"Can't you eat a bite, buddy?"
"No; I'm not a mite hungry. But I'll look at it. It won't spoil before to-morrow. Then you can share it all out among the boys."
Looking at the turkey, the sick lad fell asleep. Barney Donahoe softly opened our door, stooped his head under the lintel, and gazed a few moments at the quiet face turned to the Thanksgiving turkey. Man after man followed to gaze on the company's favorite, and on the fowl which, they knew, tangibly symbolized to him the immense love of the nation for the flower of its manhood in the field. Indeed, the people had forwarded an enormous Thanksgiving feast; but it was impossible to distribute it evenly, and we were one of the regiments that came short.
Grotesque, that scene? Group after group of hungry, dirty soldiers, gazing solemnly, lovingly, at a lone brown turkey and a pallid sleeping boy! Very grotesque. But Charley had his Thanksgiving dinner, and the men of Company I, perhaps, enjoyed a profounder satisfaction than if they had feasted more materially.
I never saw Charley after that Thanksgiving day. Before the afternoon was half gone the doctor sent an ambulance for him, and insisted that he should go to City Point. By Christmas his wasted body had lain for three weeks in the red Virginia soil.
THE SWARTZ DIAMOND
The Boer puzzled us. It was not because he loomed so big in the haze against the sunset; but he seemed at a mile's distance to detect us. We thought the cover perfect, for the hackthorn tops were higher than our horses' heads. If he from so far could see patches of khaki through bushes, his eyes must be better than our fieldglasses. If he did not see us, why did he wave his hat as in salutation?
"Maybe he only suspect one patrol at de ford. Vat you t'ink, Sergeant McTavish?" said Lieutenant Deschamps to me.
"Perhaps he thinks some of his own kind may hold the ford," I suggested.
The others said nothing. They were fifteen French Canadians, including Corporal Jongers. We lay still behind our prone horses, and kept our Krags on the Boer.