The old yards up and down the old street were much trampled, shrubbery broken, fences down, the street thick dust, and still strewn with accoutrements that had been thrown away, with here and there a broken wagon. Street and pavement, there was passing and repassing—the life of the rear of an army, and the faring to and fro on many errands of the people of the relieved town. There were the hospitals and there were the wounded in private houses. There were the dead, and all the burials for the morrow—the negroes digging in the old graveyard, and the children gathering flowers. There were the living to be cared for, the many hungry to be fed. All the town was exalted, devoted, bent on service—a little city raised suddenly to a mountain platform, set in a strange, high light, fanned by one of the oldest winds, and doing well with a clear intensity.
Miriam came and stood beside her mother, leaning her head upon the other's breast. The two seemed like elder and younger sister, no more. There was a white jasmine over the porch, in the yard the fireflies were beginning to sparkle through the dusk. "Dear child, are you very tired?"
"I am not tired at all. That Louisiana boy called me 'Zephine'—'Zephine!' 'Zephine, your eyes are darker, but your lips are not so red.' He said he kept all my letters over his heart—only he tore them up before the battle, tore them into little bits and gave them to the wind, so that if he fell into his hands 'l'ennemi' might not read them."
"The doctor says that he will do well."
"He is like Will. Oh, mother, I feel ten thousand years old! I feel as though I had always lived."
"I, too, dear. Always. I have always borne children and they have always gone forth to war. They say there will be no fighting to-night."
She put her daughter slightly from her and leaned forward, listening. "That is Richard. His foot strikes that way upon the street."
In the night, in his mother's chamber Cleave waked from three hours of dreamless sleep. She stood beside him. "My poor, dead man, I hated to keep my word."
He smiled. "It would have been as hard to wake up at the end of a week!—Mother, I am so dirty!"
"The servants have brought you plenty of hot water, and we have done the best we could with your uniform. Here is fresh underwear, and a beautiful shirt. I went myself down to the officer in charge of captured stores. He was extremely good and let me have all I wished. Tullius is here. He came in an hour ago with Dundee. I will send him up. When you are dressed come into the hall. I will have something there for you to eat."