“No, Harry, don’t,” she cried, crossing the room hurriedly. “Just set the logs blazing and you shall see me by fire-light and so save our candles. I’m beginning to realize what is the matter with us-all of the South. We’re ready enough with fine words or big brave deeds, but we neglect the little things and so waste our resources. From now on, I mean to make the small sacrifices that are needed. If we all do that, we shall be able to endure to the end and win!”
April was barely seventeen, but she spoke with a fresh spirit of resolution and sincerity, and there was a thoughtfulness in her beautiful face that gave it a look of dawning maturity.
“And I’ll do my share, too!” Harriot exclaimed, carried away by her sister’s enthusiasm. “I can do it, if April can. Hereafter I’ll not eat so much poundcake—and I’ll see that Corinne doesn’t, either.”
Mrs. May smiled a little sadly, wishing, perhaps, that this willingness to accept privations had been born of faith in another and better cause.
CHAPTER II
A STRANGE GUEST
The year 1863, which was ushered in by the Emancipation Proclamation, was one of steadily waning fortune for the Confederate Cause. Even temporary successes in Virginia or elsewhere could hardly blind the South to such blows as the loss of Vicksburg and the Union victory of Gettysburg. Hope flared up after Chickamauga, but 1864 opened with no better prospect than had 1863, and resources dwindled steadily. Food became so scarce that many were actually near the starvation point. In the State of Georgia, however, which, as yet, the war had touched but lightly, there was comparative plenty, and the people of little Washington, though they were forced to give up many seeming necessities, lived in tolerable comfort.
Thus Mrs. May’s predictions apparently were far from fulfillment, and April’s conviction of the ultimate victory of the South was strengthened. Moreover, Georgia crops were counted upon to feed the army, and this kept men at home in legitimate employment and the life of the community took on a semblance of what it was in normal times. Officers on recruiting service or attached to the military prisons at Andersonville and Millen, were to be seen everywhere; so that there was no lack of escorts for ladies, who never stirred out of their native towns without a gentleman in attendance.
There was a continual round of parties and balls which, though they lacked the lavishness of former occasions, were gay and lively in spite of conditions that might well have depressed a less sanguine people.
And, as was natural, there was no hint upon the part of the soldiers that victory for the Southern arms was in the slightest degree doubtful. The gallant captains and lieutenants who, with the courtly grace of their time, bowed low over the dainty hands of their fair partners in the dance, never failed to promise success with so sincere a conviction that those who listened thereafter turned a deaf ear to all suggestions of possible defeat.