Project Gutenberg's Stories by American Authors, Volume 8, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Stories by American Authors, Volume 8

Author: Various

Release Date: February 1, 2010 [EBook #31146]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY AMERICAN AUTHORS, VOL 8 ***

Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Stories by American Authors

VOLUME VIII

_THE BRIGADE COMMANDER_
BY J. W. DE FOREST

_SPLIT ZEPHYR_
BY HENRY A. BEERS

_ZERVIAH HOPE_
BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS

_THE LIFE-MAGNET_
BY ALVEY A. ADEE

_OSGOOD'S PREDICAMENT_
BY ELIZABETH D. B. STODDARD

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896

COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

_The Stories in this Volume are protected by copyright, and are
printed here by authority of the authors or their representatives._

[Illustration: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps]

THE BRIGADE COMMANDER.

BY J. W. DE FOREST.

_New York Times._

The Colonel was the idol of his bragging old regiment and of the
bragging brigade which for the last six months he had commanded.

He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because he
spared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because he
had led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will win
battles and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he
may have its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he
be as pitiless and as wicked as Lucifer.

"It's nothin' to me what the Currnell is in prrivit, so long as he
shows us how to whack the rrebs," said Major Gahogan, commandant of
the "Old Tenth." "Moses saw God in the burrnin' bussh, an' bowed down
to it, an' worrshipt it. It wasn't the bussh he worrshipt; it was his
God that was in it. An' I worrship this villin of a Currnell (if he
is a villin) because he's almighty and gives us the vict'ry. He's
nothin' but a human burrnin' bussh, perhaps, but he's got the god of
war in um. Adjetant Wallis, it's a ---- long time between dhrinks, as
I think ye was sayin', an' with rayson. Se