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Version 3 of the Google Maps API has been remade from the ground up. It’s
faster and more powerful than ever, yet it’s more lightweight. This makes it
very well suited for both desktop and mobile browsers. In this book, I guide
you through everything you need to know to integrate Google Maps on your

Beginning
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These are some of the things you’ll learn:
• How to build reliable Google Maps applications
• Best practices using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Transferring from version 2 to version 3
• Solutions to common problems most developers encounter, such as having
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• How to look up addresses and find the location of the user

API 3
I’ve written numerous articles and tutorials about the Google Maps API on
my blog, In usability we trust, at www.svennerberg.com. From the responses
I’ve received from my readers, I’ve realized that there’s a great need for simple
explanations on how to use the Google Maps API, and that has inspired me to
write this book. The Google Maps API is a powerful and fun API to work with,
and I want to share my knowledge about it with others.
I hope that you will come to like the Google Maps API as much as I do and
that you’ll create all kinds of awesome map applications after reading this book.

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 Beginning Google Maps
API 3

■■■
Gabriel Svennerberg
Beginning Google Maps API 3
Copyright © 2010 by Gabriel Svennerberg
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or
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To my son, Ludvig, who was born during the writing of this book.
 Contents at a Glance

Contents....................................................................................................................v
About the Author ...................................................................................................xiii
About the Technical Reviewer ............................................................................... xiv
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. xv
Introduction ........................................................................................................... xvi

■ Chapter 1: Introducing the Google Maps API .......................................................1

■ Chapter 2: Transferring from Version 2 to 3 ........................................................7
■ Chapter 3: Creating Your First Map ...................................................................23
■ Chapter 4: Taking the Map Further with MapOptions ........................................45
■ Chapter 5: X Marks the Spot ..............................................................................73
■ Chapter 6: Marker Icons ..................................................................................101
■ Chapter 7: InfoWindow Tips and Tricks ...........................................................131
■ Chapter 8: Creating Polylines and Polygons ....................................................157
■ Chapter 9: Dealing with Massive Numbers of Markers ...................................177
■ Chapter 10: Location, Location, Location.........................................................211
■ Appendix: API Reference..................................................................................243

Index.....................................................................................................................281

iv
 ■ CONTENTS

Contents

Contents at a Glance................................................................................................iv
About the Author ...................................................................................................xiii
About the Technical Reviewer ............................................................................... xiv
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. xv
Introduction ........................................................................................................... xvi

■ Chapter 1: Introducing the Google Maps API .......................................................1

A Brief History..................................................................................................................2
How It Works ...................................................................................................................3
A New API ........................................................................................................................3
Slimmed-Down Feature Set ...................................................................................................................3
Focus on Performance............................................................................................................................3
Mapping Fundamentals ...................................................................................................4
Coordinates ............................................................................................................................................4
Summary .........................................................................................................................6

■ Chapter 2: Transferring from Version 2 to 3 ........................................................7

What’s Different?.............................................................................................................7
A New Namespace .................................................................................................................................7
Extensive Use of Object Literals .............................................................................................................8
Asynchronous by Nature ........................................................................................................................8
Converting from Version 2 to 3 ........................................................................................9
Adding a Reference to the API................................................................................................................9

v
 ■ CONTENTS

Creating a Map .....................................................................................................................................10

Markers ................................................................................................................................................12
InfoWindows .........................................................................................................................................14
Polylines ...............................................................................................................................................16
Polygons ...............................................................................................................................................17
Events...................................................................................................................................................19
Summary .......................................................................................................................21

■ Chapter 3: Creating Your First Map ...................................................................23

Setting the Scene ..........................................................................................................23
The HTML Page.....................................................................................................................................23
What Flavor of HTML to Use .................................................................................................................24
Validate Your Code ...............................................................................................................................24
Other Tools ...........................................................................................................................................27
Laying the Foundation ..........................................................................................................................27
Time to Start Coding ......................................................................................................32
Debugging Tool: Firebug ......................................................................................................................36
Setting Up the Map ...............................................................................................................................37
Making the Code Run on Page Load.....................................................................................................40
Creating Maps for Mobile Devices.................................................................................43
Summary .......................................................................................................................43

■ Chapter 4: Taking the Map Further with MapOptions ........................................45

A Fresh Start..................................................................................................................45
Controlling the User Interface........................................................................................46
disableDefaultUI ...................................................................................................................................46
mapTypeControl ...................................................................................................................................47
mapTypeControlOption .........................................................................................................................48
navigationControl .................................................................................................................................53
navigationControlOptions .....................................................................................................................54
scaleControl..........................................................................................................................................57

vi
 ■ CONTENTS

scaleControlOptions..............................................................................................................................58
keyboardShortcuts ...............................................................................................................................58
disableDoubleClickZoom ......................................................................................................................58
draggable .............................................................................................................................................59
scrollwheel ...........................................................................................................................................59
streetViewControl .................................................................................................................................59
streetView.............................................................................................................................................61
Controlling the Map Container .......................................................................................61
noClear .................................................................................................................................................61
backgroundColor ..................................................................................................................................61
Controlling the Cursor....................................................................................................62
draggableCursor ...................................................................................................................................62
draggingCursor.....................................................................................................................................63
Controlling the Map Settings with Methods ..................................................................63
setOptions.............................................................................................................................................64
The Specific Methods ...........................................................................................................................64
Putting the Methods to Use ..................................................................................................................65
Dynamically Changing the MapOptions Object.....................................................................................68
The Complete Code ..............................................................................................................................71
Summary .......................................................................................................................72

■ Chapter 5: X Marks the Spot ..............................................................................73

Setting a Starting Point..................................................................................................73
A Simple Marker ............................................................................................................74
Adding a Tooltip....................................................................................................................................75
Changing the Icon.................................................................................................................................76
The Complete Code So Far ...................................................................................................................78
Adding an InfoWindow..........................................................................................................................79
The Complete Code ..............................................................................................................................82
More Markers .......................................................................................................................................83
Adding U.S. Cities to the Map ...............................................................................................................85

vii
 ■ CONTENTS

Automatically Adjusting the Viewport to Fit All Markers ...............................................95

Introducing the LatLngBounds Object ..................................................................................................96
Let the API Do the Heavy Lifting ...........................................................................................................97
The Complete Code........................................................................................................98
Summary .....................................................................................................................100

■ Chapter 6: Marker Icons ..................................................................................101

Setting a Starting Point................................................................................................101
Changing the Marker Icon ...........................................................................................102
Introducing the MarkerImage Object..................................................................................................102
MarkerImage’s Five Properties...........................................................................................................102
Adding a Custom Icon to a Marker .....................................................................................................103
Putting It Together ..............................................................................................................................103
Enabling and Disabling the Shadow ...................................................................................................106
Defining a Clickable Area ...................................................................................................................107
The Complete Code ............................................................................................................................109
Using Sprites ...............................................................................................................109
Latency ...............................................................................................................................................111
Sprite Support ....................................................................................................................................111
The Complete Code ............................................................................................................................114
Where to Find Icons .....................................................................................................115
google-maps-icons.............................................................................................................................115
Google Maps: Colored Markers ..........................................................................................................116
Mapito Map Marker Icons...................................................................................................................116
Changing the Marker Icon According to Mouse Events ...............................................117
Defining the MarkerImages ................................................................................................................118
Adding the Events...............................................................................................................................118
The Complete Code ............................................................................................................................120
A Clever Way of Dealing with Lots of Different Marker Icons ......................................122
Adding Dynamic Data .........................................................................................................................124

viii
 ■ CONTENTS

Faking an Ajax Call .............................................................................................................................124

The Complete Code ............................................................................................................................126
Benefits ..............................................................................................................................................128
Creating a Custom Marker Icon ...................................................................................128
Online Tools ........................................................................................................................................128
Summary .....................................................................................................................129

■ Chapter 7: InfoWindow Tips and Tricks ...........................................................131

Setting a Starting Point................................................................................................131
Style Sheet .........................................................................................................................................132
JavaScript...........................................................................................................................................133
Adding Rich Content to the InfoWindow ......................................................................133
Providing the HTML As a String ..........................................................................................................134
The Complete Code ............................................................................................................................137
Inserting a Video Using HTML5....................................................................................139
Browser Support.................................................................................................................................139
Altering the HTML ...............................................................................................................................140
Examining the <video> Element ........................................................................................................140
The Example .......................................................................................................................................141
The Complete Code for Adding a Video to an InfoWindow .................................................................145
Creating a Detail Map ..................................................................................................146
Creating the InfoWindow ....................................................................................................................148
The Complete Code ............................................................................................................................149
Creating a Zoom-In Link ..............................................................................................150
Adding the Event Handler ...................................................................................................................151
Opening the InfoWindow ....................................................................................................................153
The Complete Code ............................................................................................................................154
Further Refinements...........................................................................................................................155
Summary .....................................................................................................................155

ix
 ■ CONTENTS

■ Chapter 8: Creating Polylines and Polygons ....................................................157

Creating Polylines . ......................................................................................................157
Creating a Simple Polyline....................................................................................................................158
Polyline Arrays......................................................................................................................................163
Plotting Your Own Path.........................................................................................................................163
Creating Polygons. ......................................................................................................166
Creating a Simple Polygon ...................................................................................................................166
Creating Donuts ....................................................................................................................................170
Creating a Polygon with a Highlight Effect . .........................................................................................173
The Bermuda Triangle ..........................................................................................................................173
Summary . ...................................................................................................................176

■ Chapter 9: Dealing with Massive Numbers of Markers ...................................177

Too Many Markers? . ...................................................................................................177
Reducing the Number of Markers Being Displayed . ...................................................179
Searching .............................................................................................................................................179
Filtering ................................................................................................................................................180
Don’t Always Use Markers....................................................................................................................181
Clustering .............................................................................................................................................181
Some Practical Examples . ..........................................................................................182
The Starting Point.................................................................................................................................183
Calculating the Current Map Boundaries. ............................................................................................183
Adding the Markers ..............................................................................................................................185
The Final Code ......................................................................................................................................187
Third-Party Libraries. ..................................................................................................188
MarkerClusterer....................................................................................................................................188
MarkerManager ....................................................................................................................................195
Summary . ...................................................................................................................210

x
 ■ CONTENTS

■ Chapter 10: Location, Location, Location.........................................................211

