"Oh!" said Hilary, looking up from a third reading, "what, this? No-o! nothing wrong in this. I was wrong. I'm all right now."
"No, you're not, Captain. You come along now and lie down. The windage of that chunk of iron has--"
"Why, Doc, I shouldn't wonder! If you'll just keep everybody away from me awhile, yourself included, I will lie down," said the unnerved commander, and presently, alone and supine, softly asked himself with grim humor, "Which chunk of iron?"
The actual text of Anna's chunk was never divulged, even to Flora. We do not need it. Neither did Flora. One of its later effects was to give the slender correspondence which crawled after it much more historical value to the battery and the battery's beloved home city than otherwise it might have had. From Virginia it told spiritedly of men, policies, and movements; sketched cabinet officers, the president, and the great leaders and subleaders in the field--Stuart, Gordon, Fitzhugh Lee. It gave droll, picturesque accounts of the artillerist's daily life; of the hard, scant fare and the lucky feast now and then on a rabbit or a squirrel, turtles' eggs, or wild strawberries. It depicted moonlight rides to dance with Shenandoah girls; the playing of camp charades; and the singing of war, home, and love songs around the late camp fire, timed to the antic banjo or the sentimental guitar. Drolly, yet with tenderness for others, it portrayed mountain storm, valley freshet, and heart-breaking night marches beside tottering guns in the straining, sucking, leaden-heavy, red clay, and then, raptly, the glories of sunrise and sunset over the contours of the Blue Ridge. And it explained the countless things which happily enable a commander to keep himself as busy as a mud-dauber, however idle the camp or however torn his own heart.
From Anna's side came such stories as that of a flag presentation to the Sumter, wherein she had taken some minor part; of seeing that slim terror glide down by Callender House for a safe escape through the blockading fleet to the high seas and a world-wide fame; of Flora's towboat privateer sending in one large but empty prize whose sale did not pay expenses, and then being itself captured by the blockaders; of "Hamlet" given by amateurs at the St. Charles Theatre; of great distress among the poor, all sorts of gayeties for their benefit, bad money, bad management, a grand concert for the army in Arkansas, women in mourning as numerous as men in uniform, and both men and women breaking down in body and mind under the universal strain.
Historically valuable, you see. Yet through all this impersonal interchange love shone out to love like lamplight through the blinds of two opposite closed windows, and every heart-hiding letter bore enough interlinear revealment of mind and character to keep mutual admiration glowing and growing. We might very justly fancy either correspondent saying at any time in those ten months to impatient or compassionate Cupid what Hilary is reported to have said on one of the greatest days between Manassas and Shiloh, in the midst of a two-sided carnage: "Yes, General, hard hit, but please don't put us out of action."