“Too much company for her, Marse Tom. Betwixt you, and
Shekels, the Colonel’s wife, and the Cid—”
“The Cid? Oh, I remember—the raven.”
“—and Mrs. Captain Marsh and Famine and Pestilence
the baby coyotes, and Sour-Mash and her pups, and Sardanapalus
and her kittens—hang these names she gives the creatures, they
warp my jaw—and Potter: you—all sitting around in the house,
and Soldier Boy at the window the entire time, it’s a wonder to
me she comes along as well as she does. She—”
“You want her all to yourself, you stingy old thing!”
“Marse Tom, you know better. It’s too much company.
And then the idea of her receiving reports all the time from her officers,
and acting upon them, and giving orders, the same as if she was well!
It ain’t good for her, and the surgeon don’t like it, and
tried to persuade her not to and couldn’t; and when he ordered
her, she was that outraged and indignant, and was very severe on him,
and accused him of insubordination, and said it didn’t become
him to give orders to an officer of her rank. Well, he saw he
had excited her more and done more harm than all the rest put together,
so he was vexed at himself and wished he had kept still. Doctors
don’t know much, and that’s a fact. She’s
too much interested in things—she ought to rest more. She’s
all the time sending messages to BB, and to soldiers and Injuns and
whatnot, and to the animals.”
“To the animals?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who carries them?”
“Sometimes Potter, but mostly it’s Shekels.”
“Now come! who can find fault with such pretty make-believe
as that?”
“But it ain’t make-believe, Marse Tom. She does
send them.”
“Yes, I don’t doubt that part of it.”
“Do you doubt they get them, sir?”
“Certainly. Don’t you?”
“No, sir. Animals talk to one another. I know it
perfectly well, Marse Tom, and I ain’t saying it by guess.”
“What a curious superstition!”
“It ain’t a superstition, Marse Tom. Look at that
Shekels—look at him, now. Is he listening, or ain’t
he? Now you see! he’s turned his head away.
It’s because he was caught—caught in the act. I’ll
ask you—could a Christian look any more ashamed than what he looks
now?—lay down! You see? he was going to sneak out.
Don’t tell me, Marse Tom! If animals don’t
talk, I miss my guess. And Shekels is the worst.
He goes and tells the animals everything that happens in the officers’
quarters; and if he’s short of facts, he invents them. He
hasn’t any more principle than a blue jay; and as for morals,
he’s empty. Look at him now; look at him grovel. He
knows what I am saying, and he knows it’s the truth. You
see, yourself, that he can feel shame; it’s the only virtue he’s
got. It’s wonderful how they find out everything that’s
going on—the animals. They—”
“Do you really believe they do, Dorcas?”
“I don’t only just believe it, Marse Tom, I know it.
Day before yesterday they knew something was going to happen.
They were that excited, and whispering around together; why, anybody
could see that they— But my! I must get back to her, and I haven’t
got to my errand yet.”
“What is it, Dorcas?”
“Well, it’s two or three things. One is, the doctor
don’t salute when he comes . . . Now, Marse Tom, it ain’t
anything to laugh at, and so—”
“Well, then, forgive me; I didn’t mean to laugh—I
got caught unprepared.”
“You see, she don’t want to hurt the doctor’s feelings,
so she don’t say anything to him about it; but she is always polite,
herself, and it hurts that kind for people to be rude to them.”
“I’ll have that doctor hanged.”
“Marse Tom, she don’t want him hanged. She—”
“Well, then, I’ll have him boiled in oil.”
“But she don’t want him boiled. I—”
“Oh, very well, very well, I only want to please her; I’ll
have him skinned.”
“Why, she don’t want him skinned; it would break
her heart. Now—”
“Woman, this is perfectly unreasonable. What in the nation
does she want?”
“Marse Tom, if you would only be a little patient, and not
fly off the handle at the least little thing. Why, she only wants
you to speak to him.”
“Speak to him! Well, upon my word! All this unseemly
rage and row about such a—a— Dorcas, I never saw you carry
on like this before. You have alarmed the sentry; he thinks I
am being assassinated; he thinks there’s a mutiny, a revolt, an
insurrection; he—”
“Marse Tom, you are just putting on; you know it perfectly
well; I don’t know what makes you act like that—but you
always did, even when you was little, and you can’t get over it,
I reckon. Are you over it now, Marse Tom?”
“Oh, well, yes; but it would try anybody to be doing the best
he could, offering every kindness he could think of, only to have it
rejected with contumely and . . . Oh, well, let it go; it’s no
matter—I’ll talk to the doctor. Is that satisfactory,
or are you going to break out again?”
