throwing their horns about, making light of the screaming
destruction, in their dumb way, as the people made light of the war. At
stations where the train stopped--and it stopped on the faintest
excuse--a long line of heads and gray shoulders was thrust out of the
windows of the soldiers' car, in front, with all manner of masculine
head-coverings, even bloody handkerchiefs; and woe to the negro or
negress or "citizen" who, by any conspicuous demerit or excellence of
dress, form, stature, speech, or bearing, drew the fire of that line! No
human power of face or tongue could stand the incessant volley of stale
quips and mouldy jokes, affirmative, interrogative, and exclamatory,
that fell about their victim.

At one spot, in a lovely natural grove, where the air was spiced with
the gentle pungency of the young hickory foliage, the train paused a
moment to let off a man in fine gray cloth, whose yellow stripes and one
golden star on the coat-collar indicated a major of cavalry. It seemed
as though pandemonium had opened. Mules braying, negroes yodling, axes
ringing, teamsters singing, men shouting and howling, and all at
nothing; mess-fires smoking all about in the same hap-hazard, but
roomy, disorder in which the trees of the grove had grown; the railroad
side lined with a motley crowd of jolly fellows in spurs, and the
atmosphere between them and the line of heads in the car-windows murky
with the interchange of compliments that flew back and forth from the
"web-foots"[4] to the "critter company," and from the "critter company"
to the "web-foots." As the train moved off, "I say, boys," drawled a
lank, coatless giant on the roadside, with but one suspender and one
spur, "tha-at's right! Gen'l Beerygyard told you to strike fo' yo'
homes, an' I see you' a-doin' it ez fass as you kin git thah." And the
"citizens" in the rear car-windows giggled even at that; while the
"web-foots" he-hawed their derision, and the train went on, as one might
say, with its hands in its pockets, whooping and whistling over the
fields--after the cows; for the day was declining.

[4] Infantry.

Mary was awed. As she had been forewarned to do, she tried not to seem
unaccustomed to, or out of harmony with, all this exuberance. But there
was something so brave in it, coming from a people who were playing a
losing game with their lives and fortunes for their stakes; something so
gallant in it, laughing and gibing in the sight of blood, and smell of