Geocoding....................................................................................................................211
Restrictions.........................................................................................................................................211
The Geocoder Object ..........................................................................................................................212
Building an Address Lookup Web Page ..............................................................................................212
Reverse Geocoding ......................................................................................................223
Building a Reverse Geocoding Map ....................................................................................................223
The Complete Code for This Example.................................................................................................227
Finding the Location of the User..................................................................................229
IP-Based Geocoding ...........................................................................................................................229
Creating a Location-Aware Map .........................................................................................................230
The Complete JavaScript Code for This Example ...............................................................................234
Getting Better Accuracy......................................................................................................................235
Summary .....................................................................................................................242
■ Appendix: API Reference..................................................................................243
How to Read the Reference .........................................................................................243
Data Types..........................................................................................................................................243
The Namespace ...........................................................................................................244
The Reference..............................................................................................................244
Map Class ...........................................................................................................................................244
MapOptions Object .............................................................................................................................248
MapTypeId Class ................................................................................................................................249
MapTypeControlOptions Object ..........................................................................................................250
MapTypeControlStyle Class ................................................................................................................250
NavigationControlOptions Object........................................................................................................251
NavigationControlStyle Class..............................................................................................................251
ScaleControlOptions Object ................................................................................................................252
ScaleControlStyle Class......................................................................................................................252
ControlPosition Class..........................................................................................................................252
MapPanes Object................................................................................................................................254

xi
 ■ CONTENTS

MapCanvasProjection Object..............................................................................................................254
Marker Class.......................................................................................................................................255
MarkerOptions Object.........................................................................................................................258
MarkerImage Class.............................................................................................................................259
MarkerShape Object...........................................................................................................................260
Polyline Class .....................................................................................................................................261
PolylineOptions Object........................................................................................................................262
Polygon Class .....................................................................................................................................263
PolygonOptions Object........................................................................................................................265
InfoWindow Class ...............................................................................................................................266
InfoWindowOptions Object .................................................................................................................267
Geocoder Class...................................................................................................................................268
GeocoderRequest Object ....................................................................................................................269
GeocoderStatus Class.........................................................................................................................269
GeocoderResult Object .......................................................................................................................270
GeocoderAddressComponent Object ..................................................................................................271
GeocoderGeometry Object..................................................................................................................271
GeocoderLocationType Class..............................................................................................................272
MapsEventListener Object..................................................................................................................272
event Namespace ...............................................................................................................................272
MouseEvent Object.............................................................................................................................273
LatLng Class .......................................................................................................................................274
LatLngBounds Class ...........................................................................................................................275
Point Class..........................................................................................................................................276
Size Class ...........................................................................................................................................277
MVCObject Class.................................................................................................................................278
MVCArray Class ..................................................................................................................................279

Index.....................................................................................................................281

xii
 ■ CONTENTS

About the Author

■ Gabriel Svennerberg is a usability-oriented web developer from Sweden.

He’s been working in the web industry for more than a decade and is known
in the web developer community for evangelizing usability and web
standards. He’s also known for spreading knowledge about the Google Maps
API through his website, In usability we trust, which features articles about
Google Maps, usability, and other things related to web development. It’s
found at www.svennerberg.com.
In his current job at Saab Security Solutions (www.saabgroup.com), Gabriel
is busy designing and building web applications for situation awareness and
crisis management. These applications always incorporate maps in some
way, and the Google Maps API is one of the mapping solutions being used.
Gabriel lives in Växjö, Sweden, with his fiancée, Petronella, and their son
Ludvig.
Photographer:
Kristin Horn Sellström

xiii
 ■ FOREWORD

About the Technical Reviewer

■ Rob Drimmie is a software developer with a bias toward web-based

applications. The best things about him are his wife and children. He likes pho
and hamburgers but has never eaten both at the same sitting.

xiv
 ■ INTRODUCTION

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank my beloved fiancée, Petronella Frisk, for putting up with me spending
evenings and weekends writing this book. Thank you for your patience and support! I couldn’t have
done it without you!
Many thanks to Tom Skinner for helping me with the initial reviews of the chapters and with
testing the examples. Your help has been immensly valuable to me. If not for you, the book would have
been a lot poorer. I would also like to thank you for your words of encouragement at the times when I
needed it the most. Also thanks to Charlie Irish, who helped proofread Chapter 5, before I used it as a
beta chapter.
My former college Chris Jangelöv has been a source of inspiration over the years. I probably owe it
to him that I entered into the world of web standards, usability, and blogging in the first place. Thank
you, Chris, for always having new ideas and being encouraging.
I would also like to extend a thanks to my employer, Saab Security Solutions in Växjö, for letting me
take some time off to work on the book. This was very much needed since a day has only 24 hours—
something that I’ve been acutely aware of since becoming a parent.
The people at Apress also deserve thanks for guiding me through the process of writing this, my
first book.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the readers of my blog, In usability we trust, whose feedback,
words of encouragement, and questions have been invaluble for writing this book. They motivated me
to undertake this endeavor and encouraged me during times of despair. They also gave me plenty of
ideas of what to write about and what problems to address. Thanks a lot!

xv
 ■ INTRODUCTION

Introduction

This book started out as an idea in spring 2009. I had written quite a few articles and tutorials about the
Google Maps API v2 and thought that I could reuse them to write a book. That shouldn’t take too long, I
thought. Shortly after, during Google I/O 2009, Google announced that it was releasing version 3 of the
API. This release was a total remake of the old one, and I soon realized that I now had to write a book
about this version instead. This rendered my intital plan to reuse my old articles completely useless. I
also had to learn the new API; it was, after all, a complete remake. In retrospect, I’m glad that I did. The
new API has a much cleanear programming interface and is more well structured than the old one. It
just feels better to program with. And now that the book is being published, version 2 is deprecated,
and version 3 is the recommended alternative for new map applications.
Writing this book became a bigger undertaking than I first anticipated, but it has also been a lot
more fun and interesting journey than I expected (even if I’ve despaired at times). Writing this, my
first book, has been a learning experience. When I started the project, I had no clue how to go about it. I
didn’t now how to get it published or how to structure it. But it all somehow unfolded as the work
progressed, and here I am now, with a finished book.
My journey with Google Maps started in 2007, when I created my very first map. It was a map
showing the location of a restaurant. It not only let you see the location of the restaurant but also
allowed you to enter an address in a text field to get driving directions. Very cool stuff. Since then, I’ve
created a lot of maps using the API, not the least as part of my job as a web developer and interaction
designer at Saab Security Solutions.
My hope for this book is that you as a reader will be able to quickly grasp the concepts of the
Google Maps API so that you can create your own map solutions. In fact, after reading this book, I hope
that you’re not only able to create your own maps but that you’re also able to deal with many of the
common pitfalls most developers encounter when building Google Maps solutions.

Who This Book Is For

This book is primarily for web designers/developers who want to learn how to use the Google Maps
API on their own web sites. But even if you’re not in the field, you should be able to learn the concepts
since they’re thoroughly described. It certainly helps if you have a basic understanding of how to
create a web page and how the Web works, but other than that, you should be able to learn how to use
the API from just this book.
This book is also for those of you who have been using version 2 of the API. I’ve dedicated a whole
chapter for you, Chapter 2, where I explain the differences between the two versions so that you can
easily transfer your old maps to the new API.

Downloading the Code

You can download all the code for the examples from the book’s web site at
http://www.svennerberg.com/bgma3. It’s also available on the Apress website at
http://apress.com/book/view/1430228024

xvi
CHAPTER 1

■■■

Introducing the Google Maps API

On today’s Web, mapping solutions are a natural ingredient. We use them to see the location of things,
to search for the position of an address, to get driving directions, and to do numerous other things. Most
information has a location, and if something has a location, it can be displayed on a map.
There are several mapping solutions including Yahoo! Maps and Bing Maps, but the most popular
one is Google Maps. In fact, according to Programmableweb.com, it’s the most popular API on the
Internet. According to the site’s May 2010 statistics, 43 percent of all mashups use the Google Maps API
(www.programmableweb.com/apis). In comparison, the second most popular API was Flickr with 11
percent, and the second most popular mapping API was VirtualEarth (Bing Maps) with 3 percent.
Applications and web sites that are combining data or functionality from two or more sources are
commonly referred to as mashups. Mashups are becoming increasingly popular and have revolutionized
the way information is being used and visualized.
Mapping solutions are one important ingredient in a lot of these mashups. The Google Maps API
lets you harness the power of Google Maps to use in your own applications to display your own (or
others’) data in an efficient and usable manner.
An example of a mashup using the Google Maps API is the coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It combines data of the extent of the oil spill with Google Maps to visualize its
massive impact (Figure 1-1); see http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/disaster/gulf_oil_spill/
gulf_oil_map.html.

1
 CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCING THE GOOGLE MAPS API

Figure 1-1. The impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill visualized in Google Maps

This book is about the Google Maps JavaScript API. Other APIs are available, such as the Maps API
for Flash and the Static Maps API. These are both great additions but are not covered in this book.

