knew that, from old Slouch, who never would open his eyes for any one else, and old Mrs. Hippin, who never would admit she was better to any one else, up to Nancy Pansy herself. Perhaps this was the reason why when the war broke out, and all the other men went into the army, the old doctor, who was too old and feeble to go himself, but had sent his only son Harry, was chosen by tacit consent as Middleburgh’s general adviser and guardian. Thus it was he who had to advise Mrs. Latimer, the druggist’s wife, how to keep the little apothecary’s shop at the corner of the Court-house Square after her husband went into the army; and it was he who advised Mrs. Seddon to keep the post-office in the little building at the bottom of her lawn, which had served as her husband’s law office before he went off to the war at the head of the Middleburgh Artillery. He even gave valuable assistance as well as advice to Mrs. Hippin about curing her chickens of the gapes; and to Nancy Pansy’s great astonishment had several times performed a most remarkable operation by inserting a hair from old Slouch’s mane down the invalid’s little stretched throat.

He used to go around the town nearly every afternoon, seeing the healthy as well as the sick, and giving advice as well as physic, both being taken with equal confidence. It was what he called “reviewing his out-posts,” and he used to explain to Nancy Pansy that that was the way her father and his Harry did in their camp. Nancy Pansy did not wholly understand him, but she knew it was something that was just right; so she nodded gravely, and said, “Umh-hmh!”

It was not hard to get a doll the first year of the war, but before the second year was half over there was not one left in Middleburgh. The old doctor explained to Nancy Pansy that they had all gone away to the war. She did not quite understand what dollies had to do with fighting, but she knew that war made the dolls disappear. Still she kept on talking about the new doll she would get on her birthday at Christmas, and as the old doctor used to talk to her about it, and discuss the sort of hair it should have, and the kind of dress it should wear, she never doubted that she should get it in her stocking as usual on Christmas morning.

II.

THE old doctor’s boots were very bad—those old boots which Middleburgh knew as well as they knew Nancy Pansy’s eyes or the church steeple. Mrs. Seddon had taken the trouble to scold him one day in the autumn when she heard him coughing, and she had sent him a small roll of money “on account,” she wrote him, “of a long bill,” to get a pair of new boots. The old doctor never sent in a bill; he would as soon have sent a small-pox patient into Nancy Pansy’s play-room. He calmly returned the money, saying he never transacted business with women who had husbands, and that he had always dressed to suit himself, at which Mrs. Seddon laughed; for, like the rest of Middleburgh, she knew that those old boots never stood back for any weather, however bad. She arranged, however, to have a little money sent to him through the post-office from another town without any name to the letter enclosing it. But the old boots were still worn, and Nancy Pansy, at her mother’s suggestion, learned to knit, that she might have a pair of yarn socks knit for the old doctor at Christmas. She intended to have kept this a secret, and she did keep it from every one but the doctor; she did not quite tell even him, but she could not help making him “guess” about it. Christmas Eve she went over to the old doctor’s, and whilst she made him shut his eyes, hung up his stocking herself, into which she poked a new pair of very queer-shaped yarn socks, a little black in some places from her little hands, for they were just done, and there had not been time to wash them. She consulted the old doctor to know if he really—really, “now, really”—thought Santa Claus would bring her a doll “through the war;” but she could only get a “perhaps” out of him, for he said he had not heard from Harry.

It was about ten o’clock that night when the old doctor came home from his round of visits, and opening his old secretary, took out a long thin bundle wrapped in paper, and slipping it into his pocket, went out again into the snow which was falling. Old Limpid, the doctor’s man, had taken Slouch to the stable, so the old doctor walked, stumbling around through the dark by the gate, thinking with a sigh of his boy Harry, who would just have vaulted over the palings, and who was that night sleeping in the snow somewhere. However, he smiled when he put the bundle into Nancy Pansy’s long stocking, and he smiled again when he put his old worn boots to the fire and warmed his feet. But when Nancy Pansy slipped next morning through her “little doctor’s-gate,” as she called her hole in the fence, and burst into his room before he was out of bed, to show him with dancing eyes what Santa Claus had brought her, and announced that she had “named her ‘Harry,’ all herself,” the old doctor had to wipe his eyes before he could really see her.

Harry was the first “real doll” Nancy Pansy had ever had—that was what she said—and Harry soon became as well known in Middleburgh as Nancy Pansy herself. She used to accompany Nancy Pansy and the old doctor on their rounds, and instead of the latter two being called “the twins,” they and Harry were now dubbed “the triplets.” It was astonishing what an influence Harry came to have on Nancy Pansy’s life. She carried her everywhere, and the doll would frequently be seen sitting up in the old doctor’s buggy alone, whilst Slouch dozed in the sun outside of some patient’s door. Of course, so much work as Harry had to do had the effect of marring her freshness a good deal, and she met with one or two severe accidents, such as breaking her leg, and cracking her neck; but the old doctor attended her in the gravest way, and performed such successful operations that really she was, except as to looks, almost as good as new; besides, as Nancy Pansy explained, dolls had to have measles and “theseases” just like other folks.

III.

IN March, 186—, Middleburgh “fell.” That is, it fell into the hands of the Union army, and remained in their hands afterwards. It was terrible at first, and Nancy Pansy stuffed Harry into a box, and hid her away.

