He paused, and bit off some more tobacco, while we jumped up and down with excitement. Then he pointed again with his cane.
"Do you see them three trees to the left of the white house? Well, bearin' a little to the right of them is a clump of bushes. There was some woods at that p'int of the enemy's position, an' they come outer them. We could see 'em plain as day, a long line of infantry, an' the officers on hosses. Some of 'em was in gray uniforms, but not all. We could see their flags, an' the sun shinin' on the bayonets. First one long line come, an' then another, an' then another. There was close to fifteen thousand of 'em—more than all the folks in this town!"
We followed his gaze across the pond, across the mall, to that clump of bushes. At any moment we expected to see the gray-clad lines break out from behind them and start toward us with loud yells. But we had forgotten how securely we were planted behind the old man's batteries.
"It didn't take us a minute to open on 'em. We had our guns trained in no time, an' we made it mighty hot for 'em as they come across that valley. One bunch come right for my guns, but we had loaded with grape an' we just blew 'em to smithereens. They turned round, what was left of 'em, an' run back like Jesse. There was a rebel general on a brown hoss, an' his hoss went down, an' we nearly got him."
He stopped. After waiting a moment, we all burst out:—
"What happened then?"
"Why, nothin'. The battle was over. The rebels had skedaddled. But the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, he called me 'round to his tent that night, an' he give me this cane."
"What, that one?"
"This one. He says, says he: 'I like the way you worked your guns to-day, an' I want you to keep this stick to remember me by. I cut it myself.'"
He let each boy of us take the stick in his hand and examine it reverently. It was a cane of some brown wood, with a round knob at the top, made of ivory or bone.