A Brief History
Google Maps was introduced in a blog post on Google in February 2005. It revolutionized the way maps
on web pages work by letting the user drag the map to navigate it. This was new at the time. The map
solutions used then were expensive and required special map servers, yet they didn’t deliver the same
level of interactivity.
Google Maps was originally developed by two Danish brothers, Lars and Jens Rasmussen. They
cofounded Where 2 Technologies, a company dedicated to creating mapping solutions. The company
was acquired by Google in October 2004, and the two brothers then created Google Maps. (They are also
the men behind Google Wave.)
Before there was a public API, some developers figured out how to hack Google Maps to incorporate
maps on their own web sites. This led Google to the conclusion that there was a need for a public API,
and in June 2005 it was publically released. The first mashup on the Internet is often considered to be

2
Other documents randomly have
different content
 CHAPTER XVI
BACK HOME

If he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city,

Robert E. Lee was a general doubly great. The gallantry of the three
days’ fighting at Gettysburg he left like a golden light, like a laurel
wreath, with his men. The responsibility for Gettysburg, its strategy
and its tactics, he laid with quietness upon his own shoulders and
kept it there. In the last hour of the third day, after the last great
charge, after Pickett’s charge, when the remnant that was left was
streaming back, he rode into the midst of that thin grey current. He
sat Traveller, in the red light, in the murk and sorrow of the lost
battle, and called upon the men to re-form. Pickett came by, his
sword out, his long auburn hair dank with sweat. “Get your men
together, General,” said Lee. “They did nobly. It is all my fault.”
If the boyishness in Jeb Stuart, his dear love of dancing meteors,
had swept him in the past weeks too far from his proper base, he
was now fully and to the end by his general’s side. He kept his
gaiety, his panache, but he put on the full man. He was the Stuart of
Chancellorsville, throwing a steady dart, swinging a great shield.
Longstreet, the “old war horse”; A.P. Hill, red-shirted, a noble
fighter; “Dear Dick Ewell”—each rose, elastic, from the disastrous
field and played the man. That slow retreat from Gettysburg to the
Potomac, through a hostile country, with a victorious, larger army
hovering, willing to strike if only it could find the unguarded place,
was masterly planned, masterly done. The Army of Northern Virginia
retired grudgingly, with backward turnings, foot planted and spear
brandished. It had with it pain and agony, for it carried its wounded;
it had with it appalling knowledge that Vicksburg was fallen, that the
battle behind them, hard-fought for three days, was lost, that the
campaign was lost, that across the river the South was mourning,
mourning, that at last all were at the death-grapple. It knew it all,
but it went steadily, with lips that could yet manage a smile. For all
its freight of wounded, for all the mourning of its banners, it went
ably; a long, masterly retreat, with effective stands and
threatenings. But how the wounded suffered, only the wounded
knew.
The rain came down as it usually did after the prolonged
cannonadings of these great battles. It came down in sullen torrents,
unfriendly, cold, deepening the deep reaction after the fever of the
fight. It fell in showers from a sky leaden all the day, inky all the
night. At twilight on the fourth, A.P. Hill and the Third Corps swung
in silence out upon the Fountain Dale and Monterey road. They
marched away in the rain and darkness. All night Longstreet and the
First stayed in position at the Peach Orchard. But the foe did not
attack, and at dawn Longstreet and the First followed A.P. Hill. When
the dawn broke, grey and wet, Ewell and the Second Corps alone
were there by Seminary Ridge. Again the blue—they also gathering
their wounded, they also mourning their dead—made no movement
to attack. Ewell and the Second followed the First.
The rain came down, the rain came down—rain and wind and low-
hanging clouds. Forty thousand men marched in a silence which,
now and then, it was felt, must be broken. Men broke it, with song
that had somehow a sob in it, with laughter more strained than
jovial. Then came down the silence again, leaden with the leaden
rain. But march in silence, or march in mirth, the Army of Northern
Virginia marched with its morale unbroken. Tramp, tramp! through
the shifting sheets of rain, through the wind that bent the tree-
tops.... With Hood’s division marched four thousand and more of
Federal prisoners. With these, too, the silence was heavy.
But there was not silence when it came to the fearful train of the
wounded. Fifteen miles, along the Chambersburg Pike, stretched the
train of the wounded and of ordnance and supply wagons, with its
escort of cavalry and a score of guns. The convoy was in the charge
of Imboden, and he was doing the best he could with those long
leagues of hideous woe. The road was rough; the night dark, with
wind and rain. “Woe!” cried the wind. “Woe, woe! Pain and woe!”
Ambulances, carts, wagons, crowded with the wounded, went
joltingly, under orders to use all speed. Cavalry rode before, cavalry
guarded the rear, but few were the actual guards in among or
alongside the wagons. Vanguard and rear guard needed every
unhurt man. For miles there were, in sum, only the wounded, the
jaded wagon horses, the wagon drivers with drawn faces. Orders
were for no pausing, no halts. If a wagon became disabled, draw it
out of the road and leave it! There must be rapid travelling through
the night. Even so, if the blue were alert, the blue might strike the
train before day. Rapid motion and no halting—“On!” beneath the
blackness, in the teeth of wind and rain. “Woe!” cried the wind.
“Woe, woe! Pain and woe!”
The wagons were springless. In many there was no straw.
Numbers of the wounded lay upon bare boards, placed there, in
some cases, hours even before the convoy could start. Many had
had no food for long hours, no water. Their rough clothing, stiff with
dried blood, abraded and inflamed their wounds. The surgeons had
done what bandaging was possible, but many a ghastly hurt went
unbound, unlooked to. With others the bandages slipped, or were
torn aside by pain-maddened hands. There was blood upon the bed
of all the wagons, blood and human refuse. Upon the boards lay
men with their eyes gone, with their jaws shot through and crushed,
with their arms, their legs mangled, with their thighs pierced, their
bowels pierced, with tormenting stomach wounds, with a foot gone,
a hand gone. There were men with fever and a horrible thirst, and
men who shook in a death chill. There were men who were dead.
And on them all poured the rain, for the canvas wagon covers,
flapping in the wind, could not keep it out. And the road, cut by
countless wheels and now washed into ridge and hollow, would have
been rough for well folk, in cushioned vehicles. “On! On! No halting
for any one!—Good God, man! Don’t I know they are suffering?
Don’t I hear them? Do you reckon I like to hear them? But if I’m
going to save General Lee’s trains I’ve got to get on! Get on, there!”
“Woe!” cried the wind. “Woe, woe! pain and woe.”
 “Oh, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me!”
“Just let me die, O God! just let me die!”
“If there’s anybody at all outside, won’t they stop this wagon? If
there’s anybody driving, won’t you stop this wagon? Please! You
don’t know how it hurts—Please!... Ah!—Aaahh!—Aaahhh!”
“Curse you!—Curse war!—Curse living and dying! Curse God! Ah!
—Ahhh!—Aaahhh!”
“For God’s sake! just lift us out and let us die lying still, on the
roadside.... O God! O God!”
“O God! O God!”
“I am dying! I am dying!... Mary, Mary, Mary! Lift me up!”
“We are dying! We are dying!”
“O Jesus of Nazareth—”
“During this one night,” says Imboden, “I realized more of the
horrors of war than I had in all the two preceding years.”
The Second Corps, marching by the Fairfield road, marched in rain
and wind and weariness. Ewell, wooden-legged now, irascible,
heroic, sighing for “Old Jackson,” handling his corps as “Old Jackson”
would have approved, rode in front. Jubal Early, strange compound
but admirable fighter,—Jubal Early guarded the rear with the
brigades of Hoke and Smith and Gordon and Harry Hays. Between
were Rodes’s division—Iverson and Daniels, Dole, Ramseur and
O’Neal—and “Alleghany” Johnson’s division—Steuart and Jones and
Nicholls and the Stonewall Brigade. With each division heavily moved
upon the road its artillery—Charlottesville Artillery, Staunton Artillery,
Louisiana Guard Artillery, Courtney Artillery, King William Artillery,
Orange Artillery, Morris Artillery, Jeff Davis Artillery, Chesapeake
Artillery, Alleghany Artillery, First Maryland Battery, Lee Battery,
Powhatan Artillery, Salem Artillery, Rockbridge Artillery, Third
Richmond Howitzers, Second Richmond Howitzers, Amherst Artillery,
Fluvanna Artillery, Milledge’s Georgia Battery.
The Stonewall Brigade bent its head and took the blast. The rain
streamed from the slanted forest of rifle barrels; the wind blew out
the officer’s capes; the colours had to be furled against it. All the
colours were smoke-darkened, shot-riddled. The Stonewall was a
veteran brigade. It had an idea that it had been engaged in war
since the rains first came upon the earth. Walker, its general, a good
and gallant man, plodded at its head, his hat brim streaming wet,
his horse’s breath making a little cloud. Tramp! tramp! behind him
marched the Stonewall—a long, swinging gait, a “foot cavalry” gait.
The Sixty-fifth Virginia, Colonel Erskine, covered the way with a
mountain stride. It was nearing now the pass of the South Mountain,
and its road lay uphill. It had done good service at Gettysburg, and it
had its wounded in that anguished column over on the
Chambersburg Pike. It had left its dead upon the field. Now,
climbing the long hills, colours slanted forward, keen, bronzed faces
slanted forward, man and beast streaming rain and all battling with
the gusty wind, the Sixty-fifth missed its dead, missed its wounded,
knew that the army had suffered defeat, knew that the high hopes
of this campaign lay in ashes, knew that these days formed a crisis
in the war, knew that all the sky had darkened over the South, knew
that before it lay grim struggle and a doubtful end. The units of the
Sixty-fifth knew many things that in the old piping time of peace
they had never thought to know.
The grain in the fields was all broken down, the woods clashed
their branches, through flawed sheets of dull silver the distant
mountain crests were just divined. The wind howled like a banshee,
and for all that it was July the air was cold. The Sixty-fifth thought of
other marches. Before McDowell—Elk Run Valley—that was bad. Elk
Run Valley was bad. Before Mechanicsville—coming down from
Beaver Dam Station—that was bad. Bath to Romney—that was
worst.... We’ve had plenty of bad marches—plenty of marches—
plenty of heroic marches. We are used to marching—used to
marching.... Marching and fighting—marching and fighting....
Tall and lean and tanned, the Thunder Run men opposed the wind
from the mountains. Allan Gold and Sergeant Billy Maydew
exchanged observations.
“I wouldn’t be tired,” said Billy, “going up Thunder Run Mountain. I
air not tired anyhow.”
“No, there’s no help in being tired.... I hope that Tom and Sairy
are dry and warm—”
 “I don’t mind wet,” said Billy, “and I don’t mind cold, and I can
tighten my belt when I’m hungry, but the thing that air hard for me
to stand air going without sleep. I tell my will to hold hard and I put
tobacco in my eyes, but sleep sure air a hard thing for me to go
without. I could sleep now—I could sleep—I could sleep.... Yes; I
hope all Thunder Run air dry and warm—Mr. Cole and Mrs. Cole and
Mother and Christianna and Violetta and Rosalinda and the children
and Grandpap and the dawgs and Steve Dagg—No; I kinder hope
Steve air wet and whimpering.... Thunder Run’s a long way off. I
could go to sleep—and sleep—and sleep ...”
“I’m not sleepy,” said Allan. “But I wish I had a pitcher of milk—”
The Sixty-fifth determined to try singing.