“Yes, sir, it is; and it’s only right to talk to him,
too, because it’s just as she says; she’s trying to keep
up discipline in the Rangers, and this insubordination of his is a bad
example for them—now ain’t it so, Marse Tom?”
“Well, there is reason in it, I can’t deny it;
so I will speak to him, though at bottom I think hanging would be more
lasting. What is the rest of your errand, Dorcas?”
“Of course her room is Ranger headquarters now, Marse Tom,
while she’s sick. Well, soldiers of the cavalry and the
dragoons that are off duty come and get her sentries to let them relieve
them and serve in their place. It’s only out of affection,
sir, and because they know military honors please her, and please the
children too, for her sake; and they don’t bring their muskets;
and so—”
“I’ve noticed them there, but didn’t twig the idea.
They are standing guard, are they?”
“Yes, sir, and she is afraid you will reprove them and hurt
their feelings, if you see them there; so she begs, if—if you
don’t mind coming in the back way—”
“Bear me up, Dorcas; don’t let me faint.”
“There—sit up and behave, Marse Tom. You are not
going to faint; you are only pretending—you used to act just so
when you was little; it does seem a long time for you to get grown up.”
“Dorcas, the way the child is progressing, I shall be out of
my job before long—she’ll have the whole post in her hands.
I must make a stand, I must not go down without a struggle. These
encroachments. . . . Dorcas, what do you think she will think of next?”
“Marse Tom, she don’t mean any harm.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“Yes, Marse Tom.”
“You feel sure she has no ulterior designs?”
“I don’t know what that is, Marse Tom, but I know she
hasn’t.”
“Very well, then, for the present I am satisfied. What
else have you come about?”
“I reckon I better tell you the whole thing first, Marse Tom,
then tell you what she wants. There’s been an emeute, as
she calls it. It was before she got back with BB. The officer
of the day reported it to her this morning. It happened at her
fort. There was a fuss betwixt Major-General Tommy Drake and Lieutenant-Colonel
Agnes Frisbie, and he snatched her doll away, which is made of white
kid stuffed with sawdust, and tore every rag of its clothes off, right
before them all, and is under arrest, and the charge is conduct un—”
“Yes, I know—conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman—a
plain case, too, it seems to me. This is a serious matter.
Well, what is her pleasure?”
“Well, Marse Tom, she has summoned a court-martial, but the
doctor don’t think she is well enough to preside over it, and
she says there ain’t anybody competent but her, because there’s
a major-general concerned; and so she—she—well, she says,
would you preside over it for her? . . . Marse Tom, sit up!
You ain’t any more going to faint than Shekels is.”
“Look here, Dorcas, go along back, and be tactful. Be
persuasive; don’t fret her; tell her it’s all right, the
matter is in my hands, but it isn’t good form to hurry so grave
a matter as this. Explain to her that we have to go by precedents,
and that I believe this one to be new. In fact, you can say I
know that nothing just like it has happened in our army, therefore I
must be guided by European precedents, and must go cautiously and examine
them carefully. Tell her not to be impatient, it will take me
several days, but it will all come out right, and I will come over and
report progress as I go along. Do you get the idea, Dorcas?”
“I don’t know as I do, sir.”
“Well, it’s this. You see, it won’t ever
do for me, a brigadier in the regular army, to preside over that infant
court-martial—there isn’t any precedent for it, don’t
you see. Very well. I will go on examining authorities and
reporting progress until she is well enough to get me out of this scrape
by presiding herself. Do you get it now?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I get it, and it’s good, I’ll go
and fix it with her. Lay down! and stay where you are.”
“Why, what harm is he doing?”
“Oh, it ain’t any harm, but it just vexes me to see him
act so.”
“What was he doing?”
“Can’t you see, and him in such a sweat? He was
starting out to spread it all over the post. Now I reckon
you won’t deny, any more, that they go and tell everything they
hear, now that you’ve seen it with yo’ own eyes.”
“Well, I don’t like to acknowledge it, Dorcas, but I
don’t see how I can consistently stick to my doubts in the face
of such overwhelming proof as this dog is furnishing.”
“There, now, you’ve got in yo’ right mind at last!
I wonder you can be so stubborn, Marse Tom. But you always was,
even when you was little. I’m going now.”
“Look here; tell her that in view of the delay, it is my judgment
that she ought to enlarge the accused on his parole.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll tell her. Marse Tom?”
“Well?”
“She can’t get to Soldier Boy, and he stands there all
the time, down in the mouth and lonesome; and she says will you shake
hands with him and comfort him? Everybody does.”
“It’s a curious kind of lonesomeness; but, all right,
I will.”
