Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto

by Stanley R. Matthews

We drove to the blacksmith shop with the fragments of iron, and found Bill Bradley there before us. He was pumping the bellows, and old man Carnahan was rating him soundly for his absence. The red head was a trifle higher, the blue eyes a trifle wider, and the breath was quicker and more charged with warning. Carnahan should have known. But he didn't. He grew more enraged, till at a word of defense from the boy he lost his temper completely, and, in a fit of exasperation, struck his apprentice.

The blow was not a severe one, and Bill could not have suffered a twinge of pain. But his pride was hurt, and that blow ended for him, as that larger, later blow ended for four millions of others, his season of servitude.

"I'll quit you," he cried, trembling and almost weeping with excitement and rage. "I'll list for a soldier."

We left the iron in a pile on the shabby floor, and followed him with palpitating hearts to the little lobby of the post-office. He was greeted with a chorus of shouts, as was each new recruit, and a touch of ridicule must have mingled with the hailing, for it straightened him and stiffened him and sent him to the captain with as firm a front as ever was borne by a novice.

If the men were changed by the donning of the blue, what transformation was this wrought in our blacksmith boy? He was inches taller and fathoms deeper. He was a man. He stood about with the recruits, his brow darkening a little when Carnahan approached, for he did not yet understand the privilege of a warrior. But more than any other man in uniform he was severed from civil life. He was one of this wonderful legion that was filling the world with comment—and filling the homes with woe. We came to town that Saturday when the troops were mustered in, and watched them drilling. We saw our blacksmith boy, and wondered how we ever had addressed him, he was a being so different from all he had been before. We saw the march by twos and fours and company front, the double-quick and the charge; and we heard the fledgling officers swear with strange oaths at the men they were later to push into conflict. We fancied Bill Bradley would not stand much of that. We saw them march to the depot, and then wept, I fear, at the passionate good-bys. There were fathers and younger brothers and desolate wives; but the saddest of all were the partings from mothers. It was so piteous, the hopelessness of their despair, the utter abandon of their tears.

And then after much shaking of hands and waving of hands the train was away. We saw load after load go by on the cars after that, and always looked eagerly for the sight of some face we knew. But the faces which we knew were swallowed and lost in a sea of strangeness—a sea, we pray, which never may grow familiar.

We read of the terrible battles that Western army fought; we read of their victories, and the far too frequent defeats. We read the lists of killed and wounded, and saw at last in the longest column the name of Private William Bradley. How far that name removed him from us! He was William now—not common Bill; not Bill the blacksmith's bound boy. We wondered if there was anything we could do for him, and in the next box that went from our town mother sent underclothes and stockings to the youth; for there was no one near us by blood or friendship who weathered that winter in the South, and no one near Bill to remember him. And one day toward the dawn of spring a letter came from the hospital, written in the clumsy hand of the orphan, acknowledging the receipt of the clothes, and thanking for them with the clumsy, genuine feeling of one who seldom speaks and never forgets a favor. He was well again, he said, and would be returned for duty in the morning. They looked for another hard battle, for the enemy was massing, and this new general that had won in the past believed in sledge-hammers and decisive measures. At the end of the letter was the sentence:

"Tha have mad me a corprl."

How proud he was of that—prouder of it than were the thousands who had other things to comfort them. And how near us he seemed to come as the weary months went by and the fighting began again. Once fix your mind on a man in the distance and a man who stands front face with danger night and day and never flinches; and it is wonderful how completely he will fill your sky. You imagine all manner of great things about him, dread all manner of terrible things, and end at last by loving him. So, when that other battle was fought by the general who believed in sturdy blows, and when Vicksburg laid down her arms at the feet of a victorious army, we read again in the terrible lists of the killed and wounded the name of our blacksmith boy. This time, too, it was among the wounded—in the longest column; but it bore a prefix that surprised us. It was "Sergeant Bradley" now. The meager details of that time did not help us to all the information we wanted. We did not know how badly he was injured, but we sent a box of jellies and pickles and things that are not issued with the rations; and got another letter telling of the battle. And it makes no difference how many of these reports you read in the paper, this letter from a man who was in the thick of the fight was far more authentic. It was far more real.