The Last Three Soldiers

by W. H. Shelton

They had but a limited supply of hard corn, from which they selected the best ears for the next year's planting. These they braided together by the husks, and hung up in yellow festoons from the rafters of the hut, which they continued to use as a storehouse. Much of what remained of their small crop would be needed by the fowls in the winter, and up to this time they had made no use of it for their own food.

Meal was out of the question, and to break the flinty kernels between stones was a tedious process to which they had not yet been forced to resort.

The presence of the lye, however, suggested to Bromley the hulled corn of his New England grandmother, which he had seen her prepare by soaking and boiling the kernels in a thin solution of lye. By this means the hulls or skins were removed, and after cleansing from potash, and boiling all day, the unbroken kernels became as white and tender as rice.

This satisfied the three soldiers for a time, and made an agreeable addition to their diet of bear steak and potatoes. In the mountains of Tennessee Lieutenant Coleman had once seen a rude hydraulic contrivance called a Slow-John, which was a sort of lazy man's mill. To construct this affair it was necessary to have a bucket, which Bromley set about making by the slow process of burning out a section of chestnut log with the red-hot ramrod of a carbine.

At a short distance above the house, the branch which flowed from the spring, after making its refreshing way between grassy banks, tumbled over a succession of ledges which ended in a small cascade, and twelve feet below this waterfall there was a broad, flat rock which laved its mossy sides in the branch, and showed a clean, flat surface above the level of the water. Below this rock they built a dam of stones, by means of which they could flood its surface.

Four feet up-stream from the rock a log was fixed from bank to bank for a fulcrum, and upon this rested a movable lever, the short arm of which terminated above the submerged rock, while the long arm just touched the water of the cascade. A wooden pin set in the under log passed through a slot in the lever, so as to hold it in position and at the same time give it free play. Another flat stone of about thirty pounds' weight, which was the pestle of the mortar, was lashed with grape-vine thongs to the short arm of the lever directly over the submerged stone. To the long arm was attached Bromley's bucket, bailed with a strong wire, and so hung as to catch the water of the cascade. As the bucket filled and sank, its weight raised the flat stone higher and higher above the submerged rock until the bucket met a bar fixed to tilt its contents into the stream, when the upper millstone came down upon its fellow with a fine splash and thud. After a wall of clay had been built about the surface where the two stones met, to keep the corn in place, the Slow-John was ready for work.

It was slow, but it was sure, and after that, when one of the three soldiers awoke in the night, it was cheerful to hear the regular splash and crash of the Slow-John, like the ticking of a huge clock, lazy enough to tick once a minute, and patient enough to keep on ticking for two days and nights to pulverize as many quarts of corn.

And now, for three young men who had solemnly renounced their country and cut themselves off voluntarily from all intercourse with their kind, they were about as cheerful and contented as could be expected. In spite of the great disaster which they believed had befallen the National cause, their lungs expanded in the rare mountain air, and the good red blood danced in their veins, and with youth and health of body it was impossible to take an altogether gloomy view of life. They had at first tried hard to be miserable, but nature was against them, and the effort had been a failure. In their free life they could no more resist the infection of happiness than the birds in the trees could refrain from singing, and so it came to pass that in view of the bountiful harvest they had gathered, and the comfortable house they had built, and all the domestic conveniences they had contrived, Lieutenant Coleman came out boldly in favor of setting apart Thursday, the twenty-fourth day of November, as a Day of Thanksgiving, and quite forgot to name it a day of humiliation as well. To this the others joyfully agreed, and agreed, moreover, that from that day forward the plateau should be called Lincoln Territory in memory of the patriotism of the good President, notwithstanding they felt that his divided counselors and incompetent generals had wiped the half of a great nation from the map of the world.

When this first holiday dawned on the mountain, the three soldiers arrayed themselves in full uniform for the ceremony of naming their possessions. Bromley and Philip buckled on their cavalry swords and slung their carbines at their backs, and Lieutenant Coleman, for the last time, assumed his discarded rank to take command. The arms had been polished the day before until they gleamed and flashed in the morning light, and the little army of two was dressed and faced and inspected, and then left at parade-rest while Lieutenant Coleman brought out the flag. How their honest hearts swelled with pride to think that here, alone in all the world, that flag would continue to float with an undiminished field of stars! Little did they dream that on that very morning hundreds like it were waving in the heart of Georgia over Sherman's legions on their march to the sea. When at last it blew out from the staff, they gathered under its folds, and sang "The Star-spangled Banner" with tears in their eyes; and as the last words of the good old song rang out over the mountain-top, Philip and Bromley discharged their carbines, and all three cheered lustily for the old flag and the new name.