She showed me, in an adjoining room, a looking-glass hanging within an inch or two of a large patched space in the wall.
“That glass was hanging on that nail, jist as it hangs now, when a shell come in yer and smashed a bedstead to pieces for me on that side of the room, and the glass wasn’t so much as moved.”
Suspecting that I might be keeping her from her work, I urged her to return to it, and found she had indeed quitted some important household task, because “it didn’t seem right to leave a stranger sitting alone.” I arose at once, on making that discovery, telling her I would rest under the porch until the rain was over. She appeared for a moment quite distressed, fearing lest the subtle law of politeness should somehow suffer from her neglect. This woman’s sense of hospitality was very strong, her whole manner carrying with it an earnest desire to make me comfortable and keep me entertained while in her house. Although troubled about her kitchen affairs, she seemed far more anxious about her duty to me,—as if the accident of my being stopped by the rain at her gate had placed her under sacred obligations. At last she thought of a happy solution of the difficulty.
“I’ll get some pears and treat ye!” I begged her not to take that trouble for me; but she insisted, repeating with pleased eagerness, “Yes, I’ll get some pears and treat ye!”
She brought a dish of fruit, and afterwards sent two little girls, her nieces, to keep me company while I ate. They were pretty, intelligent, well-dressed misses of ten and twelve; the eldest of whom opened the conversation by saying,—
“Right smart o’ fruit cher.” A phrase which I suspect every stranger might not have understood, notwithstanding her prettily persuasive smile. South of the Maryland and Pennsylvania line, and indeed in the southern counties of Pennsylvania, one ceases to hear of a plenty or a good deal; it is always a “heap,” or “right smart.” The word here, along the borders, is pronounced in various ways: here, rarely; yer, commonly; hyer, which is simply yer with an aspirate before it; jer, when the preceding word ends with the sound of d, and cher after a final t. “Rough road jer,” is the southern for “Rough road here”; “out cher,” means, similarly, “out here”; the final d and t blending with the y of yer, and forming j and ch, just as we hear “would jew” for “would you,” and “can’t chew” for “can’t you,” everywhere.
The little girls played their hospitable part very charmingly, and I was sorry to leave them; but the rain ceasing, I felt obliged to walk on. They took me to their aunt, whom I wished to thank for her kindness. Finding that I had not filled my pockets with the pears, as she had invited me to do, she brought some grapes and gave me. I bore the purple bunches in my hand, and ate them as I walked away from the house. They were sweet as the remembered grace of hospitality.
The bridge was a mile farther on. The road strikes the creek, and runs several rods along the right bank before crossing it. If the tourist is surprised at the strength of the positions on South Mountain, from which the Rebels were dislodged, he will be no less amazed at the contemplation of Burnside’s achievement here. Above the road as it approaches the bridge, and above the creek below the bridge, rises a high steep bank, like a bluff. To approach from the opposite side, exposed to a concentrated infantry and artillery fire flashing all along this crest,—to carry the bridge, and drive back the enemy from their vantage-ground,—one would say was a feat for the heroes of the age of fable. But the truth is, though men are slow to receive it, there never was any age, called “of fable,” or another, better than this,—none that ever produced a more heroic race of men. We have worshipped the past long enough; it is time now to look a little into the merits of the present. Troy, and Greece, and Rome were admirable in their day, and the men of Israel did some doughty deeds; but the men of New England, of the great Middle States, and of the vast North-West, what have they done? The Homeric heroes and demigods are in no way superior, except in brag, to the hilarious lads of Illinois, or the more serious boys of Massachusetts. Of materials such as these the poet would have made a more resounding Iliad.
That Burnside’s command could ever have crossed this bridge, from the high banks on the other side to the steep banks on this, in the face of superior numbers pouring their deadly volleys upon them, that is what astonishes you; and what grieves you is this: that reinforcements were not sent to enable him to hold what he gained. If Porter, who had the reserves, had been a man of right courage and patriotism, or anything but a pet of the commanding general, he would have gone into the fight when needed,—for reserves were not invented merely to be kept nice and choice,—and the results of that day would have been very different.
I spent some hours about the bridge, the Antietam Creek singing all the while its liquid accompaniment to my thoughts. It sang the same song that day, but its peaceful music was drowned by the roar and clash of the conflict. I sat down on a rock and watched a flock of buzzards perched on the limbs of a dead tree, looking melancholy,—resembling, to my mind, greedy camp-followers and army speculators, who remembered with pensive regret the spoils of the good old war-days.