A Yankee Girl at Shiloh
CHAPTER I
“BERRY”
There had been a light fall of snow during the night, and the tall oak trees that grew near the Arnolds’ log cabin, which stood on the slope of a wooded ridge overlooking the Tennessee River, were still sprinkled with clinging white flakes when the heavy door of the cabin was pushed open and a slender little figure appeared on the rough porch.
If a stranger had been passing along the trail that led near this secluded cabin he would perhaps have decided that it was a boy who darted out and jumped up and down exclaiming, “Snow! Snow! Just like Vermont snow!” for the curling brown hair was cut short, and the blue flannel blouse, the baggy knickerbockers of blue corduroy, as well as the stout leather shoes, were all in keeping as a suitable costume for a ten-year-old lad whose home was a log cabin in the rough region on the westerly bank of the Tennessee River, over two hundred miles from its mouth. And when some casual stranger, failing to see the blue corduroys, so mistook Berenice Arnold, and called her “my lad,” she was very well pleased.
On this January morning, in 1862, Berenice had been awakened at an unusually early hour by a call from her father, telling her to dress quickly and hasten down in time to see the snow, that lay like a white veil over the wooded slopes, before the sun came out from behind the distant mountains and swept it away.
“Snow! Berry! Not enough for a sleigh ride, but enough to make you think of Vermont,” he had called, as if announcing an unexpected delight. For the Arnolds had only lived in Tennessee for two years. Berry was nine years old when, with her father and mother and her older brother Francis, she had left the big white house in the pleasant Vermont village near Montpelier and come to this hillside cabin where Mr. Arnold hoped to regain something of his former health and strength. This was the second winter, and this fall of snow in early January was the first real snowfall since their arrival. There had been many “flurries,” but, until this January morning, not enough had fallen to whiten wood and trail; and the Arnolds ran to door and windows exclaiming over the new beauty of the slopes and forest beneath their white coverlets.
“What would Francis say to this?” exclaimed Berry, as her father came out and stood beside her.
Francis was now a soldier, with the Northern forces in Virginia, and Berry’s thoughts were often with her brother; wondering why he had been so determined, a year ago, to return to Vermont and enlist in a Northern regiment in the conflict to prevent the Southern States from leaving the Union, and to bring an end to the slavery of the negroes in America. Francis had been only eighteen when he had become a soldier, and Berry knew that her father and mother had both been willing that he should go. The little girl had often puzzled about it, for she had heard her father say that when Abraham Lincoln became President the United States would soon understand each other and all the talk of war would come to an end. But even Mr. Lincoln had not been able to avert the conflict; and the hillside cabin, ten miles distant from the flourishing town of Corinth, was shadowed by the news of far-off battles.
“You must write Francis about it,” responded Berry’s father; “tell him the slope is as white as the main street at home in Vermont in midwinter.” And Berry nodded smilingly.
“It will be gone before noon, so we can go out to the river road, and see what the mail-rider left for us yesterday,” continued Mr. Arnold.