Thus the day wore on. For some hours everything outside the fort was still as death, but a little after noon that dull tramp of feet came back, measured and stern, and a little girl who had climbed to a loop-hole in the fort called out that she saw the “sogers going through the trees, with their guns and bayonets a-shining like everything”; and again, that she saw “Colonel Zeb. Butler on his great brown horse, with his cocked hat on, and a grand feather dancing up and down—oh, beautifully!”
“What next, what next—who goes next?” cried the granddame; “look, Hetty, do look if you can see grandpa anywhere.”
“No, grandma,” cried out the child, in great glee, “but there’s Colonel Denison, and Leftenant Dorrance, and Leftenant Ransom, all with their swords out. Oh, Aunt Eunice, Aunt Eunice! here comes Captain Durkee.”
“My son—my son!” cried an old woman in the crowd, while the tears coursed down her face, “look again, Hetty dear, and tell me just how he seems.”
“I can’t, Aunt Eunice, ’tain’t no use; here comes Captain Bidlack ahead of his company. Oh, here’s a lot of folks I know—Mr. Pensil and Mr. Holenback, and there goes Mr. Dana, and, oh dear! oh dear! there’s Uncle Whitton looking this way.”
“My husband—my husband!” cried a fair young girl, only three weeks a bride; “here, Hetty, catch my handkerchief and shake it out of the port-hole; he’ll know it and fight the harder.”
“Do, Hetty darling; that’s a purty gal; do look once more for Captain Durkee. There,” continued the old woman, appealing to the crowd around her with touching deprecation, “I hain’t hardly had a chance to speak to him yet. Mebby you don’t know that when the Continentals wouldn’t give him leave to come hum and take care of his old marm, he just threw up his commission, and there he is a volunteer among the rest on ’em; so du give me one more chance—du you see him yet, Hetty?”
“Yes, Aunt Eunice, I kinder think I see his feather a-dancing over the brush.”
“And not his face? Oh, dear! if I could only climb; will some on ye help me? Du now, I beg on ye.”
The poor old woman made a struggle to climb up the rude logs, but fell back, tearing away a handful of bark and bringing it down in her grasp.