The Drummer Boy Part 12

"The traitor's foot is on thy sh.o.r.e, Maryland, my Maryland!

His touch is on thy senate door, Maryland, my Maryland!

Avenge the patriotic gore That stained the streets of Baltimore, When vandal mobs our banners tore, Maryland, my Maryland!

"Drum out thy phalanx brave and strong, Maryland, my Maryland!

Drum forth to balance right and wrong, Maryland, my Maryland!

Drum to thy old heroic song, When forth to fight went Freedom's throng.

And bore the spangled flag along, Maryland, my Maryland!"

"That's first rate!" said Frank, who delighted in music. "Gray altered the words a little, and Mr. Sinjin found us the tune."

"Frank likes any thing that has a drum in it," said John Winch, enviously. "He'll get sick of drums, though, soon enough, I guess."

"Jack judges me by himself," said Frank, gayly, setting out to run a race with Gray to the parade-ground.

IX.

THANKSGIVING IN CAMP.

St. John's College stands on a beautiful eminence overlooking the city.

The college, like the naval school, had been broken up by the rebellion; its halls and dormitories were appropriated to government uses, and the regiment was removed thither the next day.

"You will be surprised," Frank wrote home, "to hear that I have been through the naval school since I came here, and that I am now in college."

Few boys get through college as quick as he did. On the following day the regiment abandoned its new quarters also, and encamped two miles without the city. In the afternoon the tents were pitched; and where was only a barren field before, arose in the red sunset light the canvas city, with its regular streets, its rows of tent doors opening upon them, and its animated, laughing, lounging, working inhabitants.

The next morning was fine. All around the camp were pleasant growths of pine, oak, gum, and persimmon trees, and now and then a tree festooned with wild grape-vines. Near by were a few scattered ancient-looking farm-houses, with their out-door chimneys, dilapidated out-buildings, negro huts, and tobacco fields. There were several other regiments in the vicinity,--two of Ma.s.sachusetts boys. And there the New York Zouaves, in their beautiful Oriental costumes, were encamped. Frank climbed a tree, and looked far around on the picturesque and warlike scene. The pickets, which had gone out the night before, now returning, discharged their loaded pieces at targets, the reports blending musically with the near and distant roll of drums.

"What is the cheering for?" asked Frank, as he came in that day from a ramble in the woods.

"For General Burnside," said Gray. "All the troops rendezvousing at Annapolis are to be under his command, to be called the Coast Division.

It is to be another Great Armada; and our colonel thinks we shall see fighting soon."

This good news had made the regiment almost wild with joy; for it desired nothing so much as to be led against the enemy by some brave and famous general.

Frank loved the woods; and the next day he induced his companions to go with him and hunt for nuts and fruits. Although it was late in autumn, there were still persimmons and wild grapes to be had, and walnuts, and b.u.t.ternuts. But Frank had another object in view than that of simply pleasing his appet.i.te. Thanksgiving day, which is bred in the bones of the New Englander, and which he carries with him every where, was at hand, and the drummer boy had thought of something which he fancied would suit well the festal occasion.

"What are you there after?" said John Winch, from a persimmon tree; "filling your hands with all that green stuff. Come here; O, these little plums are delicious, I tell you."

"These grapes are the thing," said Harris, from another tree. "I'm going to eat all I can; then I'm going to get my pockets full of nuts and carry back to camp."

Frank busied himself in his own way, however, and returned to camp with his arms loaded with evergreens.

"What in time are you about?" said Winch, as Frank set himself industriously to work with twigs and strings. "Oh, I know; wreaths! Boys, le's make some wreaths. Give me some of your holly, won't you, Frank?"

"Yes," said Frank, "take all you want to use. I shall be very glad to have you help me."

"Will you show me how?"

"Yes," said Frank; "sit down here. Bend your twigs and tie them together, in the first place, for a frame. Then bind the holly on it, this way."

"O, ain't it fun?" said Winch, with his usual enthusiasm over a new thing. "When we get these evergreens used up, we'll get some more, and make wreaths for all the tents." He worked for about ten minutes; then began to yawn. "Where's my pipe? I'm going to have a smoke. How can you have patience with that nonsense, Frank? What's the use of a wreath, anyhow, after it's made? Girl's play, I call it."