It was awfully lonesome, however, and to think of the way Harry was doubled up and cramped down in that box under the floor was dreadful. So at last, finding that whatever else they did, the soldiers did not trouble her, she took Harry out. But she never could go about with her as before, for of course things were different, and although she got over her fright at the soldiers, as did her sister Ellen and the rest of Middleburgh, they never were friendly. Indeed, sometimes they were just the reverse, and at last they got to such a pitch that the regiment which was there was taken away, and a new regiment, or, rather, two new companies, were sent there. These were Companies A and C of the —th Regiment of —— Veterans. They had been originally known as Volunteers, but now they were known as “Veterans,” because they had been in so many battles.

The —th were perhaps the youngest men in that department, being mainly young college fellows who had enlisted all together. Some of the regiments composed of older men were at first inclined to laugh at the smooth-faced youngsters who could hardly raise a mustache to a mess; but when these same rosy-cheeked fellows flung off their knapsacks in battle after battle, and went rushing ahead under a hail of bullets and shell, they changed their tune and dubbed them “The Baby Veterans.” Thus, in 186—, the Baby Veterans went to Middleburgh for a double purpose:—first, that they might recruit and rest; and, secondly, because for the past six months Middleburgh had been causing much worry, and was regarded as a nest of treason and trouble. The regiment which had been there before was a new regiment, not long since recruited, and had been in a continual quarrel with Middleburgh, and as Middleburgh consisted mainly of women and children, and a few old men, there was not much honor to be got out of rows with them. Middleburgh complained that the soldiers were tyrannical and caused the trouble; the soldiers insisted that Middleburgh was constantly breaking the regulations, and conducted itself in a high-handed and rebellious way, and treated them with open scorn. As an evidence, it was cited that the women in Middleburgh would not speak to the Union soldiers. And it was rumored that the girls there were uncommonly pretty. When the Baby Veterans heard this, they simply laughed, pulled their budding mustaches, and announced that they would “keep things straight in Middleburgh.”

Tom Adams was first lieutenant of Company C. He had enlisted as a private, and had been rapidly promoted to corporal, sergeant, and then lieutenant; and he was in a fair way to be captain soon, as the captain of his company was at home badly wounded, and if he should be permanently disabled, Tom was certain of the captaincy. If any man could bring Middleburgh to terms, Tom Adams was the man, so his friends declared, and they would like to see any woman who would refuse to speak to Tom Adams—they really would.

The Baby Veterans reached Middleburgh in the night, and took up their quarters on the Court-house Square, vacated by the regiment which had just left. When morning came they took a look at Middleburgh, and determined to intimidate it on the spot. They drilled, marched and counter-marched up and down the dusty streets, and around the old whitewashed court-house, to show that they meant business, and did not propose to stand any foolishness—not they.

Nancy Pansy and her sister Ellen had been with Harry to see old Mrs. Hippin, who was sick, to carry her some bread and butter, and were returning home about mid-day. They had not seen the new soldiers, and were hurrying along, hoping they might not see them, when they suddenly heard the drums and fifes playing, and turning the corner, they saw the soldiers between them and their gate, marching up the road toward them. A tall young officer was at their head; his coat was buttoned up very tight, and he carried his drawn sword with the handle in his right hand and the tip in his left, and carried his head very high. It was Tom Adams. Nancy Pansy caught tight hold of her sister’s hand, and clasped Harry closely to her bosom. For a second they stopped; then, as there was no help for it, they started forward across the road, just in front of the soldiers. They were so close that Nancy Pansy was afraid they would march over them, and she would have liked to run. She clutched sister’s hand hard; but her sister did not quicken her pace at all, and the young officer had to give the order, “Mark time—march!” to let them pass. He looked very grand as he drew himself up, but Nancy Pansy’s sister held her hand firmly, and took not the slightest notice of him. Lifting her head defiantly in the air, and keeping her dark eyes straight before her, she passed with Nancy Pansy within two steps of the young lieutenant and his drawn sword, neither quickening nor slowing her pace a particle. They might have seemed not to know that a Federal soldier was within a hundred miles of them but for the way that Nancy Pansy squeezed Harry, and the scornful air which sat on her sister’s stern little face and erect figure as she drew Nancy Pansy closer to her, and gathered up her skirts daintily in her small hand, as though they might be soiled by an accidental touch.

Tom Adams had a mind to give the order “Forward!” and make them run out of the way, but he did not do it, so he marched back to camp, and told the story to his mess, walking around the table, holding the table-cloth in his hand, to show how the little rebel had done. He vowed he would get even with her.

As the days went on, the Baby Veterans and Middleburgh came no nearer being acquainted than they were that morning. The Baby Veterans still drilled, and paraded, and set pickets all around the town; Middleburgh and Nancy Pansy still picked up their skirts and passed by with uplifted heads and defiant eyes. The Baby Veterans shouted on the Court-house Square, “Yankee Doodle” and the “Star-spangled Banner;” Middleburgh sang on its verandas and in its parlors, “Dixie” and the “Bonnie Blue Flag.” Perhaps, some evenings Middleburgh may have stopped its own singing, and have stolen out on its balconies to listen to the rich chorus which came up from the Court-house Grove, but if so, the Baby Veterans never knew it; or perhaps, the Baby Veterans some evenings may have strolled along the shadowed streets, or stretched themselves out on the grass to listen to the sweet voices which floated down from the embowered verandas in the Judge’s yard; if so, Middleburgh never guessed it.

Nancy Pansy used to sing sweetly, and she would often sing whilst her sister played for her.

The strict regulations established by the soldiers prevented any letters from going or coming unopened, and Middleburgh never would tolerate that. So the only mail which passed through the office was that which the Baby Veterans received or sent. As stated, Nancy Pansy’s mother, by the old doctor’s advice and for reasons good to her and her friends, still kept the post-office under a sort of surveillance, yet the intercourse with the soldiers was strictly official; the letters were received or were delivered by the postmistress in silence, or if the Baby Veterans asked a question it was generally replied to by a haughty bow, or an ungracious “No.”