“O my Lawd, whar you gwine?

Keep in de middle ob de road!
Gwine de way dat Moses trod,
Keep in de middle ob de road—”

“The butcher had a little dog,

And Bingo was his name.
B-i-n-g-o-go! B-i-n-g-o-go!
And Bingo was his name—”

Toward four o’clock, as the head of the column neared Fairfield,

came from the rear a burst of firing—musketry, then artillery. There
was a halt, then the main body resumed the march. Early, in the
rear, deployed Gordon’s brigade and fought back the long skirmish
line of the pursuing blue. Throughout the remainder of the afternoon
there was fitful firing—sound, water-logged like all else, rising dully
from the rear. Down came the night, dark as a bat’s wing. The
Second Corps bivouacked a mile from Fairfield, and, waking now and
then in the wet and windy night, heard the rear guard repelling half-
hearted attacks.
Reveille echoed among the hills. The Second rose beneath a still
streaming sky. The Stonewall, camped on a hillside, sought for wood
for its fires and found but little, and that too wet to burn. It was
fortunate, perhaps, that there was so little to cook. The Sixty-fifth
squatted around a dozen pin-points of light and did its best with the
scrapings of its commissary. “Well, boys, the flesh pots of Egypt
have given us the go-by! D’ye remember that breakfast at
Greencastle? Oohh! Wasn’t it good?”... “Hold your hat over the fire
or it’ll go out!”... “I wish we had some coffee ...” “Listen at Gordon,
way back there, popping away at Yanks!—Did you hear about his
men burning fence rails? No?—well, ’twas out beyond York. ‘Men!’
says Marse Robert’s General Order, ‘don’t tech a thing!’ ‘All right,
Marse Robert!’ says we, as you can testify. Gordon’s as chivalrous as
Young Lochinvar, or ‘A Chieftain to the Highlands Bound,’ or Bayard,
or any of them fellows. So he piles on an order, too. ‘Don’t touch a
thing! especially not the fences. Gather your wood where Nature has
flung it!’ Well, those Georgia boys had to camp that night where
Nature hadn’t flung any wood—neither Cedar of Lebanon nor darned
pawpaw bush! Just a nice bare field with rail fences—our kind of
fences. Nice, old, dry, seasoned rails. Come along Gordon, riding
magnificently. ‘General, the most wood around here is musket
stocks, and of course we ain’t going to burn them! Can’t we take
just a few rails?’ ‘Boys,’ says Gordon, being like a young and
handsome father to his men. ‘Boys, you can take the top rail. That
will leave the fences high enough for the farmer’s purposes. Now,
mind me! don’t lay your hand on anything but the top rail!’ And off
he goes, looking like a picture—leaf of Round Table, or what not.
Whereupon company by company marched up and each took in turn
the top rail.”
“Must have been an all-fired lasting top rail—”
“—And they had supper and went to bed cheered and comforted.
And by and by, in the morning, just after reveille, comes Gordon,
fresh as a daisy. And he looks at the boundaries of that field, and he
colours up. ‘Men,’ he says in a kind of grieved anger, ‘you have
disobeyed orders!’ Whereupon those innocents rose up and assured
him that not a man had touched anything but a top rail!”
Fall in! Fall in! Column Forward!
It rained, and rained. You saw the column as through smoke,
winding toward the pass of the South Mountain. From the rear came
fitfully the sound of musketry. But there was no determined pursuit.
Early kept the rear; Stuart, off in the rain and mist, lion-bold, and,
throughout the long retreat to the fortress, greatly sagacious,
guarded the flanks. A.P. Hill and Longstreet were now beyond the
mountains, swinging southward by the Ringgold road. With the First
and the Third rode Lee, grey on grey Traveller, in the grey rain, his
face turned homeward, turned toward the fortress of the South,
vast, mournful, thenceforth trebly endangered. It was the sixth of
July. A year ago had been the Seven Days.
Back on the road of the wounded there was trouble. Imboden,
having crossed the mountain, determined upon a short cut by a
country road to Greencastle. On through the small town rode the
vanguard, the Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry. Behind, as rapidly as
might be, came the immense and painful train. On the outskirts of
the place a band of civilians attacked a weakly guarded portion of
the column. They had axes, and with these they hewed in two the
wagon yokes or cut the spokes from the wheels. The wagon beds
dropped heavily upon the earth. “Ahh!” groaned the wounded.
“Ahhh! Aaaahh!”
Back in wrath came a detachment of the Eighteenth, scattering or
capturing the wielders of axes. The long train passed Greencastle.
Before it lay the road to Williamsport, the road to the Potomac. The
rain was streaming, the wind howling, and now the Federal cavalry
made its appearance. All the rest of the day the train was subjected
to small sudden attacks, descents now on this section, now on that.
The grey escort, cavalry and artillery, beat them off like stinging
bees; the grey wagoners plied their long whips, the exhausted
horses strained forward yet again, under the wagon wheel was felt
again the ridge and hollow of the storm-washed road. “Woe!” cried
the wind. “Woe, woe! Pain and woe!”
There came a report that blue troops held Williamsport, but when
late in a stormy afternoon the head of Imboden’s column came to
this place, so known by now, frontier, with only the moat of the river
between the foe’s territory and the fortress’s territory,—when the
advance rode into town, there were found only peaceful
Marylanders. The grey convoy occupied Williamsport. At last the
torturing wagons stopped, at last the moaning hurt were lifted out,
at last the surgeons could help, at last the dead were parted from
the living. Imboden requisitioned all the kitchens of the place. There
arose a semblance of warmth, a pale ghost of cheer. Here and there
sounded even a weak laugh.
“Say, Doctor! after hell, purgatory seems kind of good to us! That
was hell back there on the road—hell if ever there was hell....
Ouch!... Ooooghh! Doctor!”
“Doctor, do you reckon I’ll live to get across? I want to see my
wife—I want to see her so badly.—There’s a boy, too, and I’ve never
seen him—”
“How air we going to get across? Air there boats?”
“Who’s keeping the Yankees away? Jeb Stuart? That’s good.... Oh,
Doctor, you ain’t going to cut it off? Please, Doctor, please, sir, don’t!
No, it won’t mortify—I’m just as sure of that! Please just put it in
splints. It ain’t so badly hurt—it ain’t hurting me hardly any....
Doctor, Doctor! for God’s sake!—Why, I couldn’t walk any more!—
why, I’d have to leave the army!... Doctor, please don’t—please don’t
cut it off, sir....”
The rain came down, the rain came down, a drenching, sullen
storm. Wide, yellow, and swollen rolled the Potomac before
Williamsport. Imboden procured several flatboats, and proceeded to
the ferrying across of those of the more slightly wounded who
thought that once in Virginia they might somehow get to Winchester.
In the midst of this work came news of the approach of a large force
of Federal cavalry and artillery—Buford and Kilpatrick’s divisions
hurrying down from Frederick.
Imboden posted every gun with him on the heights between the
town and the river. Hart, Eshleman, McClanahan—all faced the
eighteen rifled guns with which presently the blue opened. A sharp
artillery battle followed, each side firing with rapidity and some
effect. Imboden had his cavalry and in addition seven hundred
wagoners organized into companies and headed by commissaries,
quartermasters, and several wounded officers. These wagoners did
mightily. This fight was called afterwards “The Wagoners’ Battle.”
Five blue cavalry regiments were thrown forward. The Eighteenth
Virginia Cavalry and the Sixty-second Virginia Mounted Infantry met
them with clangour in the rain-filled air. McNeill’s Partisan Rangers
came to the aid of the wagoners down by the river. Eshleman’s eight
Napoleons of the Washington Artillery, Hart’s and McClanahan’s and
Moore’s batteries poured shot and shell from the heights. Through
the dusk came at a gallop a courier from Fitzhugh Lee. “Hold out,
General Imboden! We’re close at hand!” From the direction of the
Hagerstown road broke a clap of war thunder, rolling among the
hills. “Horse Artillery! Horse Artillery!” yelled Imboden’s lines, the
Eighteenth, the Sixty-second, the Partisan Rangers, and the
Wagoners. Yaaaihh! Yaaaaihh! Yaaaaaaihhh! Forward! Charge!
July the seventh broke wet and stormy. The First and Third Corps
were now at Hagerstown. Ewell and the Second nearer South
Mountain, yet watchfully regarding the defiles through which might
pour the pursuit. But Meade had hesitated, hesitated. It was only on
the afternoon of the fifth that a move southward was begun in
earnest. The Sixth Corps, on the same road with Ewell, struck now
and again at the grey rear guard, but the rest of the great blue army
hung uncertain. Only on the seventh did it pour southward, through
the country between the Monocacy and the Antietam. In the dusk of
this day Lee met Stuart and ordered an attack at dawn. Time must
be gained while a bridge was built across the swollen river.
All day the eighth the heavy air carried draggingly the sound of
cannon. So drowned with rain were the fields and meadows that
manœuvring there was manœuvring in quagmires. The horsemen of
both sides must keep to the roads, deep in mire as were these.
Dismounted, they fought with carbines in all the sopping ways, while
from every slight rise the metal duellists barked at one another. At
last the Fifth Confederate Brigade drove the Federal left, and the
running fight and the long wet day closed with one gleam of light in
the west.
On July the ninth the Army of Northern Virginia occupied a ten-
mile line from the Potomac at Mercersville to the Hagerstown and
Williamsport road. A.P. Hill held the centre, Longstreet the right,
Ewell the left, stretching toward Hagerstown. Forty thousand
infantry and artillery stood ready. Stuart with eight thousand
horsemen drew off to the north, watching like a falcon, ready for the
pounce. The rain ceased to fall. A pale sunshine bathed the country,
and in it gleamed the steel of the Army of Northern Virginia. The
banners grew vivid.
All day Lee waited in line of battle, but Meade was yet hesitant.
The tenth dawned, and Stuart sent word that the Army of the
Potomac was advancing through the defiles of South Mountain. All
this day the grey dug trenches and heaped breastworks. The sun
shone, ill was forgotten; hope sprang, nourished by steadfastness.
There were slight cavalry encounters. The night of the tenth was a
warm and starry one. The grey slept and rose refreshed. Ewell and
the Second now left Hagerstown. Each corps commanded one of the
three roads glimmering eastward, and Stuart patrolled all the valley
of the Antietam. Lee had laid his pontoon bridge across to Falling
Waters. All night long there passed into Virginia the wounded and a
great portion of the trains.
July twelfth was a day of cloud and mist. Still the grey waited; still
Meade, with his sixty-five thousand infantry and artillery, his ten
thousand cavalry, hung irresolute. Kelly at Hancock had eight
thousand men. He could be trusted to flank the grey. And in the rear
of the grey was the river, turbid, wide, deep, so swollen as hardly to
be fordable. Halleck telegraphed Meade from Washington
peremptory orders to attack. But the twelfth passed with only slight
encounters between reconnoitring parties.
On the thirteenth down came the rain again, a thick, cold, shifting
veil of wet. Again Meade stayed in his tents. The Army of the
Potomac understood that on the morrow it would attack. In the
mean time reinforcements were at hand.
That night, in the rainy dusk, Stuart drew a cordon between the
opposed forces. Behind the screen of horsemen, behind the
impenetrable, rainy night, the Army of Northern Virginia prepared to
recross the Potomac. Beneath the renewed rains the river was
steadily rising; it was go now, or abide the onset of the sixty-five
thousand along the Antietam and on the Sharpsburg Pike, with
Kelly’s eight thousand marching from Hancock, and other troops on
the road from Chambersburg. Down came the rain and the night
was Egyptian black.
The artillery and the balance of the trains must cross by the
pontoon bridge. Bonfires were built on the northern and the
southern bank, but all the wood was wet, and the flickering light
proved deceitful as any darkness. The rolling smoke mounted and
overhung the landings like genii from Arabian bottles. With sullen
noise the guns crossed, hour after hour of sullen noise. The wagons
with the wounded crossed. A heavy wagon, in which the badly hurt
were laid thick, missed its way, and, with its horses, went blindly
over the side into the rushing water, where all were drowned. After
the guns and the wagons came the men of Longstreet’s corps. Dawn
found the First not yet over-passed, while the Third waited on the
pebbly stretch between the water and the hills. In the mean time
Ewell and the Second had undertaken the ford.
That which, a month before, had been a pleasant summer river,—
clear, wide, and tranquil, not deep, and well known by now to the
Second Corps,—was to-night a monster of the dark, a mill-race of
the Titans. The heaped wood set afire on either bank lit the water
but a few yards outward. Between the several glares was darkness
shot with rain, shaken by wind. And always the bonfires showed
thronging men, a broad moving ribbon running upwards and back
from the water’s edge, and between these two throngs a void and
blackness. It was like a vision of the final river—a great illustration
out of “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Company by company went down into
the river; company by company slowly mounted on the farther side,
coming up from the water into strange light, beneath tall shadowy
trees. The water was up to the armpits. It was cold and rushing
water. The men tied their cartridge boxes around their necks; they
held their muskets above their heads; now and again a short man
was carried across upon the shoulders of a tall and strong man.
Sergeant Billy Maydew carried Lieutenant Coffin across thus.
The Sixty-fifth kept its cartridges dry, held its muskets high. It had
crossed into Maryland with song and joke and laughter, stepping
easily through water to the mid-thigh, clear water, sparkling in the
sun. It returned into Virginia through a high and stormy water,
beneath a midnight sky. The sky of its fortunes, too, was dark. There
was no singing to-night; each man, breasting the flood, needed all
his wits merely to cross. The red light beat upon the Sixty-fifth going
down from the Maryland shore, rank after rank, entering the water
in a column of three. Rank by rank, the darkness swallowed it up,
officers and men, colonel, lieutenant-colonel, captains, lieutenants,
the chaplain, the surgeons, the noncommissioned officers, all the
men, Thunder Run men, men from the mountainous Upper Valley
counties,—all the Sixty-fifth, rank by rank dipped out of the light into
the darkness. The darkness swallowed the regiment, then the
darkness gave it again to the light on the Virginia shore. Up to the
gate of the fortress, through the red flare of torches, came the Sixty-
fifth. A man with a great rich, deep voice, broke into song in the
night-time, in the wind and rain, as he came up beneath the
sycamores. He sang “Dixie,” and the Sixty-fifth sang it with him.
All night, endlessly across the river, out of light into darkness, then
into light again, came the slowly unwinding ribbon of the regiments.
All night the Second Corps was crossing by the ford as all night the
First was crossing by the unstable bridge of boats. In the grey
morning there crossed A.P. Hill and the Third. The last brigade was
Lane’s North Carolinians. It made the passage, and then Stuart drew
his thousands steadily to the waterside. Meade’s advance, Kilpatrick
and Buford, saw from the hill-tops the river dark with swimming
horsemen.
 CHAPTER XVII
BREAD CAST ON WATER

