Two Little Confederates Read online

  TWO LITTLE CONFEDERATES

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  BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERSBY THOMAS NELSON PAGE

  Tommy Trot's Visit to Santa Claus

  Santa Claus's Partner

  A Captured Santa Claus

  Among the Camps

  Two Little Confederates

  The Page Story Book

  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

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  TWO LITTLE CONFEDERATES

  by

  THOMAS NELSON PAGE

  Illustrated

  "I'M IN COMMAND," SAID THE GENTLEMAN, SMILING AT HIMOVER THE TOWEL.]

  New YorkCharles Scribner's Sons1929

  Copyright, 1888, byCharles Scribner's Sons

  Copyright, 1916, byThomas Nelson Page

  Printed in the United States of America

  TO MY MOTHER

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  "I'm in command," said the gentleman,smiling at him over the towel _Frontispiece_

  PAGEThe old man walked up to the door, andstanding on one side, flung it open 29

  "Gentlemen, marsters, don't teck my horses,ef you please," said Uncle Balla 69

  Frank and Willy capture a member of theconscript-guard 95

  The boy faced his captor, who held a strapin one hand 129

  "Look! Look! They are running. They arebeating our men!" exclaimed the boys 143

  The boys sell their cakes to the Yankees 159

  Some of the servants came back to their old home 167

  TWO LITTLE CONFEDERATES.

  CHAPTER I.

  The "Two Little Confederates" lived at Oakland. It was not a handsomeplace, as modern ideas go, but down in Old Virginia, where thestandard was different from the later one, it passed in old times asone of the best plantations in all that region. The boys thought itthe greatest place in the world, of course excepting Richmond, wherethey had been one year to the fair, and had seen a man pull fire outof his mouth, and do other wonderful things. It was quite secluded. Itlay, it is true, right between two of the county roads, theCourt-house Road being on one side, and on the other the great"Mountain Road," down which the large covered wagons with six horsesand jingling bells used to go; but the lodge lay this side of the one,and "the big woods," where the boys shot squirrels, and hunted'possums and coons, and which reached to the edge of "Holetown,"stretched between the house and the other, so that the big gate-postwhere the semi-weekly mail was left by the mail-rider each Tuesdayand Friday afternoon was a long walk, even by the near cut through thewoods. The railroad was ten miles away by the road. There was a nearerway, only about half the distance, by which the negroes used to walkand which during the war, after all the horses were gone, the boys,too, learned to travel; but before that, the road by Trinity Churchand Honeyman's Bridge was the only route, and the other was simply adim bridle-path, and the "horseshoe-ford" was known to the initiatedalone.

  The mansion itself was known on the plantation as "the great-house,"to distinguish it from all the other houses on the place, of whichthere were many. It had as many wings as the angels in the vision ofEzekiel.

  These additions had been made, some in one generation, some inanother, as the size of the family required; and finally, when therewas no side of the original structure to which another wing could bejoined, a separate building had been erected on the edge of the yardwhich was called "The Office," and was used as such, as well as for alodging-place by the young men of the family. The privilege ofsleeping in the Office was highly esteemed, for, like the _togavirilis_, it marked the entrance upon manhood of the youths who werefortunate enough to enjoy it. There smoking was admissible, there theguns were kept in the corner, and there the dogs were allowed tosleep at the feet of their young masters, or in bed with them, if theypreferred it.

  In one of the rooms in this building the boys went to school whilstsmall, and another they looked forward to having as their own whenthey should be old enough to be elevated to the coveted dignity ofsleeping in the Office. Hugh already slept there, and gave himselfairs in proportion; but Hugh they regarded as a very aged person; notas old, it was true, as their cousins who came down from college atChristmas, and who, at the first outbreak of war, all rushed into thearmy; but each of these was in the boys' eyes a Methuselah. Hugh hadhis own horse and the double-barrelled gun, and when a fellow gotthose there was little material difference between him and other men,even if he did have to go to the academy,--which was really somethinglike going to school.

  The boys were Frank and Willy; Frank being the eldest. They went byseveral names on the place. Their mother called them her "little men,"with much pride; Uncle Balla spoke of them as "them chillern," whichgenerally implied something of reproach; and Lucy Ann, who had beentaken into the house to "run after" them when they were little boys,always coupled their names as "Frank 'n' Willy." Peter and Cole didthe same when their mistress was not by.

  When there first began to be talk at Oakland about the war, the boysthought it would be a dreadful thing; their principal ideas about warbeing formed from an intimate acquaintance with the Bible and itsaccounts of the wars of the Children of Israel, in which men, womenand children were invariably put to the sword. This gave a vividconception of its horrors.

  One evening, in the midst of a discussion about the approachingcrisis, Willy astonished the company, who were discussing the meritsof probable leaders of the Union armies, by suddenly announcing thathe'd "bet they didn't have any general who could beat Joab."

  Up to the time of the war, the boys had led a very uneventful, but avery pleasant life. They used to go hunting with Hugh, their olderbrother, when he would let them go, and after the cows with Peter andCole. Old Balla, the driver, was their boon comrade and adviser, andtaught them to make whips, and traps for hares and birds, as he hadtaught them to ride and to cobble shoes.

  He lived alone (for his wife had been set free years before, and livedin Philadelphia). His room over "the old kitchen" was the boys'play-room when he would permit them to come in. There were so manyodds and ends in it that it was a delightful place.

  Then the boys played blindman's-buff in the house, or hide-and-seekabout the yard or garden, or upstairs in their den, a narrow alcoveat the top of the house.

  The little willow-shadowed creek, that ran through the meadow behindthe barn, was one of their haunts. They fished in it for minnows andlittle perch; they made dams and bathed in it; and sometimes theyplayed pirates upon its waters.

  Once they made an extended search up and down its banks for anyfragments of Pharaoh's chariots which might have been washed up sohigh; but that was when they were younger and did not have muchsense.