One mail day Mrs. Seddon was ill, so Nancy Pansy’s sister Ellen had to go to open the mail, and Nancy Pansy went with her, taking Harry along, “to take care of them.”

It happened that Tom Adams and a friend came in to ask for their letters. Nancy Pansy’s sister was standing at the table arranging the mail, and Nancy Pansy was sitting up on the table by her, holding the battered but cherished Harry in her lap. The young officer stiffened up as he saw who was before him.

“Are there any letters for Lieutenant Adams?” he asked, in a very formal and stately manner.

There was no reply or motion to show that he had been heard, except that Nancy Pansy’s sister began to go over the letters again from the beginning of the A’s. Suddenly Nancy Pansy, who was watching her, saw one, and exclaiming, “Oh! there’s one!” seized it, and slipped down from the table to give it to its owner, proud to show that she could read writing. Before she had reached the window, however, her sister caught her quickly, and taking the letter from her, slowly advanced and handed it to the young soldier; then turning quietly away, she took out her handkerchief and wiped her hand very hard where it had touched the letter, as if it had been soiled. The young officer strode out of the door with a red face and an angry step, and that evening the story of the way the little rebel wiped her hands after touching Tom Adams’s letter was all over camp.

IV.

AFTER this it was pretty well understood that the Baby Veterans and Middleburgh were at war. The regulations were more strictly enforced than ever before, and for a while it looked as if it was going to be as bad as it was when the other regiment was there. Old Limpid, the old doctor’s man, was caught one night with some letters on his person, several of them addressed to “Captain Harry Hunter, Army of Northern Virginia,” etc., and was somewhat severely dealt with, though, perhaps fortunately for him and his master, the letters, one of which was in a feminine hand, whilst abusive of the soldiers, did not contain any information which justified very severe measures, and after a warning he was set free again.

Nancy Pansy’s sister Ellen was enraged next day to receive again her letter from a corporal’s guard, indorsed with an official stamp, “Returned by order,” etc. She actually cried about it.

Nancy Pansy had written a letter to Harry, too—not her own Harry, but the old doctor’s—and hers came back also; but she did not cry about it, for she had forgotten to tell Harry that she had a kitten.

Still it was very bad; for after that even the old doctor was once more subjected to the strict regulations which had existed before the Baby Veterans came, and he could no longer drive in and out at will, as he and Nancy Pansy had been doing since the regiment arrived.

It was not, however, long after this that Nancy Pansy had quite an adventure. She and Harry had been with the old doctor, and the old doctor had to go and see some children with the measles, so, as Harry had never had measles, he sent her and Nancy Pansy back; but Nancy Pansy had found an old cigar-box, which was a treasure, and would have made a splendid cradle for Harry, except that it was so short that when Harry’s legs were put into it, her head and shoulders stuck up, and when her body was in it, her legs hung out. Still, if it would not do for a cradle, she had got a piece of string, and it would do for a carriage. So she was coming home very cheerfully, thinking of the way Harry would enjoy her ride down the walk.

It was just at this time that Tom Adams, feeling thoroughly bored with his surroundings, left camp and sauntered up the street alone, planning how he could get his company ordered once more to the front. He could not stand this life any longer. As he strolled along the walk the sound of the cheerful voices of girls behind the magnolias and rose bowers came to him, and a wave of homesickness swept over him as he thought of his sisters and little nieces away up North.

Suddenly, as he turned a corner, he saw a small figure walking slowly along before him; the great straw hat on the back of her head almost concealed the little body, but her sunny hair was peeping down below the broad brim, and Adams knew the child.

She carried under her arm an old cigar-box, out of one end of which peeped the head and shoulders of an old doll, the feet of which stuck out of the other end. A string hung from the box, and trailed behind her on the pathway. She appeared to be very busy about something, and to be perfectly happy, for as she walked along she was singing out of her content a wordless little song of her heart, “Tra-la-la, tra-la-la.”

The young officer fell into the same gait with the child, and instinctively trod softly to keep from disturbing her. Just then, however, a burly fellow named Griff O’Meara, who had belonged to one of the companies which preceded them, and had been transferred to Adams’s company, came down a side street, and turned into the walkway just behind the little maid. He seemed to be tipsy. The trailing string caught his eye, and he tipped forward and tried to step on it. Adams did not take in what the fellow was trying to do until he attempted it the second time. Then he called to him, but it was too late; he had stepped on the cord, and jerked the box, doll and all, from the child’s arm. The doll fell, face down, on a stone and broke to pieces. The man gave a great laugh, as the little girl turned, with a cry of anguish, and stooping, began to pick up the fragments, weeping in a low, pitiful way. In a second Adams sprang forward, and struck the fellow a blow between the eyes which sent him staggering off the sidewalk, down in the road, flat on his back. He rose with an oath, but Adams struck him a second blow which laid him out again, and the fellow, finding him to be an officer, was glad to slink off. Adams then turned to the child, whose tears, which had dried for a moment in her alarm at the fight, now began to flow again over her doll.

“Her pretty head’s all broke! Oh—oh—oh!” she sobbed, trying vainly to get the pieces to fit into something like a face.

The young officer sat down on the ground by her. “Never mind, sissy,” he said, soothingly, “let me see if I can help you.”

