"Holes? them's turpentine boxes!" said the man, in some surprise at Frank's ignorance. "Didn't you ever see turpentine boxes before?"
"Never till last evening. Is that the way you get turpentine?"
"That's the way we get turpentine. The sap begins to run and fill the boxes along in March, and when they are full we dip it out with ladles made on purpose, and put it into barrels."
"O, you needn't stop to explain!" cried Frank. "Push ahead!"
And the rebel pushed ahead.
It was a moment of unspeakable satisfaction to the drummer boy when he had brought his prisoner through all the difficulties of the way to the road. There he had him safe.
He was now in the midst of shocking and terrible scenes, but he heeded them not as much as he would have heeded the smallest accident to a fellow-creature a few hours before. Already he seemed familiar with battles and all their horrors. Men were hurrying by with medical stores. The wounded were passing, on stretchers, or in the arms of their friends, or limping painfully, ghastly, bleeding, but heroic still. They smiled as they showed their frightful hurts. One poor fellow had had his arm torn off by a cannon ball: the flesh hung in strings. Some lay by the roadside, faint from the loss of blood. And all the time the deadly, deafening tumult of the battle went on.
To guard his prisoner securely was Frank's first thought. But greater, more absorbing even than that, was the wild wish to see the enemies of his country defeated, and to share in the glorious victory.
"Frank Manly! what sort of a beast have you got there?" cried a soldier, returning from the action with a slight wound.
Frank recognized a member of another company in the same regiment to which he belonged.