Steve limped forward with scared eyes, a cold dew upon hands and forehead. And after all, all that the general said was, “You are nettle and dock and burr by nature and anger has no meaning in dealing with you! Are you coming again with the Sixty-fifth?”
“Gawd, General! not if you think I’d better not, sir,—”
“I?” said Cleave, “I will speak to your colonel about you. For the rest you can fire a musket.” He smiled grimly. “Still that sore foot? Has it been sore all this time?”
“General, it’s been sorer!—’n’ if you’d tell the men that they shan’t act some of them so cold ’n’ some of them so hot toward me?—’n’ I saved the life of them all only day before yesterday,” Steve whimpered, “’n’ yours, too, General.”
“Thank you,” said Cleave with gravity. “Fall in, now—and remember that your Captain’s eye will be on you.”
Fall in!—Fall in!—Fall in! ... Column forward!
Down the Valley Pike marched the Second Corps. Lexington—Staunton—Harrisonburg—on and on upon the old, familiar road. “Howdy, Valley Pike,” said the Second Corps. “Howdy, Old Lady! Missed us, haven’t you? We’ve missed you. We’ve thought of you—thought of you in all kinds of tight places!—
“‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne—’”
“Don’t seem to us you’re looking well—ragged and lonely and burned up and hewed down—cheer up!