She confidingly handed him the fragments, whilst she tried to stifle her sobs, and wiped her eyes with her little pinafore.

“Can you do it?” she asked, dolefully, behind her pinafore.

“I hope so. What’s your name?”

“Nancy Pansy, and my dolly’s named Harry.”

“Harry!” Tom looked at the doll’s dress and the fragments of face, which certainly were not masculine.

“Yes, Harry Hunter. He’s my sweetheart,” she looked at him to see that he understood her.

“Ah!”

“And sister’s,” she nodded, confidently.

“Yes, I see. Where is he?”

“He’s a captain now. He’s gone away—away.” She waved her hand in a wide sweep to give an idea of the great distance it was. “He’s in the army.”

“Come along with me,” said Tom; “let’s see what we can do.” He gathered up all the broken pieces in his handkerchief, and set out in the direction from which he had come, Nancy Pansy at his side. She slipped her little hand confidingly into his.

“You knocked that bad man down for me, didn’t you?” she said, looking up into his face. Tom had not felt until then what a hero he had been.

“Yes,” he said, quite graciously. The little warm fingers worked themselves yet further into his palm.

At the corner they turned up the street toward the Court-house Square, and in a few minutes were in camp. At the sight of the child with Adams the whole camp turned out pell-mell, as if the “long-roll” had beat.

At first Nancy Pansy was a little shy, there was so much excitement, and she clung tightly to Tom Adams’s hand. She soon found, however, that they were all friendly.

Tom conducted her to his tent, where she was placed in a great chair, with a horse-cover over it, as a sort of throne. The story of O’Meara’s act excited so much indignation that Tom felt it necessary to explain fully the punishment he had given him.

Nancy Pansy, feeling that she had an interest in the matter, suddenly took up the narrative.

“Yes, he jus’ knocked him down,” she said, with the most charming confidence, to her admiring audience, her pink cheeks glowing and her great eyes lighting up at the recital, as she illustrated Tom’s act with a most expressive gesture of her by no means clean little fist.

The soldiers about her burst into a roar of delighted laughter, and made her tell them again and again how it was done, each time renewing their applause over the ’cute way in which she imitated Tom’s act. Then they all insisted on being formally introduced, so Nancy Pansy was stood upon the table, and the men came by in line, one by one, and were presented to her. It was a regular levee.

Presently she said she must go home, so she was taken down; but before she was allowed to leave, she was invited to go through the camp, each man insisting that she should visit his tent. She made, therefore, a complete tour, and in every tent some souvenir was pressed upon her, or she was begged to take her choice of its contents. Thus, before she had gone far, she had her arms full of things, and a string of men were following her bearing the articles she had honored them by accepting. There were little looking-glasses, pin-cushions, pairs of scissors, pictures, razors, bits of gold-lace, cigar-holders, scarf-pins, and many other things.

When she left camp she was quite piled up with things, whilst Tom Adams, who acted as her escort, marched behind her with a large basketful besides. She did not have room to take Harry, so she left her behind, on the assurance of Tom that she should be mended, and on the engagement of the entire company to take care of her. The soldiers followed her to the edge of the camp, and exacted from her a promise to come again next day, which she agreed to do if her mother would let her. And when she was out of sight, the whole command held a council of war over the fragments of Harry.

When Adams reached the Judge’s gate he made a negro who was passing take the basket in, thinking it better not to go himself up to the house. He said good-by, and Nancy Pansy started up the walk, whilst he waited at the gate. Suddenly she turned and came back.

“Good-by!” she said, standing on tiptoe, and putting up her little face to be kissed.

The young officer stooped over the gate and kissed her.

“Good-by! Come again to-morrow.”

“Yes, if mamma will let me.” And she tripped away with her armful of presents.

Tom Adams remained leaning on the gate. He was thinking of his home far away. Suddenly he was aroused by hearing the astonished exclamations in the house as Nancy Pansy entered. He felt sure that they were insisting that the things should be sent back, and fearing that he might be seen, he left the spot and went slowly back to camp, where he found the soldiers still in a state of pleasurable excitement over Nancy Pansy’s visit. A collection was taken up for a purpose which appeared to interest everybody, and a cap nearly full of money was delivered to Tom Adams, with as many directions as to what he was to do with it as though it were to get a memorial for the Commander-in-chief. Tom said he had already determined to do the very same thing himself; still, if the company wished to “go in” with him, they could do it; so he agreed to take the money.

V.

ON the day following Nancy Pansy’s visit to the camp of the Baby Veterans, Adams took to the post-office a bundle addressed to “Nancy Pansy,” and a letter addressed to a friend of his who was in Washington. The bundle contained “Harry,” as fully restored as her shattered state would admit of; the letter contained a draft and a commission, the importance of which latter Captain Adams had put in the very strongest light.

He held his head very high as he dropped his letter into the box, for over the table bent the slender figure of the little dark-eyed postmistress, who had wiped her dainty fingers so carefully after handling his letter. Perched near her on the table, just as she had been that day, with her tangled hair all over her face, was Nancy Pansy. She was, as usual, very busy over something; but, hearing a step, she glanced up.

“Oh, there’s Tom Adams!” she exclaimed; and, turning over on her face, she slipped down from the table and ran up to him, putting up her face to be kissed, just as she always did to the old doctor.

Adams stooped over and kissed her, though, as he did so, he heard her sister turn around, and he felt as if she might be going to shoot him in the back. He straightened up with defiance in his heart. She was facing him; but what was his astonishment when she advanced, and with a little smile on her lovely face, said:

“Captain Adams, I am Miss Seddon. My mother has desired me to thank you in her name, and in all our names, for your act of protection to my little sister on yesterday.”

