Down at the Corners, though, and all about our district, people talked of very little else. Antietam had given a bloody welcome to our little group of warriors. Ray Watkins and Lon Truax had been killed outright, and Ed Phillips was in the hospital, with the chances thought to be against him. Warner Pitts, our other hired man, had been wounded in the arm, but not seriously, and thereafter behaved with such conspicuous valor that it was said he was to be promoted from being a sergeant to a lieutenancy. All these things, however, paled in interest after the first few days before the fascinating mystery of what had become of Jeff and Byron. The loungers about the grocery-store evenings took sides as to the definition of “missing.” Some said it meant being taken prisoners; but it was known that at Antietam the Rebels made next to no captives. Others held that “missing” soldiers were those who had been shot, and who crawled off somewhere in the woods out of sight to die. A lumberman from Juno Mills, who was up on a horse-trade, went so far as to broach still a third theory, viz., that “missing” soldiers were those who had run away under fire, and were ashamed to show their faces again. But this malicious suggestion could not, of course, be seriously considered.
Meanwhile, what little remained of the fall farm-work went on as if nothing had happened. The root-crops were dug, the fodder got in, and the late apples gathered. Abner had a cider-mill of his own, but we sold a much larger share of our winter apples than usual. Less manure was drawn out onto the fields than in other autumns, and it looked as if there was to be little or no fall ploughing. Abner went about his tasks in a heavy, spiritless way these days, doggedly enough, but with none of his old-time vim. He no longer had pleasure even in abusing Lincoln and the war with Hurley. Not Antietam itself could have broken his nerve, but at least it silenced his tongue.
Warner Pitts came home on a furlough, with a fine new uniform, shoulder-straps and sword, and his arm in a sling. I say “home,” but the only roof he had ever slept under in these parts was ours, and now he stayed as a guest at Squire Avery’s house, and never came near our farm. He was a tall, brown-faced, sinewy fellow, with curly hair and a pushing manner. Although he had been only a hired man he now cut a great dash down at the Corners, with his shoulder-straps and his officer’s cape. It was said that he had declined several invitations to husking-bees, and that when he left the service, at the end of his time, he had a place ready for him in some city as a clerk in a drygoods-store—that is, of course, if he did not get to be colonel or general. From time to time he was seen walking out through the dry, rustling leaves with Squire Avery’s oldest daughter.
This important military genius did not seem able, however, to throw much light upon the whereabouts of the two “missing” boys. From what I myself heard him say about the battle, and from what others reported of his talk, it seems that in the very early morning Hooker’s line—a part of which consisted of Dearborn County men—moved forward through a big cornfield, the stalks of which were much higher than the soldiers’ heads. When they came out, the Rebels opened such a hideous fire of cannon and musketry upon them from the woods close by, that those who did not fall were glad to run back again into the corn for shelter. Thus all became confusion, and the men were so mixed up that there was no getting them together again. Some went one way, some another, through the tall corn-rows, and Warner Pitts could not remember having seen either Jeff or Byron at all after the march began. Parts of the regiment formed again out on the road toward the Dunker church, but other parts found themselves half a mile away among the fragments of a Michigan regiment, and a good many more were left lying in the fatal cornfield. Our boys had not been traced among the dead, but that did not prove that they were alive. And so we were no wiser than before.
Warner Pitts only nodded in a distant way to me when he saw me first, with a cool “Hello, youngster!” I expected that he would ask after the folks at the farm which had been so long his home, but he turned to talk with some one else, and said never a word. Once, some days afterward, he called out as I passed him, “How’s the old Copperhead?” and the Avery girl who was with him laughed aloud, but I went on without answering. He was already down in my black-books, in company with pretty nearly every other human being roundabout.
This list of enemies was indeed so full that there were times when I felt like crying over my isolation. It may be guessed, then, how rejoiced I was one afternoon to see Ni Hagadorn squeeze his way through our orchard-bars, and saunter across under the trees to where I was at work sorting a heap of apples into barrels. I could have run to meet him, so grateful was the sight of any friendly, boyish face. The thought that perhaps after all he had not come to see me in particular, and that possibly he brought some news about Jeff, only flashed across my mind after I had smiled a broad welcome upon him, and he stood leaning against a barrel munching the biggest russet he had been able to pick out.
“Abner to home?” he asked, after a pause of neighborly silence. He hadn’t come to see me after all.
“He’s around the barns somewhere,” I replied; adding, upon reflection, “Have you heard something fresh?”
Ni shook his sorrel head and buried his teeth deep into the apple. “No, nothin’,” he said, at last, with his mouth full, “only thought I’d come up an’ talk it over with Abner.”
The calm audacity of the proposition took my breath away. “He’ll boot you off’m the place if you try it,” I warned him.