creepy
loneliness. Taking the haversack, he left the thicket and went back to
the brink of Chickahominy. Here he sat down between the cypress knees
and drew out of the haversack the prize of prizes. It fixed a grin upon
his lean, narrow face, the sight and smell of it, the black, squat
bottle. He held it up to the light; it was three quarters full. The cork
came out easily; he put it to his lips and drank. "Gawd! it ain't so
damned lonely, after all!"

The sun climbed to the meridian. The pioneers wrought as best they might
on the Grapevine Bridge. The blue battery and the blue sharpshooters
persisted in their hindering, and the grey battery continued to
interfere with the blue. In the woods and over the low hills back of the
Chickahominy the grey brigades of Stonewall Jackson rested, impatiently
wondering, staring at the river, staring at the smoke of conflagrations
on the other side and the dust streaks moving southward. Down on the
swampy bank, squat between the cypress knees, Steve drank again, and
then again,--in fact, emptied the squat, black bottle. The stuff filled
him with a tremendous courage, and conferred upon him great fluency of
thought. He waxed eloquent to the cypress roots upon the conduct of the
war. "Gawd! if they'd listen ter me I'd te--tell them how!--I'd
bui--build a bridge for the whole rotten army to cross on! Ef it broke
I'd bui--build another. Yah! They don't 'pre--'preciate a man when they
see him. Gawd! they're damn slow, and ain't a man over here got anything
to drink! It's all over there." He wept a little. "O Gawd, make them
hurry up, so's I kin git across." He put the bottle to his lips and
jerked his head far back, but there was not a drop left to trickle
forth. He flung it savagely far out into the water. "Ef I thought there
was another like you over there--" His courage continued to mount as he
went further from himself. He stood up and felt a giant; stretched out
his arm and admired the muscle, kicked a clod of black earth into the
stream and rejoiced in the swing of his leg. Then he smiled, a
satyr-like grin wrinkling the cheek to the ear; then he took off his
grey jacket, letting it drop upon the cypress roots; then he waded into
the Chickahominy and began to swim to the further shore. The stream was
deep but not swift; he was lank and lean but strong, and there was on
the other side a pied piper piping of bestial sweetnesses. Several times
arms and legs refused to cooperate and the