Prison X had a catechism which it taught all the newly arrived.

Question. Where are we?
Answer. In the North.
Q. Do we find the North interesting?
Ans. We do not.
Q. Where is the country of our preference?
Ans. South of the Potomac.
Q. Do we find this prison pleasing?
Ans. We do not.
Q. Have we an object in life?
Ans. We have.
Q. What is it?
Ans. To get out.
Q. Again?
Ans. To get out.
Q. Again?
Ans. To get out—and stay out.
Q. Both are difficult?
Ans. Both are difficult.
Q. Have all apparent ways been tried?
Ans. All apparent ways have been tried.
Q. Uprisings, tunnels, sawing window bars, bribing guards, taking
a corpse’s place, etc., have all been tried?
Ans. They have all been tried.
Q. And they have failed?
Ans. They have failed.
 Q. What is to be done?
Ans. I do not know.
Q. Have you an object in life?
Ans. I have an object in life.
Q. What is it?
Ans. To get out—and stay out.
Q. To get South?
Ans. To get South.
Maury Stafford was not a newcomer, but the substance of this
catechism was graved in his mind and daily life and actions. He had
passed the stage of violently beating against the bars, and had
passed the stage of melancholia, and the stage of listlessly sitting in
what fleck of sunshine might be found in winter, or hand’s breadth of
shade in summer. He had settled into the steady stage, the second
wind. He knew well enough that, though it might last the longest,
this stage, too, would expire. When it did, it might not come again.
He had seen it expire in others and it had not come again. He had
seen the dead moon of hope that followed, the mere continuance of
breathing in a life of shards and weeds. He had seen the brain grow
sick in the hands of the will; he had seen the wrists of the will
broken across.... He meant to make the steady stage last, last, last!
—outlast his last day in Prison X.
The August day was hot—almost the hottest, said the papers, on
record. Prison X was careful now not to have too many prisoners at
once in the prison yard. But to-day the heat seemed to breed
humanity; at any rate, there came an order that a fair number of
rebels at once might go out into the air. In the officers’ yard as many
as fifty were permitted to gather at a time. The small, sunbaked,
sordid place looked west. At this hour of the morning it was in the
prison’s shadow, and cooler than it would be later in the day.
Some of the grey prisoners walked up and down, up and down;
others sat alone, or in twos and threes, in the shadow of the wall.
There was talk, but not loud talking. There was no briskness in the
yard, no crisp bubbling of word and action. Languor reigned, and all
the desirable lay without the walls. One tree-top showed above
them, just the bushy head of an airy, mocking giant.
 At ten, the yard being filled, there came in through the gate,
where were double guards, three or four officers in blue and a
Catholic priest. The yard knew the inspecting officers, and bestirred
itself to only a perfunctory recognition—perfunctory, not listless; it
being a point of honour not to look listless or broken in presence of
the opposing colour. One of these blue officers the yard liked very
well, a bluff and manly fellow, with a frown for the very many things
he could not alter and a helping hand with the few that he could.
The grey made a subtle difference to show here in their greeting.
For the priest—they had never seen him before; and as novelty in
prison is thrice novelty, the various groups welcomed with an
interested gaze the stout-built, rusty-black figure with a strong face,
rosy and likable. “Holy Virgin!” said the priest. “If the South is any
warmer than this, sure ye’ll be afther thanking the Saints and us for
bringing you North! Are there any sons of the Church in sound of my
voice?”
There was one—a lieutenant in the last stages of consumption. He
sat in the sun with a red spot in each cheek and eyes bright as a
bird’s. The well-liked blue officer brought the priest to this boy. He
was but nineteen, and evidently had not a month to live. “Good
morning, Lieutenant!” said the officer. “Father Tierney’s a cordial in
himself! And if, being a Catholic, you’d like—”
“Were he twenty times a Ribil,” said Father Tierney, sotto voce,
“he’s a sick human crathure and a dying man.”
“Then I’ll leave you with him for a little,” said the officer, and
walked away.
“Peace go with you!” said Father Tierney. “My poor son, if you’ve
done any harm in the flesh, the Lord having taken away the flesh
will take away that, too.—You are not one of those who—” Father
Tierney spoke for thirty seconds in a lowered voice.
“No,” said the lieutenant, “I used to try, but I gave it up when I
saw that I was going to get out anyhow. But a lot of us are still
trying—There’s one over there that’s trying, I’m certain. He’s been
awful good to me. If he could—if you could now—”
“The man standing in the shadow of the wall?”
 The man standing in the shadow of the wall was only a stride or
two away. The blue officers had their backs turned; the grey
prisoners were listlessly minding their own business; guards and
sentries had their eyes on their superiors. The sun blazed down, the
green tree-top just nodded.
“Good morning, my son,” said Father Tierney.
“Good morning, Father.”
Father Tierney took off his hat and with it fanned his rosy, open
face. “Holy Virgin! ’Tis warmer here in the District than it is in
Maryland—Maryland being my home, my son.”
“Which half of Maryland, Father?”
“The ‘Maryland, my Maryland’ half, my son.”
“That,” said Stafford, “is the half that I like best. It is the nearest
to Virginia.”
“What,” said Father Tierney, “if ye had a wishing-cap, would ye
wish for?”
“Gold and a blue suit, Father.”
“A uniform, ye mane?”
“No. A hospital steward’s suit. Blue linen. I’ve got it worked out.”
“My son,” said Father Tierney, in a brisk, full voice, “ye’ve a look of
mortal fever! The Saints know it doesn’t become us to boast! But I
was born with a bit of a medical faculty sticking sthraight out and
looking grave.—Let me lay my finger on your pulse.”
Stafford’s palm closed upon something hard and round and yellow.
His eyes met the priest’s eyes.
“It’s a weary number of soul miles ye’ll have been travelling, my
friend,” thought the priest. “There’s something in you that’s been
lightning branded, but it’s putting out green shoots again.”
The blue officer was seen approaching. Father Tierney turned with
heartiness to meet him. “That poor lad yonder, Captain, he’s not
long for this sinful world! If you’ve no objection I’d like to come
again—That’s thrue! That’s thrue enough! ‘Who’d mercy have must
mercy show.’—Captain, darlint, it’s hot enough to melt rock! Between
the time I left Ireland and came to America, and that’s twinty years
ago, I went a pilgrimage to Italy. Having seen Rome I wint to
Venice. There’s a big palace there where the Doges lived, and up
under the palace roof with just a bit of lead like a coffin lid between
you and the core of the blessed sun in heaven—there’s the prisons
they call piombi.—Now you usually think of cold when you think of
prisons, but I gather that heat’s more maddening—”
Prison X was as capricious as any other despot. The next day was
as hot a day, but only so many might go into the air at once. Many,
waiting their turn in the black, stifling hall, got no other gleam than
that afforded by the grudged opening and the swift closing of the
outer door. The next day again the heat held and the despot’s ill
humour held. At long intervals the door opened, but before a score
had passed, it closed with a grating sound.
The fourth morning Stafford found himself again in the sun and
shadow of this yard. The earth was harder-baked, the blue sky more
fiercely metallic, the bushy head of the one tree seen over the wall
more decisively mocking. With it all there was a dizziness in the air.
He knew that he had been buoyed by the second wind. As he came
out from the gloom into the glare a doubt wound like a snake into
his brain. He feared the wind—that it would not last—it was so very
sickening out here.
He took the shade of the wall, pressed his shoulder against the
bricks and closed his eyes. For a minute or more the spirit sank,
then the will put its lips to some deep reservoir and drank. Stafford
opened his eyes and stood from the wall. Second wind or third wind,
it held steady.
The consumptive lieutenant was not in the yard. He had had a
hemorrhage and was now in the hospital watching Death come a
stride a day. The yard held a fair number of men, listless in the heat,
walking slowly, standing, or seated, with hands about the knees and
bowed heads, on the parched, untidy ground. The guards at the
small gate, a gate which opened on another yard, not free to
prisoners, with beyond it the true, heavy gate—the guards suffered
with the heat, held their rifles languidly. The moments went on, a
line of winged creatures now with broken wings, creeping, not flying,
an ant-line of slow moments, each with its burden of lassitude,
ennui, enfeebled hope. The one tree-top was all green and gold and
shining fair and heavenly cool, but it was set in Paradise, and from
Paradise, like Abraham, it only looked across the gulf, a gulf in which
it acquiesced. And so it was a mocking tree, more fiend than
angel....