“Yes,” said Nancy Pansy; “he jus’ knocked that bad man down,” and she gave her little head a nod of satisfaction to one side.

The young officer blushed to his eyes. He was prepared for an attack, but not for such a flank movement. He stammered something about not having done anything at all worthy of thanks, and fell back behind Harry, whom he suddenly pulled out and placed in Nancy Pansy’s hands. It all ended in an invitation from Mrs. Seddon, through Nancy Pansy and her pretty sister, to come up to the house and be thanked, which he accepted.

After this the Baby Veterans and Middleburgh came to understand each other a good deal better than before. Instead of remaining in their camp or marching up and down the streets, with arrogance or defiance stamped on every face and speaking from every figure, the Baby Veterans took to loafing about town in off-duty hours, hanging over the gates, or sauntering in the autumn twilight up and down the quiet walks. They and Middleburgh still recognized that there was a broad ground, on which neither could trespass. The Baby Veterans still sang “The Star-spangled Banner” in the Court-house Grove, and Middleburgh still sang “Dixie” and the “Bonnie Blue Flag” behind her rose trellises; but there was no more gathering up of skirts, and disdainful wiping of hands after handling letters; and the old doctor was allowed to go jogging about on his rounds, with Nancy Pansy and the scarred Harry at his side, as unmolested as if the Baby Veterans had never pitched their tents on the Court-house Square. It is barely possible that even the rigid investment of the town relaxed a little as the autumn changed into winter, for once or twice old Limpid disappeared for several days, as he used to do before his arrest, and Nancy Pansy’s pretty sister used to get letters from Harry, who was now a major. Nancy Pansy heard whispers of Harry’s coming before long, and even of the whole army’s coming. Somehow a rumor of this must have reached the authorities, though Nancy Pansy never breathed a word of it; for an officer was sent down to investigate the matter and report immediately.

Just as he arrived he received secret word from some one that a rebel officer was actually in Middleburgh.

That afternoon Nancy Pansy was playing in the bottom of the yard when a lot of soldiers came along the street, and before them rode a strange, cross-looking man with a beard. Tom Adams was marching with the soldiers, and he did not look at all pleased. They stopped at the old doctor’s gate, and the strange man trotted up to her place and asked Nancy Pansy if she knew Captain Harry Hunter.

“Yes, indeed,” said Nancy Pansy, going up to the fence and poking her little rosy face over it; “Harry’s a major now.”

“Ah! Harry’s a major now, is he?” said the strange man.

Nancy Pansy went on to tell him how her Harry was named after the other Harry, and how she was all broken now; but the officer was intent on something else.

“Where is Harry now?” he asked her.

“In the house,” and she waved her hand toward the old doctor’s house behind her.

“So, so,” said the officer, and went back to Tom Adams, who looked annoyed, and said:

“I don’t believe it; there’s some mistake.”

At this the strange man got angry and said: “Lieutenant Adams, if you don’t want the rebel caught, you can go back to camp.”

My! how angry Tom was! His face got perfectly white, and he said: “Major Black, you are my superior, or you wouldn’t dare to speak so to me. I have nothing to say now, but some day I’ll out-rank you.”

Nancy Pansy did not know what they were talking about, but she did not like the strange man at all; so when he asked her: “Won’t you show me where Harry is?” at first she said “No,” and then “Yes, if you won’t hurt him.”

“No, indeed,” said the man. As Tom Adams was there she was not afraid; so she went outside the gate and on into the old doctor’s yard, followed by the soldiers and Tom Adams, who still looked angry, and told her she’d better run home. Some of the soldiers went around behind the house.

“Where is he?” the strange gentleman asked.

“Asleep up-stairs in the company-room,” said Nancy Pansy in a whisper. “You mustn’t make any noise.”

She opened the door and they entered the house, Nancy Pansy on tiptoe and the others stepping softly. She was surprised to see the strange man draw a pistol; but she was used to seeing pistols, so, though Tom Adams told her again to run home, she stayed there.

“Which is the company-room?” asked the strange man.

She pointed to the door at the head of the steps. “That’s it.”

He turned to the soldiers.

“Come ahead, men,” he said, in a low voice, and ran lightly up the stairs, looking very fierce. When he reached the door he seized the knob and dashed into the room.

Then Nancy Pansy heard him say some naughty words, and she ran up the stairs to see what was the matter.

They were all standing around the big bed on which she had laid Harry an hour before, with her head on a pillow; but a jerk of the counterpane had thrown Harry over on her face, and her broken neck and ear looked very bad.

“Oh, you’ve waked her up!” cried Nancy Pansy, rushing forward, and turning the doll over.

The strange man stamped out of the room, looking perfectly furious, and the soldiers all laughed. Tom Adams looked pleased.

VI.

WHEN Tom Adams next called at the Judge’s, he found the atmosphere much cooler within the house than it was outside. He had been waiting alone in the drawing-room for some time when Nancy Pansy entered. She came in very slowly, and instead of running immediately up to him and greeting him as she usually did, she seated herself on the edge of a chair and looked at him with manifest suspicion. He stretched out his hand to her.

“Come over, Nancy Pansy, and sit on my knee.”

Nancy Pansy shook her head.

“My sister don’t like you,” she said slowly, eying him askance.

“Ah!” He let his hand fall on the arm of the chair.

“No; and I don’t, either,” said Nancy Pansy, more confidently.

“Why doesn’t she like me?” asked Tom Adams.

