"I'll mix up enough for all three of us on this board," she heard Harry say to Abe and Kent."With your game arm, Kent, and Abe's battered eyes, your cooking skill's about gone.You ought to both of you go to the hospital.You can't do any good, and why expose yourself for nothing? I've a mind to use my authority and send you to the hospital under guard.""You try it if you dare, after my saving your life yesterday,"said Abe."I can see well enough yet to shoot toward the Rebels, and that's all that's necessary.""I enlisted for the war," said Kent, "and I'm going to stay till peace is declared.I went into this fight to see it through, and I'm going to stay until we whhip them if there's a piece of me left that can wiggle.Bragg's got to acknowledge that I'm the best man before I'll ever let up on him."Rachel longed to leap out of the wagon, and do the bread-making for these clumsy fellows, but pride would not consent.
The dough was browning slowly on the hot stones, but not yet nearly done, when the spiteful spirits of firing out in front suddenly burst into a roar, with a crash of artillery.A bugle sounded near.
"Fall in, boys," shouted Harry, springing to his feet, and tearing off the flakes of dough, which he hastily divided with his comrades.
"Right dress.Right face, forward, file right--march!""If there is anything that I despise, it's disturbing a gentleman at his meals," said Kent, giving the fire a spiteful kick, as he tucked the bread under his lame arm, took his musket in his other hand, and started off in the rear of the regiment, accompanied by the purblind Abe.
Rachel's heart sank, as she saw them move off, but it rose again when the firing died down as suddenly as it had flamed up.
Soon Dr.Denslow took the wagon off to a cabin on a high bank of Stone River, which he was using as a hospital.
She called some question to him, as he turned away to direct the preparation of the flour into food for his patients, when some one cried out from the interior of the cabin:
"Rachel Bond! Is that you? Come in heah, honey."She entered, and found Aunt Debby lying on the rude bed of the former inhabitants of the cabin.
"O my love--my darling--my honey, is that you?" said the elderly woman, with streaming eyes, reaching out her thin arms to take Rachel to her heart."I never expected ter see ye ag'in! But God is good.""Aunt Debby, is it possible? Are you hurt, dear?""No, not hurt child; on'y killed," she answered with a sweet radiance on her face.
"Killed? It is not possible."
"Yes, honey, it is possible.It is true.The gates open for me at last.""How did it happen?"
"I got through Breckenridge's lines all right, an' reached the river, but thar was a picket thar, hid behind a tree, and ez he heered my hoss's feet splash in the ford, he shot me through the back.An' I didn't get through in time," she added, with the first shade of melancholy that had yet appeared in her face."Did YOU?""No, I was too late, too."
"An' Jim must've been, too.Hev ye seed him any whar?""No," said Rachel, unable to restrain her tears.
"Now, honey, don't cry for me--don't," said Aunt Debby, pulling the young face down to where she could kiss it."Hit's jest ez Iwant hit.On'y let me know thet Bragg is whipt, an' I die happy."All day Thursday the two bruised armies lay and confronted each other, as two bulldogs, which have torn and mangled one another, will stop for a few minutes, to lick their hurts and glare their hatred, while they regain breath to carry on the fight.
Friday morning it was the same, but there was a showing of teeth and a rising fierceness as the day grew older, which was very portentous.
While standing at the door of the cabin Rachel had seen Harry Glen march down the bank at the head of the regiment, and cross the ford to the heights in front of Breckenridge.She picked up a field-glass that lay on a shelf near, and followed the movements of the force the regiment had joined.
"What d' ye see, honey?" called out Aunt Debby.She was becoming very fearful that she would die before the victory was won.
