University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

“May I give the men some water, please, sir?”
asked Dora of the first officer she approached.

“Yes, my child, if you will give me some too,” said
the major, — for he it was, — with a pleasant smile.

Dora filled the cup from a bucket that Picter had found
in one of the ambulances, and offered it with a quaint
little courtesy.

The major drank eagerly.

“I didn't know I was so thirsty,” said he. “What
a nice little vivandière you make, my dear! What is
your name?”

“Dora Darley, sir.”

“And where did you come from?”

“I came here with Picter. I am going North with the
Twenty — Ohio regiment, to find my aunt,” said Dora,
simply.

“The dickens you are! You're a cool little body, any
way,” exclaimed the officer, looking at her with an expression
of amused surprise.

“Do you hear this, colonel?” continued he, as his
superior officer came up to speak with him.

“What is it, major?”

“Why, here's a young lady, who says her name is
Dora Darley, and that she came here under the escort of
Picter, to travel North with the regiment.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the colonel, smiling slightly, but
fixing his eyes somewhat sharply upon the child, who
blushed a little as she noticed the attentive eyes and ears,
and the quizzical smiles, of the group of officers now surrounding
her. But, after a slightly troubled glance
around the circle of strangers, her clear eyes sought the
grave and kindly face of the colonel, and rested there.

“And how came you to think of joining this regiment,
little one?” asked he, at length, in a softer voice.

“Because Picter belongs to it, and so does — somebody
I know,” replied Dora, hesitating a little as she
remembered that her mother's visitor had said that
“Captain Karl” was only a home name.

“And who is Picter?” pursued the colonel.

“Picter! Don't you know Picter, sir? Why, he belongs
to this regiment. He's— O, there he is!”

She pointed, as she spoke, to the negro, who, finding
that his little mistress was about to have an interview
with the higher powers, had modestly shrouded himself
from observation behind the group of officers.

“It's a contraband, that has been cooking for the men
for the last few weeks, colonel,” explained the captain of
Co. B., in an apologetic sort of manner.

“Indeed! Is their cuisine so elaborate in its arrangements
that they have to employ a professional?” asked
the colonel, a little sarcastically.

“He was going North, but Captain Karl brought him
here,” interposed Dora, rather hastily, as if anxious to
explain that her old friend had not attached himself to
the regiment uninvited.

“And who is Captain Karl?” asked the colonel again.

“That isn't his name; not all his name, at least. He
is — O, there he is!” cried Dora, joyfully, as she caught
sight of her friend advancing down the valley at the head
of his company, who had been detailed to make a final
search in the thickets on the hill-side for any wounded
who might have been concealed there, and overlooked.

“What! Captain Windsor?” asked the colonel.

“Yes, sir. He was a prisoner, and was at our house,
and Picter showed him the way.”

“O, ho! Yes, indeed, I have heard that story from
the captain himself, and I remember now about the black
fellow. Windsor asked to have him attached to the regiment
in some fashion, and I told him to set him to help
the cook. Bless my soul! I had forgotten all about it.
And so you belong to the good woman who took care of
the poor boy, and set him forward on his way?”

“It was mother, sir,” said Dora, with the old straitness
settling upon her lips.

“And how came mother to send you after him, child?”

“She is dead, sir,” said Dora, softly.

“Tut, tut! is it so? And where are the rest of your
family, my poor little maid?”

“My father and brother are in the rebel army, sir,
and my aunt was not kind; so I went away from her.”

“Went away — how?”

“In the night, with Picter. Mother didn't want us
to be rebels. She told me to go away to the North as
soon as I could,” said Dora, anxiously, for a little cloud
had settled upon the colonel's brow. It cleared now,
however.

“So mother didn't want you to be a rebel, eh?”
asked he.

“No, sir. Nor I didn't want to myself.”

“What, you are a Union girl, then?”

“Yes, sir. I'm Union all through,” asseverated Dora
so earnestly, that a smile went round the circle of attentive
listeners.

“That's right, Dora. You said your name was Dora
— didn't you?”

“Yes, sir; Dora Darley.”

“Dora Darling, I shall feel inclined to call you,” said
the colonel, pleasantly. “And if you are going to join
the regiment, I shall give you the rank of vivandière.
Would you like that?”

“What is that, sir?” asked Dora, gravely.

“You will have to do just what you have been doing

now — carry water to all the wounded men after a battle,
and bring relief to them, if they are unable to seek it.
Then you can help in the hospital a good deal, I dare
say, and there will be a good many ways of making
yourself useful to the sick and wounded. I shall give
you into the chaplain's care, and he will tell you what to
do. Would you like it?”

“O, yes, sir! That is just what I should like better
than anything,” cried Dora, with shining eyes and joyful
smile.

“All right, then. — Attention!” The colonel, taking
Dora by the hand, led her a few paces back, so that she
might be seen by the whole regiment. Every eye was
fixed upon her. “Boys,” said the colonel, pleasantly,
“here is Dora Darling, who is for the future to act as
vivandière of this regiment. Remember that every man
of you is bound to guard and protect her as if she were
his own daughter or sister. She is, in fact, the daughter
of the regiment so long as she remains with it, and
longer, if you choose. I place her in your care.”

“Three cheers for Dora Darling, the daughter of the
regiment!” suggested the major, gayly; and three hearty
cheers went up from the smiling ranks.

“And three cheers for Colonel Blank, the father of the
regiment!” added a veteran sergeant, stepping forward
in his place.

The salute to the deservedly popular colonel was given

even more enthusiastically than that to the adopted
daughter.

“And now three for the battle of Green Brier, my
lads, and then we must be moving,” said the colonel, as
he affably saluted the regiment in acknowledgment of the
compliment.

“But, after all, the men have had no water,” murmured
Dora to Picter, as, in the bustle of “falling in,”
she found herself again beside him.

“No more dey hasn', but dey's got a wandieer, an'
dat's mos' de same ting,” said Picter, grimly; for the
poor old fellow had found his pride in his little mistress's
sudden promotion and adoption sadly checked by the
reflection that, now she had a thousand new friends, she
would hardly remember the one humble old one, who
had, but an hour before, felt as if she were almost his
own.

With feminine intuition Dora perceived the jealous
pang, with feminine tact she relieved it.

“They are very good, Pic, aren't they, to give us both
something to do while we stay with them? We shall
often talk of them after we are settled at home there in
the North.”

“Bress de lamb! She won't neber forgit nobody dat
she's sot by,” replied Pic, rather irrelevantly.

“The vivandière is to ride in ambulance No. 3,” said
an orderly, hastening up to Dora, and smiling pleasantly

as he pointed to the wagon. “It's the colonel's orders.
Picter, you'll have to foot it with the rest of us, I expect.”

“I'm got my hoss in de wood dah, t'ank you, sah!”
returned Picter, with much majesty; and, as the laughing
orderly fell back to his station, the negro led Dora to
her appointed chariot, helped her to a seat beside the
driver, and then scuttled off to the woods, where he had
left the redoubtable Jump snatching a hasty lunch from
the short, sweet, mountain grass.

A few minutes later, the last files of the rear guard
disappeared from the beautiful valley, and the occupants
of Camp Bartow were left once more in peace, with only
their shattered works and dead or wounded comrades to
remind them of their late unpleasant visitors.