The figures of the sentries at the gate grew energized; they
tautened, stood at salute. Into the yard came on inspection a group
of officers, among them the one whom the prisoners held to be
human. With them came Father Tierney.
“The top of the morning to ye, children!” said Father Tierney.
“Sure it’s a red cock feather the morning’s wearing!” He came nearer.
“Where’s the lieutenant that was coughing himself away, poor
deluded lad!”
He looked about him, then came over to the wall, a big, rusty-
black figure, standing so close that he made another wall for
shadow. His eyes and Stafford’s met.
“The lieutenant, poor lad!” demanded Father Tierney, his strong,
rich voice rolling through the yard, “it’s the hospital he’s in?”
“Yes,” said Stafford. “He had a bad hemorrhage and they took him
yesterday.”
“Tell me,” said Father Tierney, “a bit about him, and I’ll write it to
his parents. Parents—especially mothers—have the same kind of
heartbreak on both sides of the line.”
The officers passed on. The thirty-odd grey prisoners walked or
sat or stood as before. Stafford was a little in shadow, and the
priest’s bulky form, squared before him, cut off the more crowded
part of the enclosure.
Father Tierney, discoursing of parents, dropped his voice with
suddenness. “It’s the smallest possible bundle. You’re sure you can
hide it under your coat?”
“Yes—”
“And his father’s a ribil fighting with Johnston—and his mother in
Kentucky—Holy Powers!” said Father Tierney, “the heat in this
place’s fearful and I once had sunsthroke—Quick!—It’s giddy enough
—Have you got it?—I’m feeling this minute!” He straightened
himself, wandered to a neighbouring stone, and, sitting down, called
to the nearest guard who came up. “Is there a cup of water handy,
my son? I had a sunsthroke once and this yard’s Gehenna to-day, no
less!”
Two days later, just at sunset, a hospital steward passed through
the hall of the officers’ side of Prison X, nodded to the sentries at the
door, crossed the yard, was let pass the small gate, crossed the
court beyond, pretty well occupied as it was with blue soldiers, and
approached the heavy, final gate. An official of some description was
ahead of him, and he had for a moment to wait. The gate opened,
the man in front passed through; there came a moment’s vision of a
green tree against a rosy sky—the tree whose head showed above
the prison wall. The hospital steward stepped forward. He had the
word—it had been bought with a gold-piece of considerable
denomination. He gave it; the gate creaked open, he passed out.
The sunset looked a fabulous glory; the one tree had the sublimity
of the pathless forest.
At dark he found the priest’s lodging and, waiting for him, a suit of
civilian clothes. He proposed to get to the river that night, swim it,
and find dawn and the Virginian shore. “Whist!” said Father Tierney.
“You’ll be afther attacking a fretful porcupine! Put out your hand,
and you’ll touch a pathrol. They’re thicker on the river bank than
blue flies. No, no! you thravel by road till you’re twinty-five miles
from here. You’ll come to a hamlet called called —— and there you’ll
find a carpenter shop and a negro named Taylor. He’s a faithful
freedman and well thought of by the powers that be. You stop and
ask for a drink of water, and thin you say in a whisper across the
gourd, ‘Benedict Tierney and a boat across.’ You’ll get it.—It’s risky
by the road, thrue enough, but divil a bit of risk would there be if
you wint shtraight down to the river! The hedgehog would shoot as
many quills at you as was necessary.”
“Whether I get clear away or not, you have put me under an
obligation, Father, which—”
“Whist, my son, I’m Southern, I tell ye! Drink your wine, and God
be good to the whole of us!”
The night was still and starry, dry and warm. Stafford walked in
company yet of the second wind. Bliss, bliss, bliss, to be out of
Prison X! He went like a child, wary as a man, but like a child in
mere whiteness of thought and sensuousness of being. The stars—
he looked up at them as a boy might look his first night out of doors.
Bright they were and far away, and the flesh crept toward them with
a pleasure in the movement and a sadness for the distance. The
slumberous masses of the trees, the dim distinction of the horizon,
the sound of hidden water, the flicker of fireflies, the odour of the
fields, the dust of the glimmering road—all had keenness, sonority,
freshness of first encounters. For a long time he was not conscious
of fatigue. Even when he knew at last that he was piteously tired,
night and the world kept their vividness.
Between two and three o’clock some slight traffic began upon the
road. A farm-gate opened to let out a great empty wagon and a half-
grown boy with a whip over his shoulder. The horses turned their
heads westward. Stafford, rising from a rock-pile, asked a lift, and
the boy gave it. All rattled westward over the macadam road. The
boy talked of the battle of last month—the great battle in
Pennsylvania.
“Didn’t we give them hell—oh, didn’t we give them hell? They saw
we killed twenty thousand!”
“Twenty thousand.... It is not, after all, strange that we deduced a
hell.... How fresh the morning smells!”
Horses, wagon, and boy were but going from one farm to another.
Two miles farther on Stafford thanked the youngster and left this
convoy. Light was gathering in the east. He was now met or
overtaken and passed by a fair number of conveyances. In some
there were soldiers; others held clusters of loudly talking or laughing
men. A company of troopers passed, giants in the half-light. He
concluded that he must be near an encampment, and as he walked
he debated the propriety of turning from the road and making his
way through woods or behind the screen of hills. Men on horseback,
in passing, spoke to him. At last, as the cocks were crowing, he did
turn from the road. The lane in which he found himself wound
narrowly between dew-heavy berry-bushes and an arch of locust
trees. Branch and twig and leaf of these made a wonderful fretted
arch through which to view the carnation morning sky. Ripe berries
hung upon the bushes. Stafford was hungry and he gathered these
and ate. A bird began to sing, sweet, sweet! Holding by the stem of
a young persimmon he planted his foot in the moist earth of the
bank, and climbed upward to where the berries grew thickest. Briar
and elder and young locust closed around him. Above the bird sang
piercingly, and behind it showed the purple sky. The dewy coolness
was divine. His head was swimming a little with fatigue and hunger,
but he was light-hearted, with a curious, untroubled sense of identity
with the purple sky, the locust tree, the singing bird, even with the
spray of berries his hand was closing on.
The bird stopped singing and flew away. A horse neighed, the lane
filled with the sound of feet. Stafford saw between the bushes the
blue moving forms. He crouched amid the dimness of elder and
blackberry, not knowing if he were well hidden, but hoping for the
best. The company, pickets relieved and moving toward an
encampment, had well-nigh passed when one keen-eyed man
observed some slight movement, some overbending of the wayside
growth. With his rifle barrel he parted the green curtain.
This encampment was an outstretched finger of the encampment
of a great force preparing to cross the Potomac. It appeared, too,
that there had been recently an outcry as to grey spies. Stafford
proffered his story—a Marylander who had been to the city and was
quietly proceeding home. He had turned into the lane thinking it a
short cut—the berries had tempted him, being hungry—he had
simply stood where he had climbed, waiting until he could plunge
into the lane again;—behold the whole affair!
He might have won through, but in the guardhouse where he was
searched they found a small, worn wallet whose contents damned
him. Standing among the berry-bushes, his hand had gone to this
with the thought that he had best throw it away before danger
swooped—and then he had refrained, and immediately it was too
late. The sergeant looked it through, shook his head, and called a
lieutenant. The lieutenant took the papers in a bronzed hand, ran
them over, and read a letter dated two years back, written from
Greenwood in Virginia and signed Judith Cary. He folded it and
returned it to the wallet which he kept.
 “Of course you know,” he said in an agreeable voice, “that this is
your death-warrant. I wonder at you for such monumental
carelessness! Or, perhaps, it wasn’t carelessness.”
“No,” said Stafford, “it wasn’t carelessness. But I am not a spy.
Yesterday I escaped from Prison X.”
“Tell that,” said the lieutenant, “to the marines. Sergeant, we
move before noon, and jobs of this sort must be put behind us!
There’s a drumhead court sitting now. Bring him across.”
The tree was an oak with one great bough stretching like a
warped beam across a cart track. Stafford divined it when he and
the blue squad were yet three hundred yards away. It topped a
slight rise and it thrust that arm out so starkly against the sky. He
knew it for what it was. The world and the freshness of the world
were as vividly with him as during any hour of the preceding vivid
twelve. Every sense was vigorously functioning; the whole range of
