Pedestrians scattered to left and right before the thundering hoofs and yelled angry warnings after the fast-disappearing horseman. Mounted military men drew to one side and laughed aloud at the scarlet-faced little figure bunched over on the withers of the great charger.
Through the street and beyond galloped Jimmie. He drew up at last (with a suddenness that sent the horse back on his haunches and the rider well-nigh over his mount’s ears) in front of a house whose walk from porch to road was patrolled by a sentinel.
On the veranda lounged several gaudily attired staff officers. From the porch roof jutted a white flagstaff, gold-eagle crowned, supporting a huge silken American flag.
A quarter-mile away that morning Dad had pointed out the house to his grandson as temporary headquarters of Major-General George Brinton McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac—a leader who partly for the sake of his middle name had always held Jimmie’s admiring curiosity.
Off the horse scrambled the boy, his body aching all over, and his short, cramped legs all but doubling under him. Through the gate he lurched and up the path.
The sentinel halted him before he had taken three steps.
“Courier! Dispatches!” snapped Jimmie, and forestalled further argument or delay by ducking nimbly under the soldier’s arm and scampering for the porch.
“Courier! Dispatches!” he repeated grandiloquently to the veranda’s occupants at large as he climbed the steps. “Where’s General McClellan?”
A gorgeous staff officer bustled forward, stepping officiously between the boy and the open front door of the house.
“Dispatches?” echoed the officer. “Give them here.”