Emmeline by elsie singmaster and breyer

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Willing turned from the soldier with whom she had been talking and looked down upon Emmeline. Once he turned and nodded his head to her, and then marched on.

Private Christy looked up at the lowering sky. Emmeline looked up into her mother's face, but her mother was not looking down at her. The house was orderly once more; the surviving soldiers asked feebly about the result of the battle, and when they heard, turned their faces away even from Emmeline.

The homeward journey of Grandmother and Grandfather Willing ended in the middle of Sunday afternoon.

I am not to cry or scream!"

Into the house still came the wounded, into Grandmother Willing's parlor, and into Grandmother Willing's sitting-room, and up the stairs into the bedchambers, and out to the kitchen.

[Pg 92]"Keep the kitchen clear!" commanded Private Christy. Emmeline grew still paler. His return woke Emmeline, who lifted her head from the table and looked at him sleepily from blinking, dark-rimmed eyes.

"We've got 'em all fixed up pretty comfortable," said Private Christy softly, as if he and Emmeline had succeeded in some common task.

Across the fields toward the west to the nearest[Pg 125] road the wagons went and took their places in the great line.

The skies lowered more and more, and presently from the east a chilling wind began to blow. It was like a great animal, alive, awake, crouching for a spring.

[Pg 79]Then Emmeline screamed, and whirled round on the step.

I think we move with the army."

"Got a man here by the name of Willing?"

"I don't know their names."

"Can I ask?"

"No."

[Pg 110]"Well, you find out for me, will you, Sam? His leetle sister's up here, and she thought she saw him. If the[Pg 51] cows were at home in the stable or the pasture, then her grandparents must surely return.

His clothes had dark stains upon them, and in the dim light he looked white and worn; he moved quickly from one patient to the next, as if other work awaited him. Whitey snorted again; Mrs. Schmidt and her children[Pg 42] almost ceased to breathe. She lives in Gettysburg."

"She'll be safer here than in Gettysburg. With her red cheeks, and her long braids, and her ruffled dress, she was a quaint and lovely figure.

Above them floated a banner that Emmeline knew,—stripes of crimson and of white, with white stars on a blue ground, like the stars of heaven,—Emmeline's flag, Henry's flag.

For almost a minute Emmeline held herself in check; then a black-slippered foot went over the window sill, and a blue-and-white-pantaletted leg followed. Willing moved quietly about her house and attended to her charges.

Through the long afternoon, through the long night, the Willings heard[Pg 141] those wailing cries and those anguished commands to hasten.

When Sunday morning dawned, those cries were startling other farmhouses and villages miles away. From the upper windows they could see the clouds of smoke, and could tell exactly where the cannon stood; it was clear to the Willings that the battle raged near their house.

On Friday, the third day of battle,[Pg 138] Grandmother Willing made no request to be taken home.

The sound of firing[Pg 94] near by had ceased entirely. While she was dressing, she[Pg 28] could see lame Mr. Bannon and Mrs. Schmidt putting the Schmidts' ancient horse between the shafts of the springless wagon. These were Emmeline's own soldiers, but they seemed grim and terrible. They helped to stow her goods on the wagon; they teased her with all sorts of predictions, to which she could reply only with a feeble "Ach!"

"If the rebs get you, they'll eat you, lady!"

"Ach!" cried Mrs.

Schmidt.

"Yes, sir!