“Because you are so mean. She says you are just like all the rest of ’em;” and, pleased at her visitor’s interest, Nancy Pansy wriggled herself higher up on her chair, prepared to give him further details.

“We don’t like you at all,” said the child, half confidentially and half defiantly. “We like our side; we like Confederates.” Tom Adams smiled. “We like Harry; we don’t like you.”

She looked as defiant as possible, and just then a step was heard in the hall, approaching very slowly, and Nancy Pansy’s sister appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in white, and she carried her head even higher than usual.

The visitor rose. He thought he had never seen her look so pretty.

“Good-evening,” he said.

She bowed “Good-evening,” very slowly, and took a seat on a straight-backed chair in a corner of the room, ignoring the chair which Adams offered her.

“I have not seen you for some time,” he began.

“No; I suppose you have been busy searching people’s houses,” she said.

Tom Adams flushed a little.

“I carry out my orders,” he said. “These I must enforce.”

“Ah!”

Nancy Pansy did not just understand it all, but she saw there was a battle going on, and she at once aligned herself with her side, and going over, stood by her sister’s chair, and looked defiance at the enemy.

“Well, we shall hardly agree about this, so we won’t discuss it,” said Tom Adams. “I did not come to talk about this, but to see you, and to get you to sing for me.” Refusal spoke so plainly in her face that he added: “Or, if you won’t sing, to get Nancy Pansy to sing for me.”

“I won’t sing for you,” declared Nancy Pansy, promptly and decisively.

“What incorrigible rebels all of you are!” said Tom Adams, smiling. He was once more at his ease, and he pulled his chair up nearer Nancy Pansy’s sister, and caught Nancy Pansy by the hand. She was just trying to pull away, when there were steps on the walk outside—the regular tramp, tramp of soldiers marching in some numbers. They came up to the house, and some order was given in a low tone. Both Adams and Nancy Pansy’s sister sprang to their feet.

“What can it mean?” asked Nancy Pansy’s sister, more to herself than to Adams.

He went into the hall just as there was a loud rap at the front door.

“What is it?” he asked the lieutenant who stood there.

“Some one has slipped through the lines, and is in this house,” he said.

Nancy Pansy’s sister stepped out into the hall.

“There is no one here,” she said. She looked at Tom Adams. “I give my word there is no one in the house except my mother, ourselves, and the servants.” She met Tom Adams’s gaze frankly as he looked into her eyes.

“There is no one here, Hector,” he said, turning to the officer.

“This is a serious matter,” began the other, hesitatingly. “We have good grounds to believe——”

“I will be responsible,” said Tom Adams, firmly. “I have been here some time, and there is no one here.” He took the officer aside and talked to him a moment.

“All right,” said he, as he went down the steps, “as you are so positive.”

“I am,” said Tom.

The soldiers marched down the walk, out of the gate, and around the corner. Just as the sound of their footsteps died away on the soft road, Tom Adams turned and faced Nancy Pansy’s sister. She was leaning against a pillar, looking down, and a little moonlight sifted through the rose-bushes and fell on her neck. Nancy Pansy had gone into the house. “I am sorry I said what I did in the parlor just now.” She looked up at him.

“Oh!” said Tom Adams, and moved his hand a little. “I—” he began; but just then there was a sudden scamper in the hall, and Nancy Pansy, with flying hair and dancing eyes, came rushing out on the portico.

“Oh, sister!” she panted. “Harry’s come; he’s in mamma’s room!”

Nancy Pansy’s sister turned deadly white. “Oh, Nancy Pansy!” she gasped, placing her hand over her mouth.

Nancy Pansy burst into tears, and buried her face in her sister’s dress. She had not seen Tom Adams; she thought he had gone.

“I did not know it,” said Nancy Pansy’s sister, turning and facing Tom Adams’s stern gaze.

“I believe you,” he said, slowly. He felt at his side; but he was in a fatigue suit, and had no arms. Without finishing his sentence he sprang over the railing, and with a long, swift stride went down the yard. She dimly saw him as he sprang over the fence, and heard him call, “Oh, Hector!”

As he did so, she rushed into the house. “Fly! they are coming!” she cried, bursting into her mother’s room. “Oh, Harry, they are coming!” she cried, rushing up to a handsome young fellow, who sprang to his feet as she entered, and went forward to meet her.

The young man took her hand and drew her to him. “Well,” he said, looking down into her eyes, and drawing a long breath.

Nancy Pansy’s sister put her face on his shoulder and began to cry, and Nancy Pansy rushed into her mother’s arms and cried too.

Ten minutes later soldiers came in both at the front and back doors. Mrs. Seddon met her visitors in the hall. Nancy Pansy’s sister was on one side, and Nancy Pansy on the other.

Tom Adams was in command. He removed his hat, but said, gravely: “I must arrest the young rebel officer who is here.”

Nancy Pansy made a movement; but her mother tightened her clasp of her hand.

“Yes,” she said, bowing. That was all.

Guards were left at the doors, and soldiers went through the house. The search was thorough, but the game had escaped. They were coming down the steps when some one said:

“We must search the shrubbery; he will be there.”

“No; he is at his father’s—the old doctor’s,” said Adams.

It was said in an undertone, but Mrs. Seddon’s face whitened; Nancy Pansy caught it, too. She clutched her mother’s gown.

“Oh, mamma! you hear what he says?”

Her mother stooped and whispered to her.

“Yes, yes,” nodded Nancy Pansy. She ran to the door, and poking her little head out, looked up and down the portico, calling, “Kitty, kitty!”

