“Give me all the news. I have been in another world.”
“Grant and Sherman are preparing to swoop. The first is at Oxford with fifty thousand men, the second has left Memphis. He has thirty-five thousand, and the Gunboat Squadron. We’re in for it I reckon! But the town’s taking it like a birthday party.—When I was a boy my father and mother always gave me a birthday party, and always every boy in town but me was there! Can’t skip this one, however!—They say Forrest is doing mighty good work east of Memphis, and there came a rumour just now that Van Dorn had something in hand.—You’re welcome!”
The fair-sized town, built up from the riverside and over a shady, blossomy plateau, lay in pale sunshine. The devious river, yellow, turbid, looping through the land, washed the base of bluff and hill. Gone was the old clanging, riverside life, the coming and going of the packets, laughter and shouting of levee and wharf, big ware-houses looking benignantly on, manœuvres of wagons and mules and darkies; gone were the cotton bales and cotton bales and cotton bales rolling down the steep ways into the boats; gone the singing and singing and casual sound of the banjo! There was riverside life now, but it partook of the nature of War, not of Peace. It was the life of river batteries, and of the few, few craft of war swinging at anchor in the yellow flood. Edward Cary, climbing from the waterside, saw to right and left the little city’s girdle of field-works, the long rifle-pits, the redoubts and redans and lunettes. All the hillsides were trenched, and he saw camp-fires. He knew that not more than five thousand men were here, the remainder of the Army of the West being entrenched at Grenada, behind the Yallabusha. Above him, from the highest ground of all, sprang the white cupola of the Court-House. Around were fair, comfortable houses, large, old, tree-embowered residences. The place was one of refinement of living, of boundless hospitality. Two years ago it had been wealthy, a centre of commerce.
Edward came into a wider street. Here were people, and, in the distance, a band played “Hail to the Chief.” Every house that could procure or manufacture a flag had hung one out, and there were garlands of cedar and the most graceful bamboo vine. In the cool, high, December sunlight everything and everybody wore a holiday air, an air of high and confident spirits. Especially did enthusiasm dwell in woman’s eye and upon her lip. There were women and children enough at doors and gateways and on the irregular warm brick pavement. There were old men, too, and negro servants, and a good sprinkling of convalescent soldiers, on crutches or with arms in slings, or merely white and thin from fever. But young men or men in their prime lacked, save when some company swung by, tattered and torn, bronzed and bright-eyed. Then the children and the old men cheered and the negroes laughed and clapped, and the women waved their handkerchiefs, threw their kisses, cried, “God bless you!” East and west and north and south, distant and near, from the works preparing for inspection, called the bugles.
Edward, moving without haste up the street, came upon a throng of children stationed before what was evidently a schoolroom. A boy had a small flag—the three broad stripes, the wreath of stars. He held it solemnly, with a thin, exalted face and shining eyes. The girl beside him had a bouquet of autumn flowers. Upon the doorstep stood the teacher, a young woman in black.
The group pressed together a little so that the soldier looking for his regiment might pass. As with a smile he made his way, his hand now on this small shoulder, now on that, the teacher spoke.
“It’s a great day, soldier! They must all remember it, mustn’t they?”
“Yes, yes!” said Edward. He paused beside her, gazing about him. “I am of the Virginia troops. We passed through Vicksburg a fortnight ago, but it was at night.—Well! the place wears its garland bravely, but I hope the siege will not come.”
“If it does,” said the young woman, “we shall stand it. We stood the bombardment last summer.”
The boy nearest her put in a voice. “Ho! that wasn’t anything! That was just fun! There wasn’t more ’n a dozen killed and one lady.”