“I would like to send you to the field without an hour’s delay, so that the Yankees could have a chance at you. There’s where such cowards as you belong. Why didn’t you come in when you knew you had been conscripted and save me the trouble of sending for you?”
“I didn’t know it, sir,” replied Marcy.
“Well, it was your business to know that every able-bodied man in the Confederacy has been placed absolutely under control of our President while the war lasts,” continued the captain. “You were mighty good to yourself to stay at home living on the fat of the land, while your betters are fighting and dying for the flag, but I’ll put you where you will see service; do you hear? How many more men are there in that camp of refugees up there?”
“About twenty, sir,” answered Marcy.
“Twenty more cowards shirking duty!” exclaimed the captain, taking his feet off the table and banging his fist upon it. “But I’ll have them out of there if it takes every man I’ve got; do you hear? I say I’ll have them out of that camp and into the army, where they will be food for powder. Let me see your baggage.”
As Captain Wilkins said this he nodded to the corporal, who seized Marcy’s valise and turned its contents upon the floor. There were not many things brought to light—only an extra suit of clothes, two or three handkerchiefs, as many shirts and pairs of stockings, and a pair of shoes; but each of these articles was carefully examined by the corporal, who went about his work as though he was used to it, as indeed he was. He had examined a good deal of luggage for the captain, who had nothing to say when he saw him confiscate any article of clothing that struck his fancy, or which he thought he could sell or trade to his comrades of the Home Guards. Marcy caught his breath when he saw the corporal run his fingers into the right-hand pocket of the vest in which his mother had placed the gold pieces, and felt much relieved when the soldier did not pull out anything. Then his blanket, which Marcy had rolled up and tied with strings so that he could sling it over his shoulder, soldier fashion, was shaken out, but there was not a thing in it to reward the corporal’s search. The latter looked disappointed and so did Captain Wilkins, who commanded Marcy to turn all his pockets inside out. He did so, but there was nothing in them but a broken jack-knife that was not worth stealing.
“You must be poor folks up your way,” said the captain. “Where’s your scrip?”
“I haven’t a dollar’s worth of scrip, sir,” said Marcy truthfully. “In fact I’ve seen little of it during the war.”
It never occurred to Captain Wilkins to ask if Marcy had seen any other sort of money, for gold was something he had not taken from the pockets of a single conscript. He put his feet on the table again, touched a lighted match to his pipe, and told Marcy that he could go back upstairs. Glad to escape so easily the boy tumbled his clothing into his valise, gathered up his blanket, and went; and the sentry who stood in the hall at the head of the stairs opened the door for him.
“What did you have? What did you lose?” were the questions that arose on all sides when he entered the room he had left a few minutes before.