The sentry who was standing there holding his gun moved a little, and, leaning out, peered into the dusk.

“’Tain’t out here,” he said, in a friendly tone.

Nancy Pansy slipped past him, and went down the steps and around the portico, still calling, “Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!”

“Who goes there?” called a soldier, as he saw something move over near the old doctor’s fence; but when he heard a childish voice call, “Kitty! Kitty!” he dropped his gun again with a laugh. “’Tain’t nobody but that little gal, Nancy Pansy; blest if I wa’n’t about to shoot her!”

The next instant Nancy Pansy had slipped through her little hole in the fence, through which she had so often gone, and was in the old doctor’s yard; and when, five minutes afterward, Tom Adams marched his men up the walk and surrounded and entered the house, Nancy Pansy, her broken doll in her arms, was sitting demurely on the edge of a large chair, looking at him with great, wide-open, dancing eyes. A little princess could not have been grander, and if she had hidden Harry Hunter behind her chair, she could not have shown more plainly that she had given him warning.

VII.

ALL Middleburgh knew next day how Nancy Pansy had saved Harry Hunter, and it was still talking about it, when it was one morning astonished by the news that old Dr. Hunter had been arrested in the night by the soldiers, who had come down from Washington, and had been carried off somewhere. There had not been such excitement since the Middleburgh Artillery had marched away to the war. The old doctor was sacred. Why, to carry him off, and stop his old buggy rattling about the streets, was, in Middleburgh’s eyes, like stopping the chariot of the sun, or turning the stars out of their courses. Why did they not arrest Nancy Pansy too? asked Middleburgh. Nancy Pansy cried all day, and many times after, whenever she thought about it. She went to Tom Adams’s camp and begged him to bring her old doctor back, and Tom Adams said as he had not had him arrested he could not tell what he could do, but he would do all he could. Then she wrote the old doctor a letter. However, all Middleburgh would not accept Tom Adams’s statement as Nancy Pansy did, and instead of holding him as a favorite, it used to speak of him as “That Tom Adams.” Every old woman in Middleburgh declared she was worse than she had been in ten years, and old Mrs. Hippin took to her crutch, which she had not used in twelve months, and told Nancy Pansy’s sister she would die in a week unless she could hear the old doctor’s buggy rattle again. But when the fever broke out in the little low houses down on the river, things began to look very serious. The surgeon from the camp went to see the patients, but they died, and more were taken ill. When a number of other cases occurred in the town itself, all of the most malignant type, the surgeon admitted that it was a form of fever with which he was not familiar. There had never been such an epidemic in Middleburgh before, and Middleburgh said that it was all due to the old doctor’s absence.

One day Nancy Pansy went to the camp, to ask about the old doctor, and saw a man sitting astride of a fence rail which was laid on two posts high up from the ground. He had a stone tied to each foot, and he was groaning. She looked up at him, and saw that it was the man who had broken her doll. She was about to run away, but he groaned so she thought he must be in great pain, and that always hurt her; so she went closer, and asked him what was the matter. She did not understand just what he said, but it was something about the weight on his feet; so she first tried to untie the strings which held the stones, and then, as there was a barrel standing by, she pushed at it until she got it up close under him, and told him to rest his feet on that, whilst she ran home and asked her mamma to lend her her scissors. In pushing the barrel she broke Harry’s head in pieces; but she was so busy she did not mind it then. Just as she got the barrel in place some one called her, and turning around she saw a sentinel; he told her to go away, and he kicked the barrel from under the man and let the stones drop down and jerk his ankles again. Nancy Pansy began to cry, and ran off up to Tom Adams’s tent and told him all about it, and how the poor man was groaning. Tom Adams tried to explain that this man had got drunk, and that he was a bad man, and was the same one who had broken her doll. It had no effect. “Oh, but it hurts him so bad!” said Nancy Pansy, and she cried until Tom Adams called a man and told him he might go and let O’Meara down, and tell him that the little girl had begged him off this time. Nancy Pansy, however, ran herself, and called to him that Tom Adams said he might get down. When he was on the ground, he walked up to her and said:

“May the Holy Virgin kape you! Griff O’Meara’ll never forgit you.”

A few days after that, Nancy Pansy complained of headache, and her mother kept her in the house. That evening her face was flushed, and she had a fever; so her mother put her to bed and sat by her. She went to sleep, but waked in the night, talking very fast. She had a burning fever, and was quite out of her head. Mrs. Seddon sent for the surgeon next morning, and he came and stayed some time. When he returned to camp he went to Tom Adams’s tent. He looked so grave as he came in that Adams asked quickly:

“Any fresh cases?”

“Not in camp.” He sat down.

“Where?”

“That little girl—Nancy Pansy.”

Tom Adams’s face turned whiter than it had ever turned in battle.

“Is she ill?”

“Desperately.”

Tom Adams sprang to his feet.

“How long—how long can she hold out?” he asked, in a broken voice.

“Twenty-four hours, perhaps,” said the surgeon.

Tom Adams put on his cap and left the tent. Five minutes later he was in the hall at the Judge’s. Just as he entered, Nancy Pansy’s sister came quickly out of a door. She had been crying.

“How is she? I have just this instant heard of it,” said Tom, with real grief in his voice.

She put her handkerchief to her eyes.

“So ill,” she sobbed.

“Can I see her?” asked Tom, gently.

“Yes; it won’t hurt her.”