And off went Winch, having used up a ball of Frank's strings to no purpose, and leaving his wreath half finished.

But Frank, never easily discouraged, kept cheerfully at work, leaving his task only when duty called him.

Thursday came,--THANKSGIVING. A holiday in camp. The regiment had made ample preparations to celebrate it. Instead of pork and salt junk, the men were allowed turkeys; and in place of boiled hominy and mola.s.ses, they had plum pudding. And they feasted, and told gay stories, and sang brave songs, and thought of home, where parents, wives, sisters, and friends were, they fondly believed, eating turkey and plum pudding at the same time, and thinking of them. There was no drill that day; and no practise with any drumsticks but those of the devoted turkeys.

One of the most pleasing incidents of the day occurred in the morning.

This was the presentation of wreaths. Frank had made one for each of the company tents, and a fine one for Captain Edney, and one equally fine for Mr. Sinjin, the drum-major, and a n.o.ble one for the colonel of the regiment. He presented them all in person, except the last, which he requested Captain Edney to present for him. The captain consented, and at the head of a strong delegation of officers and men, proceeded to Colonel ----'s tent, called him out, and made a neat little speech, and presented the wreath on the end of his sword.

The colonel seemed greatly pleased.

"I accept this wreath," he said, "as the emblemof a n.o.ble thought, which I am sure must have inspired our favorite young drummer boy in making it."

Frank blushed like a girl with surprise and pleasure at this unexpected compliment.

"The wreath," continued the colonel, "is the crown of victory; and we will hang up ours, my fellow-soldiers, on this memorable Thanksgiving day, as beautiful and certain symbols of the success of BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION."

This short speech was greeted with enthusiastic applause. Frank was delighted with the result of his little undertaking, feeling himself a thousand times repaid for all his pains; while John Winch, seeing him in such high favor with every body, could not help regretting, with many a jealous pang, that he had not a.s.sisted in making the wreaths, and so become one of the heroes of the occasion.

That evening another incident occurred, not less pleasing to the drummer boy. With a block of wood for a seat, and the head of his drum for a desk, he was writing a letter to his mother, by a solitary candle, around which his comrades were playing cards on a table constructed of a rough board and four sticks. Amid the confusion of laughter and disputes, with heads or arms continually intervening between him and the uncertain light, he was pursuing his task through difficulties which would have made many a boy give up in vexation and despair, when a voice suddenly exclaimed, with startling emphasis,--

"Frank Manly, drummer!" And at the same instant something was thrown into the tent, like a bombsh.e.l.l, pa.s.sing the table, knocking over the candle, and extinguis.h.i.+ng the light.

"Well, that's manners, I should say," cried the voice of Seth Tucket, a fellow, as Frank described him, "who makes lots of fun for us, partly because he is full of it himself, and partly because he is green, and don't know any better." Tucket muttered and spat, then broke forth again, "I be darned ef that pesky football didn't take me right in the face, and spatter my mouth full of taller."

"Well, save the _taller_, Seth, for we're getting short of candles," said Frank. "Here, who is walking on my feet?"

"It's me," said At.w.a.ter. "I'm going out to see who threw that thing in."

"You're too late," said Frank. "Strike a light, somebody, and let's see what it is. It tumbled down here by my drum, I believe."

There was a general scratching of matches, and after a while the broken candle was set up and relighted.

"I swan to man," then said Tucket, "jest look at that jack-of-spades. He got it in the physiognomy wus'n I did. 'Alas, the mother that him bare, if she had been in presence there, in his _greased cheeks_ and _greasier hair_, she had not known her child.'"

These words from Marmion, aptly altered to suit the occasion, Seth, who was not so green but that he knew pages of poetry by heart, repeated in a high-keyed, nasal sing-song, which set all the boys laughing.

"A pretty way, too, to _turn up_ Jack, I should say," he added, in allusion to the candlestick,--a _turnip_, with a hole in it,--which had rolled over his cards.

In the mean time, Frank and Jack Winch were scrambling for the missile.

"Let me have it," snarled Jack.