A Rebellion in Dixie by Harry Castlemon (elon musk reading list txt) 📗
- Author: Harry Castlemon
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The man was a long time in sitting down. He seemed to think that Smith had some other terms to disclose which would lead him into his scheme, whether he wanted to or not.
“I will give you five thousand dollars,” said Smith, in an earnest undertone. “Just think of that! Here you will be as poor as Job’s turkey, and that amount of money will easily set you on your feet.”
“I don’t care if it’s ten thousand. I won’t do it.”
“Well, Coleman, I was only just fooling you,” said Smith, and in order to give color to his words he leaned back and laughed heartily. “You will do to tie to.”
“Yes?” said Coleman, and he laughed, too, but it was a different sort of laugh. “You have an awful funny way of fooling a fellow, I must say. If you were not in earnest when you sat down here I shall miss my guess.”
401Coleman got upon his feet again, and Smith was so angry that he let him go without compelling him to promise over again that he would not tell anybody of the scheme that had been proposed to him. He laid down on his bed and filled his pipe, but he rolled over to see where Smith went.
“That fellow is a-going to get himself in a power of disturbance the first thing he knows,” said he to his wife, as he saw Smith moving down toward Mr. Sprague’s end of the street. “He is fixing himself to get hung.”
“Good land! How is that?” exclaimed the woman.
In spite of the fact that he had promised Smith that he would not say a word about it, it did not take Coleman long to go over his interview with him, and when he told of the amount of money that had been offered him his wife fairly gasped for breath.
“I know that is a big sum,” continued Coleman, “but just think of the danger there will be. If Leon gets off in the woods and don’t come back they will hunt high and low for him, and it won’t take them long to determine 402who it was that had a hand in his taking off. If they make-believe they were going to hang him, why, of course,course, he will know who it was and he’ll tell of it when he comes back. I think I was pretty smart in keeping out of it. There goes Smith off toward the boats. Now I believe I’ll go and see Leon.”
Smith had evidently missed his guess by a long ways when he selected Coleman to assist him. He had never known anything against this man’s honesty. He supposed, of course, that a fellow who hated to work as bad as he did, and who was content to lay around home all the time in company with the dogs and the children in preference to handling an axe, ought to be willing to engage in anything that he thought would bring him money; but as it happened, there were some honest men in that party, although they did wear ragged jackets. Without further thought Coleman arose and sauntered off toward Mr. Sprague’s end of the street, and when he came opposite their lean-to he found the boy he wanted to see, talking with his mother.
“Well, Caleb, what can I do for you to-day?” 403asked Mr. Sprague, who still occupied his old position in the door of the lean-to.
“Not a thing,” replied Coleman. “But I want to see Leon for about five minutes.”
“Do you want him to go out in the woods with you?” said Mr. Sprague, with a wink that spoke volumes.
“Eh? No; but I want to tell him to keep away from the woods,” replied Coleman, who wondered if Mr. Sprague knew all about it.
“Well, you might just as well come in here and tell it,” said Mr. Sprague, taking Coleman by the arm. “There are no secrets between us.”
Coleman went, and in a few minutes was seated on a trunk revealing the scheme that had been proposed to him. Leon and his father exchanged significant glances, and the boy thought how wise Mr. Sprague had been when he advised him to stick closely by his side and to let nothing draw him away.
“I did say that I wouldn’t tell this to anybody,” said Coleman, in conclusion. “And I won’t tell it to any one except you-uns, who are so deeply interested in it. You won’t tell on me?”
404“Did he say how much he was going to get?” asked Leon, after his father had made the required promise.
Coleman replied that he thought he was going to get twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars, and this proved that Mr. Smith did not know anything of the value of the deceased man’s legacy.
“That’s a heap of money,” said Leon. “And now, Coleman, I’ll tell you what we will do with you. If you will stay around with Smith and learn all you can in regard to his plans you shall not lose anything by it. I want to find out if he gets somebody else to assist him.”
Coleman promised, and having had his talk out went away.
“I can easily give him a thousand dollars to pay him for the trouble he has taken,” said Leon.
“But you must remember that you haven’t got the money yet,” said his father.
“Oh, I know I shall have some trouble in getting it,” said Leon, while that firm expression settled about his mouth. “When this 405trouble is over that fellow is going to camp on the place, and just as likely as not he will shoot down everybody who goes anywhere near the money.”
“Leon, I am afraid to have you go there,” said Mrs. Sprague.
“But think of the money! I tell you that will set us up. Then I can get an education. That’s one thing I will never have if I stay down here.”