perception was lit; length and breadth and depth, he felt an intimacy
of knowledge, a sure interpenetration. He saw wholly every little
dogwood tree, every stalk of the long grass by the roadside; the
cadence of the earth was his, and the taste of existence was in his
mouth. He had a steady sense of the deep that was flowing into the
mould of life and then out of the mould of life. He felt eternal. The
tree and that stark limb bred in him no fear.
A party of cavalry came up behind the foot soldiers.
“Where are you going?” asked the officer at the head.
“To hang a spy,” answered the lieutenant. “On the tree yonder.”
“Yes?” said the officer. “Not the pleasantest of work, but at times
necessary.—It’s a lovely morning.”
“Isn’t it? The heat’s broken at last.”
The troopers continued to ride alongside, and so all mounted the
little rise and came together upon the round of dry sward beneath
the tree. A curt order or two left the blue soldiers drawn up at one
side of this ring, and the prisoner with the provost guard in the
centre, beneath the tree. Stafford glanced down at the rope that
was now about his neck. It lay curled there like a tawny serpent,
visible, real, real as the bough up to which, too, he glanced—real,
and yet profoundly of no tremendous importance. He had a curious
fleeting impression as of a fourth dimension, as of the bough above
arching a portal, on the other side of which lay utter security. Upon
the way thither he had been perfectly silent, and he felt no
inclination now toward speech or any demonstration. He stood and
waited, and he was not conscious of either quickening or retarding in
Time’s quiet footfall.
The cavalry officer, in the course of a checkered existence, had
witnessed a plenty of military executions—so many, in fact, that Pity
and Horror had long since shrugged their shoulders and gone off to
sleep. They had left a certain professional curiosity; a degree of
connoisseurship in how men met death. He now pushed his horse
through the scrub to the edge of the ring. The action brought him
within twenty feet of the small group in the centre, and, upon the
blue soldiers standing back a little, face to face with the bareheaded
prisoner. The officer looked, then swung himself from the saddle,
and, with spurs and sabre jingling, strode into the trodden ground.
“A moment, Lieutenant, if you please! I have somewhere seen your
prisoner—though where—”
He came closer. Stafford, worn to emaciation, dressed in rough
civilian clothes, with the rope about his bared neck, returned his
gaze. Memory stepped between them with a hand to each. The air
darkened, grew filled with thunder, jagged lightning, and whistling
rain, the parched earth was quagmire, the dusty trees Virginia
cedars with twisted roots, wet, murmuring in a harsh wind. There
was heard the rattle of Stonewall Jackson’s musketry, and, above the
thunder, Pelham’s guns.
“Ox Hill!” exclaimed Marchmont with an oath.
Stafford’s eyelids just quivered. “Ox Hill,” he repeated.
Suddenly, with the thunder of Pelham’s guns, the bough above
was no longer the arch of a portal. It was an oak bough with the
end of a rope thrown across it. Life streamed back upon him. The
clarity, the silver calm, the crystal quality went from things. He
staggered slightly, and the blood drummed in his ears.
Marchmont was speaking rapidly to the lieutenant and the provost
officer. “How do you know that he is a spy? Said he was an escaped
prisoner—escaped from Prison X? Couldn’t you wait to find out?
Believe it? Yes, I believe it. He’s a Southern officer—he did me the
best of turns once—day when I thought I was a prisoner myself—
day of Chantilly.—Yes. Colonel Francis Marchmont. Marchmont
Invincibles. Remand him, eh?—until we telegraph to the
Commandant at X. No use treating him as a spy if he isn’t a spy, eh?
Remember once in Italy when that game was nearly played on
myself.—You will wait, Lieutenant, until I send an orderly back with a
note to your general? Know him well—think I can arrange matters.—
Thanks! Here, Roberts!”
Roberts galloped off. The group beneath the tree, the soldiers
drawn up at one side, the troopers and their colonel stayed as they
were, waiting. The bright sands ran on, the breeze in the oak
whispered like a dryad, the bees buzzed, there came an odour of the
pine. Stafford’s hand and lip were yet stained with the berries. He
stood, the tawny cirque about his neck, waiting with the rest.
Roberts returned. He bore a folded piece of writing which he
delivered to Marchmont. The latter read, then showed it to the
lieutenant, who spoke to the sergeant of the provost guard. Two not
unkindly hands loosened the circle of rope and lifted it clear from the
prisoner. Marchmont came across with outstretched hand.
“Major Stafford, I thought I could manage it! As soon as the
matter is verified from X—I shall see if I cannot personally arrange
an exchange. I am pretty sure that I can do that, too.” His teeth
gleamed beneath his yellow mustache. “I haven’t at the moment a
flask such as you raised me from the dead with!—Jove! the fine steel
rain and the guns with the thunder, and Caliph pressed hard, and it
was peine forte et dure—”
“It was a travelled road,” said Stafford; “presently some one else
would have come by and released you. But this is not a travelled
road and I was very near to death.” He looked at his berry-stained
hands. “I don’t think I cared in the least about death itself. It
seemed, standing here, a perfectly unreal pasteboard arch, a piece
of stage furniture. But I have a piece of work to do on this side of it
... and so, on the whole, I am glad you came by.” He laughed a little.
“That has a mighty ungracious sound, has it not? I should thank you
more heartily—and I do!”
 A month from this day he stood upon Virginia earth, duly
exchanged. He had been put across at Williamsport. Marchmont had
pressed upon him a loan of money and a horse. For a week he had
been, in effect, Marchmont’s guest. A strange liking had developed
between the two.... But now he was alone, and in Virginia,—Virginia
that he had left more than a year ago when the army crossed into
Maryland and there followed the battle of Sharpsburg. He was alone,
riding through a wood slowly, his hands relaxed upon the saddlebow,
lost in thought.
About him was the silence of the warm September wood. It was a
wood of small pines, scarred and torn, as were now all the woods of
this land by the heavy hand and heel of a giant war. That was a
general war, but to each man, too, his own war. Stafford’s had been
a long war, long and sultry, stabbed with fierce lightnings. He had
scars enough within, stains of a rough and passionate weather,
marks of a lava flow. But to-day, riding through the September
wood, he felt that the war was over. He was drawing still from that
deeper stratum of being, from the colder, purer well. His mind had
changed, and without any inner heroics he was prepared to act upon
that change. He had never been weak of will.
In Winchester, when he entered it at sunset, he found a small grey
command, and on the pillared porch of the hotel and in the bare
general room various officers who came and went or sat at the table
writing. Stafford, taking his place also at this long and heavy board
and asking for pen and ink, fell into talk, while he waited, with an
infantry captain sitting opposite. Where was General Lee and the
main army?
“Along the Rapidan, watching Meade on the other side. Where
have you been,” said the captain, “that you didn’t know that?”
“I have been in prison.—On the Rapidan.”
“Yes. But Longstreet, with Hood and McLaws, has been ordered to
Tennessee to support Bragg. There’ll be a great battle down there.”
“Then there’s inactivity at the moment with us?”
“Yes. Marse Robert’s just resting his men and watching Meade.
Nobody exactly knows what the next move will be.”
 A negro boy brought the writing-materials for which Stafford had
asked. He left the captain’s conversation and fell to writing. He wrote
three letters. One was to General Lee, whom he knew personally,
one to the general commanding his own brigade, and one to
Warwick Cary. When he came to the envelope for the last-named
letter he glanced across to the captain, also writing. “The Golden
Brigade, General Cary—Warwick Cary? Do you know if it is with
Longstreet or by the Rapidan?”
“By the Rapidan, I think. But Warwick Cary was killed at
Gettysburg.”
Stafford drew in his breath. “I had not heard that! I am sorry,
sorry.... I begin to think how little I have heard. I have been in
Prison X since Sharpsburg.... General Cary killed!”
“Yes. At the head of his men in a great charge. But the brigade is
by the Rapidan.”
“It was not the brigade I was thinking of,” said the other.
He sat for a moment with his hand shading his eyes, then he
slowly tore into pieces the letter to Warwick Cary. The remaining two
letters he saw placed in the mail-bag for army headquarters. The
next morning early he rode out of Winchester, out upon the Valley
Pike. Before him lay Kernstown; beyond Kernstown stretched
beneath the September mist the long, great war-road with its
thronging memories. He touched his horse and for several days
travelled southward through the blackened Valley of Virginia.
 CHAPTER XVIII
THREE OAKS

