Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1913)

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IN THE DAYS OF THE WAR 69 the long linden alleys. The child, conscious of the great incomprehensible wings of dissension beating the air, clung to her mother's hand, quiet because she could not understand. The white-haired, grief -lined old man that they called her grandfather — the rolling eyes of the little picaninnies, gathered, like fairy-book imps, to admire her fair skin — the comings and goings of stern men in gray uniforms— all these things were strange. But when her mother knelt by the bed that night to hear her "Now-Ilay-me," and, instead, fell a-weeping quietly, head buried in the pillow, she began to understand dimly, and assumed her woman's heritage of sorrow by flinging comforting arms about the shaking head and whispering: "I'se here, mama — isn't I some help— jes' a little?" General Hooker's headquarters, in 1863, was a poor cradle for the brilliant schemes born and nursed there. The blurred light of a snowfall sulked in smokily, bringing the sting of the cold with it, till the blue-coated officers, gathered about the table, beat their gauntleted hands and stamped their cowhide boots, vainly wooing warmth. The General stooped painfully over a rough-sketched road-map, trailing one finger craftily along the printed hills and valleys. Outside, a sentry shadowed by, with snowmuffled tread ; within, the monotonous murmur about batteries, camps and strategy went on, strangely like, James Adams thought whimsically, the undertone of far-away, unheard artillery. His eyes were absent, as he turned them on the huddled group. Four months and more since he had had word from Marion. That is the worst of war—the not knowing. At home the women go about their daily work with a tense, listening look of face. At the front, the men bravely charge a suspected thicket, teeming with the silent threat of death, and quiver and whiten with dread of the post-carrier who brings the infrequent letters to the camp. The rapid hoof-beats of an orderly spattered now thru the conference about the table. In he came, his rough blue cape powdered white with the storm, and flung down a bunch of dispatches before the General. Adams touched his arm timidly. "Nothing— for me?" The rider drew a crumpled newspaper from his pocket grudgingly. A marked paragraph focused Adams' quivering gaze. He read it in swift gulps; his hands stiffened about the flimsy thing. "My God— and I'm not there!" The slow words drew the faces of the other men toward his, quivering and colorless. Seeing them, Adams brought himself to a rigid salute. "My little girl, sir," he answered Hooker's questioning frown — "she's dying, the paper says. May I go, sir?" Hooker's frown deepened. A sick child! What was that to be considered when there were batteries to be taken and battles to be fought? He drummed impatiently on the boardtable. "Nonsense, Major Adams; you could not possibly get thru the Confederate lines. They're drawn about us taut as a string " "Give me two days' leave, sir, and I'll report to you for duty on the third," cried Adams, earnestly. "For God's sake, sir! I promised my wife to come if she needed me " "Very well." Hooker scrawled a line on a scrap of paper and thrust it into his officer's hand. "You're taking desperate chances — but — go." Gray-clad in Confederate homespun, Adams galloped thru the storm. The air was wild with white — a swaying curtain before, about him. Thud ! thud! his horse's footfalls, choked with the sandy drift beneath. Spectrelike, the horse and rider floated dimly on, across snaky pools, bridged with infrequent ice-spans ; under cottonwood boughs, moss-strung and clogged with strange Tennessee snow. Once a squirrel, barking huskily from a hollow log, caused his horse to shy in panic ; often his anxious eyes, peering