The matter was settled for the time being by Mrs. Sprague’s putting the will into her bosom and pinning it fast; then Leon went out and mingled with his fellow-refugees. But his feelings were very different from those which he had experienced when he followed his father into the lean-to. When he came to think of what the will bequeathed him it fairly took his breath away. It would get them a little home somewhere, his mother would be obliged to do no more work, and, better than all, he would have money enough left to send him to school.
“Well, Leon, you seem to be particularly happy, and so am I,” said Mr. Giddings, as 406he took his seat near the door of his lean-to, pulled off his hat and wiped the big drops of perspiration from his forehead. “Or rather, I should be happy if my brothers were out of prison. I expect they have been executed by this time.”
“If I thought that, it would make me shoot to kill,” said Leon.
“Oh, won’t I, when I get the chance!” replied Mr. Giddings, with so much excitement that Leon was glad he was not a rebel. “I am waiting for the colonel to say the word and get me down there where I will have full swing at them, and then every one that I pull on goes up. I tell you, you don’t know anything about rebellion down here.”
This started Mr. Giddings on his favorite subject of conversation, and Leon sat there and listened to him until they were called to supper.
CONCLUSION.
But two adventures remain to be told regarding Leon Sprague’s life as a Jones county Confederate soldier. One was the first real fight in which he bore a part, though to tell the truth he didn’t remember much about it, and the other the exploit he went through in getting the money that had been bequeathed to him.
It took one hundred men to guard the island, and although there was no necessity for having this number of men out, the colonel thought it best to be on the safe side. He selected the men, posted them himself, and sat up nearly all night to make sure that they were doing their duty. At the first peep of day the men were all aroused, and, having had breakfast, were getting ready to march down to the hotel. How Leon’s eyes opened 408when he saw the men all in line after they had got across the stream! His father said that there were at least three thousand of them—enough to whip four times their number of rebels, if they were brought against them. They were going back to the hotel because it was the first point that the rebels would strike in Jones county; and, more than that, they had things very neatly fixed there for the reception of any body of men who might be brought against them. A long line of breastworks extended across the edge of the woods, one side being flanked by a deep swamp and the other by the river, so it was impossible to get behind them. They calculated to whip the men right there. If they didn’t, the island would be their next halting place. The women had congregated on the edge of the island to see them off, and after giving them a hearty cheer to ease their hearts when they were away, the cavalcade set out on its journey.
“Now bring on your rebs!” said Dawson.
Nearly two-thirds of the men were on horseback. They had attempted to form column 409of fours as nearly as they could, and aided by some old soldiers, of whom there were a goodly number in the ranks, they managed to hit the right number at last, and before the brigade had marched a mile it was going along as orderly as any old body of cavalrymen could have exhibited. Leon was riding in the first four in company with Mr. Giddings, Dawson and Tom Howe, and he was as lively and jolly as could be. He looked all around, but hehe couldn’t see either Smith or Coleman. But, in spite of the fact that there were men enough to protect him, he wished that Smith was out of the way.
“I declare, it is always so,” soliloquized Leon. “When you get everything going just as you want it to, there is always somebody to step in and knock the thing into a cocked hat. Smith won’t get the money, and he might as well give up trying.”
“Bring on your rebs, I say,” repeated Dawson, raising his carbine and looking all around. “We’re ready for a fight!”
“You may sing a different tune from that,” said Mr. Giddings.
410“I know I may, but I hope not,” said Dawson. “I want to keep up long enough to pay the rebels for burning our house.”
It was three o’clock when they arrived within sight of Ellisville, and then Mr. Dawson, who had been riding all the way with Mr. Sprague, took command. Under his supervision the Union men were all posted behind the breastworks, and each one knew where he belonged. His camp was right where he halted, and all the men had to do was to throw off their arms, picket their horses and wait for dinner and supper, which were to be served together. If there was anything to which Leon objected it was to being held down with a firm hand. He wanted to go with his father, for by doing that he knew that he would be in a fair way to learn all the news that happened within the borders of the Jones-County Confederacy, as well as some things that occurred outside of it; so he climbed the breastworks and went down to the porch of the hotel, where he found all the chief men of the county gathered and holding a consultation with his father.
411“I thought it best to burn the bridge, and move our pickets up nearer headquarters, for it would put the rebels to some trouble to swim their horses over the creek,” Mr. Knight was saying to his father when he came up. “If we only had our breastworks built nearer the creek we could whip them before they ever got across.”
“I think that is the best way, and I wondered long ago that you didn’t think of it before,” said Mr. Sprague. “Halloo! there is something coming, down there. And what’s that waving over them? It is a white flag, as sure as I live! Knight, you are getting to be a big man when the enemy comes to consult you in that way.”
“I declare, I believe that’s what it is!” said Mr. Knight, after he and the other chief men of the party had taken a good view of it. “Now, we don’t want them to see how many men we
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