The countryside lay warm and mellow in the early autumn air. The
mountains hung like clouds; the vales cherished the amber light. The
maple leaves were turning; out on the edge of climbing fields the
sumach was growing scarlet, the gum trees red as blood. The
sunlight was as fine as old Canary. Caw! Caw! went the crows,
wheeling above the unplanted fields.
The Three Oaks’ carriage, Tullius driving, climbed the heavy fields,
where, nowadays, the roads were never mended. This region, the
head of the great main Valley, was a high, withdrawn one. From it
men enough had gone to war, but as yet it had not itself become a
field for contending armies. No cannon here had roused the echoes
of the Blue Ridge, no smoke of musketry drifted through the forest
glades. News of the war came by boat up the James, or from the
lower towns,—Lexington, Staunton, Charlottesville,—in the old, red,
high-swung stages, or brought by occasional horsemen, in saddle-
bags filled with newspapers. The outward change in the countryside
was to be laid to the door, not of violent commission but of omission
—omission less spectacular, but no less assured of results. The
roads, as has been said, were untended, fallen into holes, difficult to
travel. A scrub of sassafras, of trailing berry-vines, of mullein, was
drawing with slender fingers many a field back into the wild. The
fences were broken, gaps here and gaps there, trailed over by
reddening vines. When the road passed a farmhouse the fences
there were a ghastly, speckled, greyish white; innocent of whitewash
for now going on three years. The horseblocks showed the same
neglect; the spring-houses, too, and the outbuildings and negro
cabins. The frame farmhouses looked as dolefully. The brick houses
kept more an air of old times, but about these and their gardens
there dwelled, too, a melancholy shabbiness. Everywhere was a
strange feeling of a desert, of people gone away or sunken in
dreams, of stopped clock-hands, of lowered life, of life holding itself
very still, yet of a life that knew heavy and painful heartbeats. There
were not many cattle in the fields; you rarely saw a strong, mettled
horse; those left were old and work-worn and thin. There seemed
not so many of anything; the barnyards lacked feathered people, the
duck-ponds did not flower in white and gold as of yore, the broods
of turkeys were farther between, even the flower gardens seemed
lessened in colour, the blooms farther apart. At long intervals the
Three Oaks’ carriage met or overtook slow travelers on the road.
Chiefly they were women. In the same way the fields and gardens,
the dooryards and doorsteps of the houses presented to view
women and children.
Miriam remarked upon this. “Just women and babies and old
Father Time. I haven’t seen a young man to-day. I haven’t seen a
boy—not one over fifteen. All gone.... And maybe the cannon balls
to-day are playing among them as they played with Will.”
“Miriam,” said her mother, “be as strong as Will! How shall you be
merry with him when you do meet if you go on through life like
this?”
“I don’t see that you have any right to say that to me,” said
Miriam. “I do everything just the same. And it seems to me that I
can hear myself laughing all the day. Certainly I don’t cry. I never
was a cry-baby.”
“I had rather you cried,” answered Margaret Cleave.
“Well, I’m not going to cry.... Look at that calf in the meadow
yonder—little brown thing with a mark on the forehead! Doesn’t it
look lonely—usually there are two of them playing together. Here
comes an old man with a bucket.”
It was an old negro with a great wooden bucket filled with
quinces. He put up a beseeching hand and Tullius stopped the
horses. “Dey’s moughty fine quinces, mistis. Don’ yo’ want ter buy
’em? Dey dries fust-rate.”
 “They’re dry already,” said Miriam. “They’re withered and small.”
“Yass ’m. Dar ain’ anything dishyer war ain’t shrivelled. But I sho
does need ter sell ’em, mistis.”
“I can’t pay much for them,” said Margaret. “Money’s very scarce,
uncle. It’s withered, too.”
“Yass ’m, dats so! I ain’t er-gwiner ax much, mistis. I jes’
erbleeged ter sell ’em, kase de cabin’s bare. Ef ten dollars ’ll suit you
—”
Mrs. Cleave drew from her purse two Confederate notes. The
seller of quinces emptied his freight into the bottom of the roomy
equipage. He went on down the road, slow swinging his empty
bucket, and the Three Oaks’ carriage mounted the last long hill. It
was going to the county-seat to do some shopping. The sunshine lay
in dead gold, upon the road and the fields on either hand. There was
hardly wind enough to lift the down from the open milkweed pods.
The mountains were wrapped in haze.
“War-shrunk quinces!” said Miriam. “Do you remember the
Thunder Run woman with blackberries to sell a month ago? She said
the same thing. I said the berries were small and she said, ‘Yass,
ma’am. The war’s done stunt them.’”
“I wonder where the army is to-day!”
“You’re thinking of Richard. You’re always thinking of Richard.”
“Miriam, do you not think of Richard? Do you not love Richard?”
“Of course I love Richard. But you’re thinking of him all the time!
Will’s only got me to think of him.”
“Miriam!”
Miriam began to shudder. Dry-eyed, a carnation spot in each
cheek, she sat staring at the dusty roadside, her slight figure
shaking. Her mother leaned across and gathered her into her arms.
“O child, child! O third of my children! The one dead, and another
perhaps dying or dead, at this moment, and in trouble, with a
hidden name—and you, my littlest one, tearing with your hands at
your own heart and at mine! And the country.... All our men and
women, the warring and the warred upon.... And the world that
wheels so blindly—all, all upon one’s heart! It is a deal to think on, in
the dead of night—”
 “I don’t mean to be hard and wicked,” said Miriam. “I don’t know
what is the matter with me. I am mad, I think. I remember that
night after the Botetourt Resolutions you said that war was a Cup of
Trembling. I didn’t believe you then.—I don’t believe we’re going to
find a sheet of letter-paper in town, or shoes or flannel either.”
There were three stores in town and the Three Oaks’ carriage
stopped before each. A blast had passed over the country stores as
over the country fields, a sweeping away of what was needed for the
armies and a steady depletion of what was left. For three years no
new stock had come to the stores, no important-looking boxes and
barrels over which the storekeeper beamed, hatchet in hand, around
which gathered the expectant small fry. All the gay calicoes were
gone, all the bright harness and cutlery. China had departed from
the shelves, and all linen and straw bonnets and bright wool. The
glass showcases, once the marvel and delight of childish eyes, were
barren of ribbons and “fancy soap,” of cologne, pictured
handkerchief boxes, wonderful buttons, tortoise-shell combs, and
what-not. The candies were all gone from the glass jars, the “kisses”
and peppermint stick. There were no loaves of sugar in their blue
paper. There was little of anything, very little, indeed,—and the
merchant could not say as of old, “Just out, madam!—but my new
stock is on the way.”
They found at last a quire or two of dusty foolscap, paid thirty
dollars for it, and thought the price reasonable. Shoes were not to
be discovered—“any more than the North Pole!” said the small old
man who waited upon them. “Yes, Mrs. Cleave; it’s going to be an
awful thing, this winter!” They bought a few yards of flannel, and
paid twenty dollars the yard; a few coarse handkerchiefs, and paid
three dollars apiece for them; a pound of tea, and paid for it twenty-
five dollars. When at last Tullius tucked their purchases into corners
of the carriage, they had expended five hundred dollars in bright,
clean, handsome Confederate notes.
There were other shoppers in a small way in the stores, and, it
being a fine morning, people were on the streets. It was the day of
the month that was, by rights, court-day. The court-house was
opened, and an ancient clerk attended, but there was no court. Out
of habit, the few men left in town gathered in the court-house yard
or upon the portico between the pillars. Out of habit, too, the few
men left in the countryside were in town to-day, their horses
fastened at the old racks. Moreover, in this, as in other counties,
there was always a sprinkling of wounded sons, men home from the
hospital, waiting for strength to go back to the front; now and then,
too, though more rarely, an officer or private home on furlough. The
little town, in the clutch of adversity as were all little towns through
the great range of the South, was not in the main a dolorous or
dejected place. The fine, clear, September air this morning carried
laughter. And everywhere nowadays there bloomed like a purple
flower a sense of the heroic. The stage was not due for hours yet,
and so there was no crowd about the post-office where the last
bulletin, read and re-read and read again, was yet posted upon a
board beside the door.
The ladies from Three Oaks exchanged greetings with many an
old friend and country neighbour. Margaret Cleave was honoured by
all, loved by many, and her wistful, dark, flower-like daughter had
her friends also. Everybody remembered Will, everybody knew
Richard. It used to be “Have you heard from Captain
Cleave?”—“Have you heard from Major Cleave?”—“Have you heard
from Colonel Cleave?”—Now it was different. Most people
hereabouts believed in Richard Cleave, but they, somewhat
mistakenly, did not speak of him to his mother. There was always a
silence through which throbbed a query. Margaret Cleave, quiet,
natural, unafraid, and unconstrained, never told where was Richard,
never spoke of him in the present, but equally never avoided
reference to him in the past. It was understood that, wherever he
was, he was in health and “not unhappy.” His old friends and
neighbours asked no more. In the general anxiety, the largeness of
all reference, too great curiosity, or morbid interest in whatever
strangeness of ill fortune came to individual folk, had little place.
The two moved with naturalness among their fellows, going to
and fro on various errands. When all were accomplished they went
for dinner to a fair pillared house of old friends on the outskirts of
town. Dinner was the simplest of meals and all were women who sat
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