When Tom Adams entered the room he was so shocked that he stopped still. Mrs. Seddon bent over the bed with her face pale and worn, and in the bed lay Nancy Pansy, so changed that Tom Adams never would have known her. She had fallen off so in that short time that he would not have recognized her. Her face was perfectly white, except two bright red spots on her cheeks. She was drawing short, quick breaths, and was talking all the time very fast. No one could understand just what she was saying, but a good deal of it was about Harry and the old doctor. Tom bent over her, but she did not know him; she just went on talking faster than ever.

“Nancy Pansy, don’t you know Tom Adams?” her mother asked her, in a soothing voice. She had never called the young man so before, and he felt that it gave him a place with Nancy Pansy; but the child did not know him; she said something about not having any Harry.

“She is growing weaker,” said her mother.

Tom Adams leaned over and kissed the child, and left the room.

As he came down the steps he met Griff O’Meara, who asked how the “little gurl” was, “bless her sowl!” When he told him, Griff turned away and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Tom Adams told him to stay there and act as guard, which Griff vowed he’d do if the “howl ribel army kem.”

Ten minutes later Tom galloped out of camp with a paper in his pocket signed by the surgeon. In an hour he had covered the twelve miles of mud which lay between Middleburgh and the nearest telegraph station, and was sending a message to General ——, his commander. At last an answer came. Tom Adams read it.

“Tell him it is a matter of life and death,” he said to the operator. “Tell him there is no one else who understands it and can check it, and tell him it must be done before the afternoon train leaves, or it will be too late. Here, I’ll write it out.” And he did so, putting all his eloquence into the despatch.

Late that night two men galloped through the mud and slush in the direction of Middleburgh. The younger one had a large box before him on his horse; the other was quite an old man. Picket after picket was passed with a word spoken by the younger man, and they galloped on. At last they stopped at the Judge’s gate, and sprang from their splashed and smoking horses.

As they hurried up the walk, the guard at the steps challenged them in a rich Irish brogue.

“It’s I, O’Meara. You here still? How is she?”

“’Most in the Holy Virgin’s arms,” said the Irishman.

“Is she alive?” asked both men.

“It’s a docther can tell that,” said the sentinel. “They thought her gone an hour ago. There’s several in there,” he said to his captain. “I didn’t let ’em in at firrst, but the young leddy said they wuz the frien’s of the little gurl, an’ I let ’em by a bit.”

A minute later the old man entered the sick-room, whilst Tom Adams stopped at the door outside. There was a general cry as he entered of, “Oh, doctor!”

And Mrs. Seddon called him: “Quick, quick, doctor! she’s dying!”

“She’s dead,” said one of the ladies who stood by.

The old doctor bent over the little still white form, and his countenance fell. She was not breathing. With one hand he picked up her little white arm and felt for the pulse; with the other he took a small case from his pocket. “Brandy,” he said. It was quickly handed him. He poured some into a little syringe, and stuck it into Nancy Pansy’s arm, by turns holding her wrist and feeling over her heart.

Presently he said, quietly, “She’s living,” and both Mrs. Seddon and Nancy Pansy’s sister said, “Thank God!”

All night long the old doctor worked over Nancy Pansy. Just before dawn he said to Mrs. Seddon: “What day is this?”

“Christmas morning,” said Mrs. Seddon.

“Well, madam, I hope God has answered your prayers, and given your babe back to you; I hope the crisis is passed. Have you hung up her stocking?”

“No,” said Nancy Pansy’s mother. “She was so—” She could not say anything more. Presently she added: “She was all the time talking about you and Harry.”

The old doctor rose and went out of the room. It was about dawn. He left the house, and went over to his own home. There, after some difficulty, he got in, and went to his office. His old secretary had been opened and papers taken out, but the old man did not seem to mind it. Pulling the secretary out from the wall, he touched a secret spring. It did not work at first, but after a while it moved, and he put his hand under it, and pulled out a secret drawer. In it were a number of small parcels carefully tied up with pieces of ribbon, which were now quite faded, and from one peeped a curl of soft brown hair, like that of a little girl. The old doctor laid his fingers softly on it, and his old face wore a gentle look. The largest bundle was wrapped in oil-silk. This he took out and carefully unwrapped. Inside was yet another wrapping of tissue paper. He put the bundle, with a sigh, into his overcoat pocket, and went slowly back to the Judge’s. Nancy Pansy was still sleeping quietly.

The old doctor asked for a stocking, and it was brought him. He took the bundle from his pocket, and, unwrapping it, held it up. It was a beautiful doll, with yellow hair done up with little tucking combs such as ladies used to wear, and with a lovely little old tiny-flowered silk dress.

“She is thirty years old, madam,” he said gently to Mrs. Seddon, as he slipped the doll into the stocking, and hung it on the bed-post. “I have kept her for thirty years, thinking I could never give it to any one; but last night I knew I loved Nancy Pansy enough to give it to her.” He leaned over and felt her pulse. “She is sleeping well,” he said.

Just then the door opened, and in tipped Tom Adams, followed by Griff O’Meara in his stocking feet, bearing a large baby-house fitted up like a perfect palace, with every room carpeted and furnished, and with a splendid doll sitting on a balcony.

“A Christmas gift to that blessed angel from the Baby Veterans, mem,” he said, as he set it down; and then taking from his bulging pocket a large red-cheeked doll in a green frock, he placed it in the door of the house, saying, with great pride: “An’ this from Griff O’Meara. Heaven bless her swate soul!”

Just then Nancy Pansy stirred and opened her eyes. Her mother bent over her, and she smiled faintly. Mrs. Seddon slipped down on her knees.

“Where’s my old doctor and my dolly?” she said; and then, presently, “Where’s Harry and Tom Adams?”